Bernard case ‘always a potential homicide’
THE investigating officer into the disappearance of Kowanyama mother-of-two Allison Bernard has said he had always believed the missing persons case was a potential homicide.
Giving evidence all day in the coronial inquest into Ms Bernard’s disappearance on Friday, Detective Senior Constable Byron Worth told the court that nine years after the disappearance of Ms Bernard from the Archer River Quarry on the night of February 10, 2013, he was still of that belief.
“That’s never changed from the outset of the investigation,” he said.
Quarry caretaker Thomas Byrnes was the last person to see Ms Bernard alive, with the inquest previously hearing he had told police she had run away from the donga that night, perhaps wearing just a towel. No trace of her has ever been found and no one has been charged over her disappearance.
In his report to the coroner, Senior Constable Worth ultimately came to the conclusion that Ms Bernard, under the effects of alcohol, had walked off east from the remote site, became disorientated and lost, and subsequently perished.
Asked by counsel assisting the coroner Melia Benn how he came to that conclusion, given the search and rescue team concluded that had Ms Bernard been on the quarry they would have found her, Senior Constable Worth said he ultimately did not know what had happened to Ms Bernard.
Explaining his conclusion, he said that despite how disjointed Mr Byrnes’ version of events was, police were “limited in their evidence to disprove a lot of what he says”.
Late on Friday, barrister for Ms Bernard’s family Andrew Hoare began asking questions of Senior Constable Worth, suggesting he had failed the family in his investigations. Mr Hoare took Senior Constable Worth to task over a 10 minute phone call from the quarry to Ms Bernard’s stepmother’s phone on the night she disappeared – the last time she spoke to anyone aside from Mr Byrnes.
Senior Constable Worth said the investigation was reliant on officers in Kowanyama to take the statement from Ms Bernard’s stepmother Dellis Burns about the phone call. She told them she had possession of the phone, and was not aware of who else had used the phone, and had not answered it.
The inquest heard there were two other people at the house that night – an adult and a child – and neither of them were interviewed about the phone call.
Senior Constable Worth also accepted that police, in the context of Mr Byrnes telling them Ms Bernard had urinated on herself and he had washed her clothes, did not take a statement from the new caretaker at the quarry who had said the washing machine was not working. The inquest continues on Monday.