Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been almost 10 years since much-loved 15-year-old Eden Westbrook was found hanging in a park in St Helens, Tasmania, 10 years since the police told her family that she had taken her own life and 10 long years that the Westbrook family, fighting through their grief, have searched for answers. The police said it was suicide, but the evidence that Eden was murdered just keeps stacking up.

As I stated in my speeches in July and November last year, this whole case stinks to high heaven of incompetence. The ongoing failure to provide the autopsy photos to Amanda and her husband, Jason Westbrook, so that we can have them independently scrutinised is frankly shocking—what are they trying to hide?—especially in light of evidence from Eden's sisters, who applied make-up to Eden before she was cremated, that she had facial bruising and shattered teeth, evidence which flies in the face of the comments by the chief magistrate of Tasmania in 2022. There were no signs of trauma to Eden, according to her. Jesus!

Then, some month's after Eden's death, there were the inquiries by the Bridgewater police of the key witness, Kim Woodcock, as to whether she had noticed marks on Eden's wrists. It was apparently suggested that Eden's hands may have been tied behind her back. That makes it very difficult to hang yourself. Then there is what appears at this stage to have been the complete failure to secure and preserve the evidence—I've never seen anything like it in my time. I'm talking about the rope that Eden supposedly used.

In any case like this, the body and the rope are the two most crucial pieces of evidence. Repeated requests to the Tasmanian police and the police minister have failed miserably to provide any information about the location and status of the rope. The right-to-information forensic documents suggest that police quickly decided that Eden's death was a suicide—nothing to see here—because she had rope fibres in her hand. Seriously!

Go and do your investigations properly. Amanda Westbrook said that the rope was from the cray pot at their home—except that Amanda said she never said this and it's not in the statements, although she may have commented that it was of a similar colour to the ropes at their place. And couldn't rope fibres in Eden's hands also be an indication of struggle and murder? The police never followed up on this issue of the rope with the Westbrooks, nor did they distil the evidence. They didn't go across the road to the wharf where all that rope is. They never even crossed that road. They didn't do the evidence properly! Her mum and dad said that, until 12 days after their daughter's death, it appears they didn't check the nearby wharf, which, as I said, was straight across the road—ropes everywhere.

Eden's case, the death of a child, a young and intelligent woman, in what should have been considered highly suspicious circumstances involves an unbelievably flawed police investigation like nothing I have ever come across in my life. There was poor use of intelligence and multiple forensic failures, including unaccredited forensic services, inadequate investigative reviews. There was a review by a St Helen's police officer following a formal written referral from the commission of inquiry into sexual abuse in early 2023, after a whistleblower nominated a person of interest and an actual suspect in Eden's death, and no written statements were taken from that person either.

The Tasmanian Coroner's Act 1995 is simply not fit for purpose. It's not even possible for our Attorney-General, the first law officer in Tasmania, to intervene in extraordinary circumstances like this and direct an inquest into this case. We are the only state that does this, by the way. We are bloody miles behind. We have a compromised and corrupted coronial system with a dishonest paedophile cop involved, who was a coroner's associate and who had regular direction and oversight of the matter.

For Australians who may not have been following Eden's story, please go and listen to the Our Little Edey podcast, which now has had five million listeners, and I am sure that after tonight it will get a lot more. Reynolds was a paedophile policeman who groomed and abused children across Tasmania for over 30 years. He was in your uniform, Tasmania Police, and you had your eyes closed for 30 years. You want me to trust you've done this properly? Oh, you can't be serious. Despite the damning evidence of criminal behaviour, Reynolds was given an official state funeral only in the last few years, with all the trimmings, including a glowing eulogy from the then police commissioner. What an absolute shocker.

In 2023 the Tasmanian government commissioned the Weiss report, but, despite detailed submissions from the Westbrooks and their former lawyer and the matter clearly falling within the terms of reference, Eden's case and family concerns about Reynolds' official role were not mentioned in the final report. It absolutely blows me away. It's like you don't want to deal with this down there. Well, deal with it, because I am here and I'm dealing with it. I want to know if any of the seven current or former Tasmanian police officers referred by the Weiss review for investigation concerning child sex abuse or grooming ever worked in that St Helen's area. I want to know. Surely you can answer that by breakfast. I want to know if someone has been allowed to get away with murder.

In the recent decision of Coroner Robert Webster in the Helen Bird case in Tasmania, it was found during the inquest that Helen died from asphyxia due to hanging. This is the same coroner that made the decision about Eden's case—incompetency. But further pressure brought by Helen Bird's family found that, in fact, Helen was murdered—that's right—and her death was staged to make it look like suicide. Helen Bird's case had the same forensic officers as Eden's, and they failed to take any measurements of the rope or the ladder from the Bird case, samples from the rope for DNA testing or fingerprints. That's where we are at.

This is a botched investigation at the very least. The police had clearly decided from the start that Eden had hung herself—nothing else to see. That was it, end of story. You didn't even look to see if it was murder. You made your mind up: 'She has hung herself. That's it. Everything is off the table.' They didn't interview critical witnesses and persons of interest. They didn't ask for Eden's mobile phone or check her social media accounts to understand her state of mind, or check whether she was being groomed or abused.

Regarding the ongoing saga around autopsy photos, there is now the critical issue of the missing rope. In the absence of the coronial file and a relevant statement, not much is publicly known about the rope in Eden's case. You didn't bag and tag it, and you didn't take forensics. That we know. You failed. I've written to the chief magistrate asking for access to this critical documentation. Police must be out there going around in circles about this rope. The rope has to be there somewhere. It is also not mentioned in any detail in the chief magistrate's decision not to reopen the investigation in 2022. In fact, it is stated that there is no available evidence as to the origin of the rope. That rope has got to be there. The emphasis is on the available evidence, which makes me think that the rope had not been secured by the coroner's associate, Paul Reynolds, or by investigating police as an exhibit. You failed to pick up an exhibit. It was the most important exhibit in the case, and you failed to bag and tag it. The rope is said to be green and 10 or 12 millimetres in diameter. Bag and tag. Bag and tag—you didn't do it. The RTI information reveals the rope was not secured by police as an exhibit. The only exhibit—yes, the only exhibit—recorded was a set of 10 fingerprints from Eden.

Amanda Westbrook denies that she advised police on 18 February 2015 at the scene that the rope was a craypot rope from their home. The right to information documents that my office has received do not show any corroborating documentary evidence that Amanda Westbrook said that, and, if she did say that, you didn't take samples of the rope from the Westbrooks either. You failed to even go and do your job at the Westbrooks. You failed to try and match the rope. You failed miserably in this investigation. This is really bad.

Eden's younger sister, Sky, and her brother Dontay are speaking at a gathering for Eden on the lawns of Parliament House in Hobart. Sky is in her third year of law at UTAS. She's taking law to fight for her sister. You go, girl! She should be concentrating on her studies, but instead she, like her parents and siblings, is still fighting for truth and justice for poor little Edey. Imagine that: your own sister has gone back to do a law degree to say, 'I don't believe this.' If you can't do it, she'll do it herself. That's where she is. This is the ambitious side of this family. One of their kids has gone to study law, and she's in her third year, smashing it like you wouldn't believe. This is where we're at. We're all coming for you. We're all gung-ho. I've got her back, and I will not stop until the family has answers.

The Attorney-General of Tasmania—I want to have a talk with you, Guy Barnett. You promised me before Christmas that you would change the law. You said you would make changes to this law in the first sitting weeks in Tasmania, which are in March, so we can get those autopsy photos. I want to make sure Tasmanians understand that that is a promise that I was given from the Attorney-General of Tasmania and so were the Westbrooks, the family. I want to see that legislation going through in March. I want to see those autopsy photos. As I've said to the police commissioner—I've said it out loud very clearly—if I'm wrong in this case, I'll apologise. By the way, she hasn't said the same thing back. I would expect that, if I am right, she and her counterparts will resign effective immediately.

We have a problem with policing in Tasmania. It's not much different from the military when it comes to that, to be honest. I can assure you the leadership in there has a lot left to answer for, not just 10 years ago but today. You might want to go and speak to your own cops out there because they're not really impressed with you. I can assure you, there are plenty of them thanking me for what I'm doing because they're not happy with the leadership there. You're on very, very thin ice here, and I intend to prove what I've always been out to prove—that young Edey was actually murdered and that she did not hang herself.