Coroner irate at 30-year delay

AMBER WILSON

A YOUNG Kettering deckhand lost at sea 30 years ago has finally been declared deceased, with a coroner slamming as a “disgrace” the fact his parents were not informed of the decades-long delay.

In his findings handed down on Friday, Coroner Simon Cooper said he was satisfied that Jeffrey Donald Crowden, 22, had died at sea near Bird Island on March 6, 1990.

Mr Cooper said an inquest was held during 1991, but the Supreme Court of Tasmania had quashed the findings the following year on the basis that the coroner had no proof of Crowden’s death.

He said while the presiding judge ordered another inquest to be held, the Coroner’s Court had failed to do so.

“Regrettably and inexcusably, the Coronial Court in 1992 failed to comply with that order of the Supreme Court. It has been impossible for me to determine why,” Mr Cooper said.

“Mr Crowden’s parents were never told that any of this had happened. That this was so is a disgrace.”

The parents, who are now in their 80s, attended the inquest held earlier this month and asked whether there had been a “clerical oversight”.

“We were unaware,” Crowden’s father said.

“We’re only hearing about it now, 30 years later.”

Mr Cooper said Crowden and his boss, Christopher Short, had set out craypotting on the west coast, south of Macquarie Harbour, when their dinghy was unexpectedly overcome by waves.

Mr Short tried to swim back to shore to retrieve their main vessel, Storm Along, but fell unconscious after being caught in a rip.

After waking rocks, Mr Short alarm and tried young deckhand.

While search parties retrieved the dinghy, no trace of Crowden was discovered.

Mr Cooper, after extensive proof-of-life investigations by Tasmania Police, deemed that Crowden did indeed die that day.

He noted that if the youth had been wearing a life jacket, he may have survived.

However, there was no way of being certain of this, and boating safety laws had since changed. up on raised to find the the his