Into the Darkness

by Robin Bowles

  Ant replied, ‘Yes, they were never more than I think maybe two or three days at any period.’

  Ms Siemensma asked whether he was aware that Phoebe had told Linda that she wanted to leave, and Ant said he wasn’t. Again, he said that he and Phoebe were working through issues in the relationship.

  ‘Ms Cohen said you had coaxed her into staying, and then there was a mutual decision that she would stay in the relationship?’

  ‘It was a mutual decision, yes,’ Ant said, but he denied that he’d coaxed her.

  Ms Siemensma asked him about Linda’s evidence that Phoebe had complained he was controlling.

  Ant replied, ‘I believe that was Phoebe’s interpretation when she drank and when we had arguments about that. I think that I certainly tried to help her find ways to not drink and to find solutions, and I believe she interpreted that as controlling.’

  Ms Siemensma next asked about Phoebe’s physical fitness.

  Ant said that she went to the gym two or three times a week, walked a lot, and rode a bike. ‘She was very conscious of trying to beat this illness, and she knew that physical fitness was very important … for her mental state.’

  He agreed that she liked climbing and said he’d seen her take risks climbing when she was drunk.

  Ms Siemensma had some questions to ask about Phoebe’s job. Ant confirmed that it was part-time and said she’d started there early in 2010.

  ‘Did Phoebe enjoy her work at the advertising agency?’ Ms Siemensma asked.

  ‘I think she found it a change, and she enjoyed it certainly more than her previous job.’

  ‘Was she looking to stay there, was it your impression, or was she wanting to move on and do other things?’

  ‘I’m not sure that she saw it as a career. I think ideally she wanted to be an artist and to do as much art as possible. So I think it was more of a means to an end rather than a career move.’

  Ant said her attendance at work between October and December was ‘very inconsistent. She sometimes didn’t show up for days at a time, but on average it could be a day a week where she wouldn’t attend.’

  When I spoke to Ant Hampel much later, he told me that there were days when Phoebe couldn’t get out of bed, not even to take Yoshi for a walk, she’d be feeling so low. He said she’d try to keep it from her family because she felt ashamed or embarrassed.

  Ant was asked about Phoebe’s contribution to household expenses. Did she contribute at times when she was missing work?

  Ant said there was no formal arrangement. She contributed when she could afford it. ‘It was also very important for her to be independent and not to rely on other people.’

  Ms Siemensma said that Phoebe’s psychologist had the impression that she was particularly worried about money in the last few weeks of her life. She asked Ant what his impressions had been.

  He replied, ‘I think she struggled generally because she didn’t earn a lot. She was working three days a week. I don’t remember her saying to me she had any specific financial problems. I do recall a conversation about her being concerned about being able to afford to pay to see [the psychologist], and it was very important for her to keep up those visits. I did offer to pay for those visits, which she flatly declined.’

  He said, ‘If worst came to worst and for whatever reason she couldn’t get support from her family, I wouldn’t have thought twice about paying.’

  Ms Siemensma asked whether Phoebe was quite sensitive to alcohol.

  ‘Very, yes,’ Ant replied. ‘Two glasses of wine could be enough to start to see the way her personality would shift. Sometimes it could be more. It would vary, but it was never a large amount.’ He said it rarely affected her coordination. She didn’t stumble or fall over when she drank.

  The Coroner asked, ‘What were the indications to you that the alcohol had had an effect?’

  ‘Generally she was relatively quiet and reserved, but at times she could be quite outgoing, chatty — she had a great sense of humour. The more she drank, often there’d be more laughter, more giggling, but there would be a kind of aggression or anger. And it was more difficult to connect with her, to have any kind of rational conversation or dialogue, the more she drank.’

  Ms Siemensma asked, ‘Was it your view she shouldn’t drink at all?’

  Ant replied, ‘Um … if you were to ask if it was my view, I would say yes. But that was something ultimately that she had to decide.’ He supported her in all her efforts to deal with her drinking, but he never set any rules. He said, ‘Rarely would she distinguish between her depression and her drinking. It was kind of referred to as “the problem” rather than one or the other.’

  Ms Siemensma took him to a text message obtained from his phone. It read, ‘Also don’t forget you have bills to pay me and I’m not loaning you any more money so be sure to go to work.’ She asked whether he’d sent that message.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Ant replied, ‘but I don’t believe that’s chasing her for money.’

  Ms Siemensma referred him to his statement, where he’d said, ‘She would disappear for hours or sometimes a whole night and I wouldn’t know where she was.’ Did this refer to the days leading up to her death, or the duration of the relationship?

  He said she’d disappeared a couple of times early in their relationship, but he agreed that her absences those last few weeks were unusual, especially when she was gone for two nights in a row.

  He said that Phoebe was a binge drinker rather than a regular drinker. The longest he’d known her to go without alcohol was about three weeks.

  Ms Siemensma observed that, according to Linda, Phoebe had said she didn’t get depressed when she just took drugs, but she would suffer from symptoms of depression if she combined drugs and alcohol. ‘Was that something that you had observed?’ she asked Ant.

  Ant said he hadn’t.

  She’d told him on several occasions that she’d taken a lot of drugs before, and he assumed she would have taken drugs when she went out with her friends and he wasn’t there. She never took drugs in the apartment as far as he knew.

  ‘On Wednesday 1 December,’ Ms Siemensma said, ‘Phoebe told you that she’d taken ecstasy. Did she tell you how much?’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘Had you seen her after she’d taken ecstasy previously?’

  ‘No.’

  The Coroner asked, ‘What about cocaine?’

  ‘No.’ But Ant said he could only go on what she’d told him.

  Ms Siemensma referred to a passage in his statement where he’d commented that Phoebe would sometimes cut herself when she’d been drinking. ‘Was that something that you saw first hand?’ she asked.

  Ant said he had, but only on one occasion, which would have been some time in 2010, earlier in the year she died.

  ‘Did Phoebe ever say words to the effect that she wanted to take her life?’

  ‘Not directly, no.’

  ‘What do you mean by “not directly”?’

  He said they’d have lengthy discussions about her struggle and her low self-esteem. ‘Every single day was a struggle for her. So I guess in that context, I interpreted that that could well be something she was thinking, but she never directly said that to me, no.’

  He also believed she’d be able to get her life under control with the help of the psychologist and the work she was doing on herself.

  He thought all the right steps were being taken. ‘She was seeing a psychologist. She was on antidepressants. When she wasn’t drinking, she was very determined to get on top of this — she wouldn’t touch alcohol, she’d eat well, she’d drink tea. So there was this constant up and down, so I believed that there wasn’t much more at that time that needed to be done.’

  Ms Siemensma asked whether Ant had ever felt that he needed to intervene.

  He said that in the week before
her death, he’d had a discussion with Phoebe’s grandmother about ‘an intervention with the family, as in the whole family getting together with her and discussing ways to possibly address her drinking problem’. But it never happened.

  Ms Siemensma took him back through the various doctors Phoebe was seeing and medications she’d been prescribed. Some had unexpected side effects. She had a ‘terrible week’ in August, when she had ‘severe night sweats, not sleeping properly, and [her medications] were putting her in quite an alarmed state’.

  He said he’d gone to see the doctor with Phoebe in an effort to get her medication sorted out. She was adamant that she didn’t want any medication at all, although the doctor advised against it. They were about to go to Bali, and the doctor gave her a prescription for antidepressants in case she needed it while she was away.

  ‘Did you think that she was capable of functioning without any antidepressant medication?’ Ms Siemensma asked.

  ‘If you ask me that now, I would say no, but at the time, I didn’t know enough about it.’

  Ms Siemensma wanted to know if he’d seen any changes in Phoebe’s behaviour after September, when her doctor doubled her dose of antidepressants.

  Ant said, ‘She was becoming more erratic. The effects from the drinking were becoming more severe. But I wouldn’t say that I would notice any other minor changes, no.’

  The discussion moved to the question of sleeping pills. Ant confirmed that the pills were Stilnox, which he’d obtained on his prescription, and that he’d taken them away after Phoebe told him she’d taken some. ‘When I found out what had happened and that there was Stilnox in her system, I made an assumption that that’s probably where she got them from.’

  ‘You had no inkling,’ asked Ms Siemensma, ‘that she might dip into the sleeping pills during your relationship?’

  ‘I didn’t suspect it, no.’

  ‘Where were they that day, out on a bench?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. I can’t recall.’

  ‘You thought she may have been taking the sleeping pills, but you didn’t actually observe her taking them?’

  He said that was right.

  The Coroner asked when Ant had taken the Stilnox away from the apartment.

  ‘It was in the morning, after she’d told me that she’d taken two sleeping tablets.’

  The fob entry records showed it was actually closer to lunchtime on Wednesday 1 December, when Ant went home to check on her. He said, ‘She was lying in the bed and appeared to be asleep. I tapped her to get a response from her. She woke and told me she’d taken pills, and based on my knowledge from the past, she was sleeping it off, and when she woke she’d start to heal again. So that was a good sign. I couldn’t smell any alcohol and there was no sign of anything else, so it was really just based on past experience, that once she was in bed and sleeping, things would improve.’

  Ant assumed that he’d brought the Stilnox back when he returned from work. He couldn’t remember where he’d put them in the apartment.

  Ms Siemensma said she wanted to ask some questions about the days leading up to Phoebe’s death, starting with the Monday night, after they’d had dinner with the Rockmans.

  Ant agreed that he’d told Brendan Payne they’d argued about Phoebe’s drinking. But Phoebe herself had given Linda Cohen a different version of events. ‘She said that it was because she was opening up to Julie Rockman about her depression, and you had shut that down and she was upset.’

  ‘I don’t recall her discussing her depression specifically, and I think that she had definitely started to drink, and that’s what the discussion was about.’

  ‘You told her how alcohol was becoming a big problem. Did Phoebe agree with that or acknowledge that it was a problem?’

  ‘No, by that stage she’d already been drinking, and once she was in that state you really couldn’t talk rationally with her at all. So the discussion wouldn’t have gone on for very long.’

  ‘Did you have in your mind at that time any plan or thought as to how you might deal with this alcohol problem?’

  ‘To be honest, I was becoming quite desperate by that point in terms of finding other ways to try and address it. I’d definitely given thought about getting the whole family together and perhaps having a discussion with her about it.’

  He said later that night, after she took off and met up with Bren Hession, ‘I tried calling and she was just wanting to be self-destructive.’ He said she’d become quite aggressive in her tone and she was determined to keep drinking. ‘She made that clear to me on the phone.’

  Ms Siemensma put to him that Bren had said Phoebe ‘wasn’t out of control at all’. Was Ant now saying that she was out of control and aggressive on the phone?

  ‘Heading that way, yes.’

  The Coroner asked, ‘When she did drink, is it the case that she would often become aggressive generally, or is it your evidence that she would often become aggressive towards you in particular?’

  Ant replied, ‘Any discussion about her drinking or her problem with alcohol, depression, or the issues … she’d take it as an attack, she’d be very resentful, she’d raise her voice, she’d be angered at any implication that there was a problem. It’s almost as if when she drank she didn’t think she had a problem.’

  Phoebe had spent that night at Clifton Hill, but he thought she seemed better when they spoke on the phone next morning. Ant said, ‘She sounded to me as if she’d slept. She sounded exhausted, but she was on her way to work and she made a comment from recollection along the lines of “Well, that was a big waste of time” or something, I can’t remember specifically.’

  But others had a different version of that morning. Ms Siemensma told him that at 8.33 a.m. Phoebe had sent Linda Cohen a text saying, ‘I left home last night, again, and I am lost.’ Another text to her brother Tom at 8.42 a.m. read: ‘I am on the bus, Ant and I have broken up again. I’m no good.’

  Ms Siemensma asked, ‘Did you have an argument that morning?’

  ‘Well, when she said the episode had been a waste of time, I said to her that something needs to change, we need to find another way, and I think she interpreted that as me saying it’s over, and she hung up. So it certainly wasn’t a long argument, but I think she misinterpreted what I was trying to say,’ Ant replied.

  ‘Are you saying Phoebe hung up on you?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  Well, she did or she didn’t, I wrote in my notes. But how long can a partner tolerate that kind of self-destructive behaviour without trying to step in? Possibly they were just in a relationship that wasn’t meant to be — for either of them.

  Ms Siemensma asked a lot of questions about Ant’s knowledge of Phoebe’s day with Bob Gold. He didn’t know much about it, but did agree that at 6.25 p.m. he’d sent Bren Hession a text on Phoebe’s iPhone, asking if he knew where she was.

  Ms Siemensma asked, ‘Was Phoebe’s iPhone in the apartment when you came home that Tuesday evening?’

  ‘The iPhone was with Phoebe on Tuesday. I wasn’t with her on Tuesday evening.’

  ‘But for you to send a text from Phoebe’s iPhone to Mr Hession at 6.25, then you had possession of Phoebe’s iPhone?’

  ‘I don’t recall on the Tuesday having the iPhone.’

  ‘You have no recollection whether you had it or didn’t have it?’

  ‘Not at that point. I do remember sending a message of concern wondering about her whereabouts, I think.’

  ‘And you don’t recall which phone was used for that? If the records show that that text came from Phoebe’s phone, you don’t disagree that it’s possible you used Phoebe’s phone to send that text?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  My guess was that when Phoebe asked Bob Gold to wait outside Balencea while she got her phone from the apartment, she left the iPhone there and collected the Nokia
, which probably had the Port Melbourne drug supplier’s number in it. She may also have decided to leave the iPhone at home because Ant had driven her mad with texts and calls the night before. Leaving it in the apartment may have been meant as a signal to him that he couldn’t ring her and she didn’t want him to.

  Ms Siemensma pointed to Natalie Handsjuk’s statement, where she’d said: ‘Ant told me Phoebe answered the phone late in the evening and he invited her to come home and have Tamani food, which was her comfort food.’ (These calls must have been to the Nokia, I wrote in my notes.) He rang again later and offered to make dinner. As Natalie recalled it, ‘Phoebe had said to him, “That sounds nice.”’ Ms Siemensma asked, ‘Is this correct?’

  Ant agreed that it was. But Phoebe didn’t come home for her comfort food. She used her Nokia to call some other numbers, none of which were familiar to Ant, and she didn’t get home until 12.25 a.m., when she fell into bed. Where she’d been since Bob dropped her off was a mystery. She had the hiccups, Ant remembered. He said she was still sleeping when he went to work next morning.

  ‘Did she tell you at any time that she had rung her psychologist, Ms Walker, the day before?’

  ‘No.’

  Ant said that when he got home on Wednesday night, he gave Phoebe a bath and cooked her dinner. She showed all the usual signs of recovering from a bender, ‘quiet, contemplative, and reflective, pretty dazed in a way, but there was no question in my mind that she was starting to go through a positive cycle, the other end of the cycle’.

  He recalled Phoebe saying, ‘I’ve done it again. I’ve screwed up.’ He thought she was struggling to think how she could stop this cycle.

  Ms Siemensma took him to the day of Phoebe’s death. She asked about the dinner arrangement made for Len’s birthday. ‘We see from Phoebe’s calendar that a dinner is arranged for the Thursday evening. Did you have any knowledge of those arrangements?’

  He said he didn’t, and Phoebe hadn’t mentioned the dinner when she called her father the night before either.