Into the Darkness

by Robin Bowles

  ‘That would be the entry that you would see if somebody was coming down. It would also be the entry going up. It could’ve been going up or going down. It doesn’t distinguish, just records the swipe.’

  So it was the combinations of swipes that enabled residents’ travels around the building to be identified.

  Galbally asked if it was correct that there wouldn’t be an exit record if Ant drove his car from his designated spot on B2 to the exit gate of the car park, and merely put it over that pressure point.

  ‘That’s correct. There’d be no record of any swiping, because it’s unnecessary. The pressure point activates the gate automatically.’

  ‘Then please go to the entry at 6.07.44, what does that tell you?’

  Eric said that it showed someone entering the car park and opening the internal car-park door or gate giving access to the residents’ parking area. ‘That’s an internal gate, beyond the visitors’ section,’ he said.

  ‘Antony Hampel’s remote was used in that particular transaction; is that right?’

  ‘Well, yes, a remote allocated to Apartment 1201.’

  There was discussion with the Coroner about whether these specific goings and comings could be directly linked to Ant Hampel. Eric was being very careful. He pointed out that all he could say was that the remote used was one of those allocated to Apartment 1201. ‘What residents do with their remotes, I’ve got no control over. They may give it to their family members, they may give it to friends, they may give it to somebody who leases their car spot. I can’t link the two myself, but I agree that it appears on that list.’

  Mr Galbally asked Eric how many times he’d spoken to police since Phoebe’s death. He guessed around six times, including their visits to the building, the re-enactment, and so on. How many times had he seen Lorne Campbell? Eric replied that Lorne had been very concerned about Phoebe’s death, and he may have spoken to Lorne more often than half a dozen times, though mostly when he came around, it was in company with the police.

  And Natalie? Did he email her some records?

  Eric agreed he did. He was trying to help the investigation as much as he could.

  ‘Who typed these three pages contained in the email to Natalie Handsjuk from the master readout?’ Galbally asked.

  ‘I think I cut and pasted them from the master.’

  ‘You cut and pasted these three pages of data coming from the swipe records; is that right?’

  Then Galbally pounced with his booming voice. ‘Significant criticism has been made of Antony Hampel by Mr Campbell and the police about his movements on 1 December. To be blunt, they’re suggesting that he was telling lies about coming back to the building to check on Phoebe. That he’s been untruthful. Do you understand?’

  The Coroner stepped in to say he’d take that as a comment. Mr Galbally continued his line of examination. He asked Eric to go back and look at the master printout of the swipe records for 1 December 2010, and referred to an entry at 12.40.39.

  ‘What does that entry tell you? Is that Antony Hampel’s swipe card number?’

  ‘It is a fob allocated to that apartment.’

  ‘And is this entry consistent with him coming through the front door?’

  ‘Yes, or someone coming through the front door using that fob.’

  ‘And the next entry, 12.40.44?’

  ‘Same fob used to go to the lift.’

  ‘So it’s consistent with someone coming through the front door, going to the lift, and going up to Level 12?’

  ‘Or they could’ve gone down to basement level — not necessarily up to Level 12.’

  ‘What about 12.40.58?’

  ‘Somebody’s entered the lift and they’ve got access to the floors.’

  ‘But this is consistent with someone getting in at the ground floor and going up to Level 12?’

  ‘Or going down — to the basement levels.’

  ‘Please look at 1 December 2010 at 12.50.36. What does that entry mean to you?’

  ‘That means that the fob allocated to Apartment 1201 was used to gain access to the lifts.’

  ‘So that same card number has been used ten minutes apart in the lift?’

  If Eric wasn’t sure where this was leading, everybody else was. Galbally was committing him to a series of statements before ambushing him with a specific question. It’s an old lawyer’s trick, used by old lawyers, often to good effect. It was certainly looking as if Ant had gone back that afternoon to check on Phoebe after all.

  ‘Would you go back to your cut-and-pasted version. Do you have any record of those entries for 12.40 and 12.50 on your list?’

  Eric said he couldn’t see those entries.

  ‘I’m not suggesting this is deliberate,’ said Galbally silkily. ‘You wouldn’t have done this deliberately, would you?’

  ‘Deliberately left out certain times? No,’ Eric replied. ‘I could’ve completely missed them. Although there is no reason why I would’ve.’ He explained that he’d done a Control F search — ‘Find all’ — for 1201, and cut and pasted all the results. He said he made no decision about what to include or exclude.

  Galbally wanted to know which set of data Eric had provided to the police — the cut-and-paste or the full version. He couldn’t remember, because he’d supplied so much paper to the police.

  Galbally summed up by saying that the data Eric had provided to Natalie was both deficient and misleading. This was a significant development, identified by Galbally’s eagle eye.

  *

  The evidence obtained by questions from Mr O’Brien was more of the same about fob access, swipe access, and general security. The only interesting thing was that he informed the court that Eric had supplied the cut-and-paste version of the 1201 key-fob access to Detective Senior Constable Brendan Payne as well. This meant that Payne was also operating on incorrect information and probably accounted for his having called Ant in for a second interview at St Kilda Road.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE HOT SEAT

  The inquest resumed after a two-day break with Eric once more in the hot seat. The security evidence seemed endless, but you had to listen, in case you missed something important, like Mr Galbally’s revelation on Tuesday afternoon.

  Eric had brought a bundle of documents to court — descriptions of the systems, user manuals, and so on — and they were all entered in evidence.

  O’Neill continued his questions, representing the police. He asked about Ruth Foster’s evidence regarding the unknown man being buzzed up to Level 12. Was that how it worked — that the resident could provide access remotely and the visitor could just press the floor they needed?

  Eric said it was.

  O’Neill asked about chocking fire doors open and coming back later and so on. He mentioned something important about this. If the fire door was chocked open earlier in the day by someone leaving, say on Level 12, then anyone exiting the building for the fire alarm later in the morning would have noticed.

  Good point, I thought, but Phoebe went down in the lift, and I hadn’t heard of anyone else evacuating from Level 12 at the time of the fire alarm.

  Eric was asked endless questions about the CCTV. Did the police ask him to provide the footage? If so, when? Was he concerned about the looping? Had he told police about that? Had he arranged to get the footage downloaded at the earliest possible time? So it went on.

  O’Neill asked if Eric could separate his opinion from what was actually said. ‘You said to the police, “The system loops over and might disappear within two or three days if we don’t get it.” Is that right?’

  ‘I might have,’ Eric replied cautiously. ‘I’m not sure if I knew then how frequently it looped. I said if they needed the footage they should start straight away.’

  O’Neill read the ‘two or three days’ comment from Eric’s statement, but Eric r
etorted, ‘When I made the statement some 14 months later, I knew that then. I’m not sure if I knew that on the night.’ He definitely seemed to be peeved the police had waited so long to interview him, and wasn’t missing a chance to ram it home.

  He said he’d told police on the night that he could get an independent company to start downloading the next day, and he did. The downloading took a couple of days, and unfortunately quite a lot of footage had already been taped over by the time the technician could start. The CCTV cameras were still operating throughout the building while the downloading was taking place.

  ‘They downloaded three cameras, I believe, out of the possible fourteen that we had.’ Everything that was downloaded was handed to the police.

  O’Neill asked why the hard drive wasn’t simply unplugged and taken away for downloading.

  Eric agreed that they could have done this. That would also have stopped the looping, because it would stop the system.

  ‘And that material — that history was all centrally located?’

  ‘Yes. Like an old message answering tape on your phone. It’s all there until it’s rewound and taped over.’

  Eric said he’d been unhappy with the 2010 system and it had now been replaced and upgraded.

  The Coroner wanted more information about the accuracy of the times indicated on the swipe log. Ms Siemensma pointed out that the timing of many incidents on 2 December could be checked, such as the arrival of the firemen, Beth’s call to Triple-O, and the arrival of the meal delivery to Ant. The Coroner was quite adamant he wanted to be certain on that time issue and ordered further tests to be conducted ASAP, so that other witnesses would be accurate if they had to refer to times.

  One other interesting thing came out in Ms Siemensma’s second set of questions to Eric. He said that if a bin fell off the belt, the compactor kept grinding away and it became quite noisy. If the compactor and bin conveyor belt were turned off — say during the night to give the people in the apartment directly above some peace until Wastech could attend to fix the problem — the compressing doors and blades on the compactor would remain stationary in the open position to allow rubbish to fly through unimpeded. Could that be how Phoebe flew through the compactor without being crushed? But who would have turned the compactor off? And when? And how?

  *

  Ant’s friend Christo Van Egmond was next. He’s tall, blond, and self-assured. He showed no nervousness in the witness box, and one could almost detect a hint of disdain in the way he lounged on the seat. He and his father before him are like royalty in the Australian entertainment industry, bringing out the big acts and rubbing shoulders with the stars after the events.

  From little things big things grow, I thought. I could remember Christo’s grandmother selling pies from ‘Mrs Van’s’ in Toorak Road. And very nice pies they were, too!

  Christo was asked why his statement was headed ‘Revised’.

  ‘What does that mean, Mr Van Egmond?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Mr Payne.’

  ‘Is it correct?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  The Coroner wanted a proper answer. ‘Is it true and correct?’

  Another ‘Mmm.’

  His was another statement taken well after the event, 11 months later. Christo was asked if he’d referred to a diary to aid his recollection.

  He said he’d referred to his computer files in Outlook, ‘which sort of had my day mapped out’.

  Ms Siemensma asked if he didn’t have the Outlook entries, could he say where he was at a particular time of the day?

  ‘How specifically?’ he challenged, sounding a bit bored.

  I wrote in my notes that he might be good-looking but his manner could do with some work.

  ‘You say in your statement that you were with Antony Hampel at a client’s place in Flinders Lane from 3 p.m. to about 4.30 p.m.?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Was that time in Outlook or in a diary?’

  ‘No, I can recall leaving at 4.30.’

  Ms Siemensma said that Senior Sergeant Healey had said in his statement that Christo had said he was with Ant until three, not from three. ‘What do you say about that?’ she asked.

  ‘Ah, I believe our meeting started at three.’

  ‘You say Senior Sergeant Healey has it wrong, do you?’

  ‘Well, I think based on Outlook, the meeting started at three and went for an hour and a half.’

  ‘And you have a specific recollection that it finished at 4.30, do you?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I do, yeah.’

  ‘Pretty sure?’

  ‘Well, I do. I mean — yeah.’

  I wondered why Ms Siemensma was hammering this.

  She went on to say Healey had noted that Christo was ‘visibly affected by alcohol’ when he was first interviewed at 11.18 p.m. on 2 December.

  Christo said he wasn’t sure it was that late. He said when he got home he saw police in the foyer, went up in the lift, and a neighbour poured him a Scotch. He didn’t agree he was ‘highly inebriated’, but he did say he’d had ‘a couple of sips of Scotch’. Where was this going? Did it really matter if he’d been drinking?

  Ms Siemensma decided she should move on. She asked Christo about the evidence Beth had given regarding his visits to her after she returned to work.

  ‘She said that over a two-week period you approached her, approximately every second or third day, and spoke to her about the incident involving Phoebe. What do you say?’

  ‘I only recall speaking to her when she reappeared back at work. I spoke to her to see if she was OK, for one, and to commend her on coming back to work. ‘Cos, you know, I thought it was a fairly brave thing, coming back to work.’

  He said he didn’t recall going back to her on a number of occasions to discuss the incident.

  ‘I only recall talking to her on the one occasion in detail.’

  ‘She also said that you bought her chocolates and some wine?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  O’Neill bobbed up asking if this line of questions was relevant.

  Ms Siemensma told His Honour she was testing Beth’s evidence and the Coroner allowed her to continue.

  ‘You were replying to my question about whether you bought her chocolate or wine?’

  ‘I think it was around Christmas. I went downstairs, because I felt sorry for her, and I gave her a thing of wine and a thing of chocolates, as really just a Christmas present, and that was it.’

  There were a lot of ‘Ahs’ and ‘Ums’ in his replies, which indicated to me that perhaps he was thinking as he went along. Although some people do say ‘Ah’ and ‘Um’ a lot, like punctuation.

  Ms Siemensma said that Beth had given evidence to the effect that he’d told her Phoebe was depressed and that Ant was really trying to sort her out.

  Christo explained he’d visited Ant a few times and found out that Phoebe was depressed and had ‘alcohol and prescription drug-related issues’. He’d conveyed this information to Beth and said, ‘Phoebe couldn’t have been saved, she didn’t want to be saved.’

  Questioned by Mr Moglia, Christo said he had a nodding acquaintance with all the concierges, because he passed their desk twice a day.

  Mr Moglia put to him that Beth had asked him to not talk to her about the incident again at some stage, because she was feeling uncomfortable.

  ‘I don’t recall that, and I would remember if someone conveyed that I was um, sort of intruding on their personal space. And I would certainly remember that ‘cos I’d be, you know, pretty alarmed by it.’

  ‘She says you asked her for her recollection of the finding of Phoebe’s body. Would she have a reason to lie about that?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  Moglia turned to Christo’s evidence about his relationship with Ant. Was their relationship not really pers
onal, mainly professional?

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Do you socialise outside work hours? Or go to dinner at his place?’

  Christo said, ‘We always talk about it, but it never happens.’ He did remember one time in May that year when Ant had come over for a steak to discuss business strategy for a trip to Los Angeles, but that was about it.

  ‘Have you ever had a holiday together?’

  ‘Ah, no. He stayed down at our place at the beach, I think, once.’

  They’d never holidayed together, though they’d gone on business trips.

  ‘How about on a yacht in Europe?’

  ‘No, it was discussed, but it didn’t happen.’ Mr Moglia produced some photos of Ant and Christo together on a yacht in Capri. ‘You went on a trip, on that yacht?’

  ‘That was the Christine Rowe. We were on it for one day doing an evaluation of the boat for its suitability for a work function.’

  Mr Moglia’s attempt to show Ant and Christo holidaying together fell a bit flat. I wouldn’t mind working on a yacht in Capri. Nice work if you can get it.

  *

  The next witness was Russell Marriott, Natalie’s partner. He was a bit shaggy-looking, with longish hair, a straggly beard, and casual clothes. Perhaps he was short of sleep, as he usually worked into the early hours. I’d heard he was a lot younger than Natalie, but he didn’t look it.

  Russell said Phoebe often drew him aside in company to share her thoughts and feelings. They’d meet for coffee and she’d come to the Clifton Hill house he shared with Natalie. He said they’d had long and meaningful talks about what Phoebe was going to do with her life, where she was going, the usual introspective stuff people talk about when they feel they are at a crossroads. He confirmed that Phoebe’s short-term plan was to leave Ant, go and live in Mallacoota with her grandmother, and work and save to go to India.

  The series of calls he received from Phoebe while she was out with Bren Hession — five between 12.21 a.m. and 12.46 a.m. — he explained as probably ‘bag calls’, where the phone presses up on something and redials the last number you called. He tried to ring her back, but the phone went to voicemail.