Into the Darkness

by Robin Bowles

  Moglia asked whether he’d seen her with any cuts or bruises on Wednesday night.

  Again, Ant said, ‘No. She was happy and feeling safe, and I didn’t have any reason to suspect there may be anything like that, so I wouldn’t have been looking.’

  Moglia moved to the night of her death, when Ant came back from work. He asked whether there was incense burning in the apartment.

  ‘I think so,’ Ant replied. ‘I could smell the incense. I can’t recall if it was still burning or not.’

  ‘Was the scent still very present in the air?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Moglia moved on to events next morning, referring to the transcript of Natalie’s taped meeting with Ant and his family. Ant had said that Phoebe woke up on Thursday and had three drinks.

  Moglia reminded him, ‘And you said, “Never did she ever wake up after going on one of her benders — wake up starting again, and that’s what happened.” Do you recall making that comment now?’

  ‘Yes. I think what I was referring to in the context of that discussion is that I’d never seen her go through that cycle, recover, and then start drinking again.’ Ant added that that was why he was alarmed when he got home and saw the vodka on the night of 2 December.

  Moglia asked Ant to confirm that the only phone he could have rung her on during that day was the home phone.

  ‘That’s correct.’ Ant may have suspected that Moglia was trying to set some sort of trap, because he immediately added, ‘I may have tried her older phone, but I was mainly ringing the landline.’

  He said Phoebe rarely rang him on the Nokia. She’d rung him once from that phone that week, possibly on 1 December.

  ‘Why when speaking to police on 2 December did you seem quite clear that Phoebe had one mobile phone that was broken and being fixed and not mention the second one?’ asked Moglia.

  ‘Because it didn’t occur to me. The phone she used from day to day was the iPhone.’

  But Moglia pointed out that he’d repeatedly called her on the Nokia on 2 December. ‘You called her on that number at 11.44; and again on that number at 1.39; and then again at 2.31, but you didn’t tell police you’d been calling that number all day without getting an answer?’

  ‘I just don’t think it occurred to me at that time,’ Ant said.

  ‘And the call to the Nokia from your number at 2.31 p.m. on 2 December connects for 10 to 12 seconds. Did you speak to Phoebe that day or leave a voice message?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The records show there was a 10- to 12-second connection between your phone and the Nokia phone at 2.30, but you say that wasn’t you? Were you expecting to speak to anyone else on that number?’

  ‘Phoebe and I didn’t speak on that day, no. And no one else answered that number either. Sometimes on the Monday and Tuesday, she’d answer her phone and not say anything so it’s possible the phone’s been answered but nothing’s been said.’

  ‘Can you say anything about the fact that all outgoing phone calls on Phoebe’s iPhone are deleted or missing?’

  ‘No.’

  Moglia went on to highlight the small number of calls Ant made after he came home on 2 December, when he was concerned and looking for Phoebe, compared to his many calls when he knew she was out drinking on the Monday night.

  Because Lorne Campbell had raised so many issues, the Coroner wanted to check that Moglia had asked all the questions he needed to put to Ant.

  Moglia said he had. Did I detect a little slump of relaxation from Ant? He’d been the primary focus of Lorne’s suspicions; he’d been questioned several times by the police; he’d fallen out with Linda Cohen and it was unlikely they’d ever speak again; he and his family had been publicly examined and humiliated. Was this the end? Could he get on with his life and put this awful event behind him? Now he could only wait for an answer from the Coroner.

  Ms Siemensma had a couple of final questions about his iPhone.

  ‘Mr Galbally asked you whether it was possible your phone might have been on the kitchen bench on 2 December, and you say possible, but do you know one way or another?’

  ‘It’s most likely.’

  ‘But we don’t see your phone in any of the police photos, which were taken that night.’ Ant explained that his phone wouldn’t have been there when the photos were taken because he’d left the building.

  And that’s just what he did next. Elvis-like, dodging the media, he departed through a basement exit and vanished.

  *

  Ant’s evidence completed the week, so on Saturday I decided to visit the telephone repair shop in Victoria Street, Richmond, which was in my neighbouring suburb. I had one outstanding question in respect of this shop. Why provide a dated, time-stamped receipt on pick-up, but not when a valuable phone is left at the shop? Some people’s whole lives are in their phones. How do you find a lost one among many if it hasn’t been labelled? My repairman gives me a receipt when I leave a cheap watch to get the battery replaced, as he has quite a few lined up on the shelves from customers who haven’t yet returned. I’d insist on a receipt for an iPhone, especially if it was somebody else’s.

  After a few discreet questions, I’d found out the name of the shop, so there I was in Victoria Street next morning, waiting in line to speak to Mr Nguyen.* It was busy in the shop. I wondered if Phoebe’s phone would have been easy to pick out if it had been in a distinctive case, maybe tiger skin. Several people were ahead of me. As far as I could see, a receipt was issued each time someone left a phone.

  But perhaps Ant dropped the phone off in a hurry, so he didn’t bother about a receipt. And he couldn’t have known then that he wouldn’t be back for it next day.

  My turn came at last. When I told Mr Nguyen why I was there and what I wanted to know, he became uncomfortable. I lived in Asia for several years, and I’m familiar with the habit of smiling or even giggling to mask the acute embarrassment of losing face.

  Glancing at the customers waiting behind me, he said quietly that he’d been visited by police — very bad for business — and also by Natalie, who was asking questions — very difficult to know what to say. He’d told them all that usually — he stressed usually — if it’s something simple like a phone losing charge, it can be dropped off and picked up the same day. ‘That problem not always can repair because battery built in. No receipt necessary if come back same day. But sometimes customers don’t take receipt, in a hurry. Come back later or ring up. Or don’t come back for couple days. Not very often this happens, people want phone back very quick.’

  He had no recollection of the particular phone. ‘Can’t remember problem, no receipts, no idea who dropped off and who picked up, very sorry, very busy now, please.’

  Perhaps it was insensitive to visit on a busy Saturday morning, but it was worth checking.

  CHAPTER 25

  LAST DAYS

  Fourteen days is a long inquest, and everyone was getting tired. We all filed in on Monday morning and took our seats for the last sitting day in this session.

  Before any witnesses were called, Galbally was on his feet, addressing His Honour with barely controlled anger directed at those scurrilous reporters who’d got all sorts of things wrong in their accounts of his client’s evidence last Friday.

  Galbally passed the Coroner a copy of a newspaper article. He said he wasn’t asking the Coroner to make any orders or suggesting in any way that he’d be influenced by something he might read in the newspaper, but he wanted to protest. ‘In Saturday’s Herald Sun of 24 August, there’s a misrepresentation of the evidence. And it’s defamatory of my client.’ He complained that the newspaper had been ‘reporting events in an unbalanced fashion’ for years in relation to this case.

  He cited an example from the article. Ant had said in evidence that he’d taken the iPhone to the repair shop at 11.30 a.m. on Thursday 2 December 2010. ‘When I asked h
im if he’d attempted to contact Phoebe later in the day, he said he did, and he gave evidence that he’d rung her several times on the Nokia phone and the landline, and that’s borne out by the phone records.’

  But the Herald Sun had said, ‘He could not explain phone records appearing to show calls between their mobile phones that day.’

  Galbally fumed, ‘Well, that’s a complete misrepresentation of the evidence given before you, and it’s defamatory.’ He said he’d written on several occasions to the Herald Sun editor and pleaded for balanced coverage, it seemed to no avail.

  The Coroner told him that he’d expressed similar views to a TV network. He ‘supported the view that there was a public interest in having the media closely examine what occurs in our Coroners Courts, and that I was very happy to see that continue. But also that it was absolutely imperative that there be a fair and balanced reporting of the evidence, and no unfounded conclusions drawn or inferred from comments made within the press which were unfair to persons who were witnesses, and at that point still to be witnesses.’

  The Coroner asked Galbally what action he wanted the court to take, but Galbally held fire on that. He said he’d be returning to it in his written submissions at the end of the inquest. For now, he just wanted his outrage on record.

  He said he believed there were further examples of defamatory material. ‘I’ve only highlighted one, as it relates to the most recent reporting.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Galbally,’ the Coroner replied, handing back the newspaper article. ‘I’m entirely sympathetic to your remarks, but I’m unable to go any further at this point, as you correctly identify.’

  *

  Detective Senior Constable Brendan Payne was called as the final witness.

  While researching this book, I found out a lot about Brendan Payne, none of it negative, but much of it I was told in confidence and the information could reveal the informers or embarrass him, so I’m limited in what I can say. I haven’t interviewed him, as you have to go through a huge rigmarole to speak to a police officer and the answer is almost always ‘No’.

  In my opinion, Brendan Payne had been handed a poisoned chalice. Unique circumstances of death; many unanswered questions; lack of expert knowledge about circumstances surrounding Phoebe’s fall and injuries; poor initial investigation by Homicide and minimal documentation; the first 48 hours well and truly over by the time it was duck-shoved over to him; a personally involved former detective dogging his every move; position, wealth, and influence shadowing his enquiries — and he had to keep up all his regular tasks, investigating, writing reports, doing night shifts, as if the Phoebe investigation was a minor matter he could turn to in his spare time.

  But the case of Phoebe Handsjuk obviously weighed him down. There was so much pressure to complete the coronial brief. With the best of intentions, Phoebe’s family and friends kept passing him new information, which he felt obliged to investigate. People asked to add to their statements, and it was necessary to document this. Information he was given early in the investigation proved to be almost certainly incorrect, but still had to be ruled out. There were few other police he could talk things over with, as he was pretty much flying solo.

  Payne was reluctant to highlight the deficiencies of the early investigations by his colleagues, but he really had no choice. At times, the burden became too much. He’d taken extended leave twice to recharge his batteries and recover from the huge stresses the investigation was imposing on him. As Gilbert and Sullivan aptly put it, ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.’

  But he saw the job through. It took more than two years. During that period, Payne made seven statements, each one confirming, adding to, or changing material in his earlier ones.

  Now here he was giving evidence at the inquest. He must have felt relief that the end was hopefully in sight. His involvement had begun with an email he’d sent to Jason Wallace on 6 December 2010 at 1.33 p.m. ‘Jason, I’ve been informed that I will probably be receiving an inquest brief in relation to the death at 454 St Kilda Road. My boss has told me to meet you there at 9.30 tomorrow morning. We’re seeing a pathologist. Can you confirm that that’s right?’

  His statements had built the case brick by brick, as the police are fond of saying, but today he still needed to make amendments before presenting his evidence.

  The most important one, from my viewpoint, was that on obtaining a full printout of the Balencea swipe records, rather than the ‘cut and paste’ one Eric had given Natalie, he discovered the swipe records did indicate that Ant Hampel had come home to check on Phoebe during the day on 1 December.

  This was important, because Payne had previously made a statement that he believed there was no evidence of Ant coming home during the day, because the sheet of records he’d been given contradicted Ant’s statement. In fact, that discrepancy (and Ant’s vague recollections about the timing of the iPhone drop-off) had caused Payne to bring Ant back in for another interview — the one attended by George Hampel — in which Ant continued to assert he’d gone home.

  Ms Siemensma began her questions. ‘So your boss told you you’d be receiving a file from the Homicide Squad. Were you told why?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no.’

  He said he didn’t know when his boss was briefed about the case.

  Ms Siemensma took him through the early stages of his investigation.

  ‘Detective, do you recall if Mr Bone made comments that he thought Phoebe’s injuries would be much worse if the machine was in its normal operating mode on the 7th of December?’

  ‘No, I don’t recall.’

  Payne hadn’t even noted Neil Bone’s presence at that meeting. He couldn’t explain this, but thought it was probably because he was focused on the discussion going on among the police, or perhaps he hadn’t heard Bone’s name properly.

  Payne said that he was handed a few statements on 7 December and more information on 10 December, but he said, ‘It wasn’t a big file, mostly statements taken on the night. I might’ve got information not all at once, in dribs and drabs. I know that on the 10th I went to the Homicide office and obtained some material on that date. But another email says I got phone records from Jason Wallace on the 17th, so I do think that things were coming in, but not all at once.’

  The Coroner wanted to know if this was normal police practice. Payne told him it would normally be a briefing note. ‘There is a briefing note form that we use for a job that’s going to go to another office.’

  Of course there is. The police love their procedures and forms.

  The Coroner was trying to work out the level of detail he’d ordinarily expect to receive.

  ‘I don’t know if I can answer that. I’ve done more than what’s on that piece of paper’ — the documentation he’d received from Jason Wallace — ‘but I don’t know if I’d get more normally or less normally. Depends on the person providing the document.’

  Payne was asked why he was allocated the file. He explained that Balencea is part of the South Melbourne Crime Investigation Unit’s divisional area. South Melbourne investigates all serious incidents in that area, day and night. The Homicide Squad only investigate homicides, and if a death isn’t considered a homicide, it comes back to the local CIU.

  Ms Siemensma asked him about the laptop Phoebe had been given by her mother. Natalie had said she believed emails had been deleted.

  ‘Phoebe stopped using the laptop on 13 October 2010. Can you exclude the possibility that emails had been deleted from that date?’

  ‘No, I can’t exclude it.’

  On 3 January 2013, Payne attended Victoria Police E-Crime to try and establish dates and times on the iMac. Ms Siemensma asked, ‘Did E-Crime check out Phoebe’s laptop as well?’

  Payne replied, ‘No, not at that time.’

  Ms Siemensma informed him that E-Crime was going to conduct an analysis of the iMac. ‘Do you
know why that wasn’t done earlier? Say, either in December 2010 or in April, when it was dropped off?’

  Payne explained, ‘When you submit a computer for analysis at E-Crime, they give you a time frame. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can have a cursory examination, which is what I chose to do.’ In hindsight, he said, he would have submitted it for fuller analysis if he’d known how long it would take to get to the inquest.

  Ms Siemensma asked, ‘Has Phoebe’s laptop been taken to E-Crime for analysis?’

  Payne replied, ‘No, we’re waiting for a job booking. But now with the inquest on, with the proceedings, they’ve agreed to do it.’

  The Coroner asked Mr O’Neill about progress on this.

  ‘Your Honour, I’m afraid I don’t have any new information. I did ask for enquiries to be made, and they were made, but I’m told the person who we liaise with was not available.’

  The Coroner asked, ‘We’re still confident of getting it before the reconvening of this inquest in October?’

  ‘Your Honour, all I can say is that I have no …’

  ‘I just want you to say “yes”, Mr O’Neill.’

  O’Neill said, ‘Well, I’d love to be able to say “yes”, Your Honour. All I can say is that’s my expectation. I have no new information. Civil Litigation, Victoria Police, is pursuing the matter to get an update, and I will update Your Honour and all the parties as soon as I have any more information.’

  They discussed the application made on Ant Hampel’s iMac for the ‘release of body’ form, which it seemed was requested in October, before Phoebe died. Brendan Payne said that information from an outside technical company had confirmed that the earlier information he’d received about the date was incorrect. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to clear up this one small discrepancy, he said, and that was characteristic of his whole investigation.

  Just to be sure, Ms Siemensma asked, ‘Detective, you’re saying despite the two checks of the computer which showed the date in October, the evidence from the Coroners Court suggests the application forms were sent out on 6 December 2010?’