Tapes detailing a secret grilling of William Tyrrell’s foster mother about the toddler’s disappearance and her possible cover up and dumping of his body will be played in open court for the first time.
The foster mother was asked point blank questions about ‘what she did with William’s body’ during the interrogation by the NSW Crime Commission, a secretive government body, in 2021.
Although an account of some of the questions she was asked during the four-hour hearing have previously been revealed at a court hearing, today the video of the session will be played at the coroner’s inquest into William’s believed death.
The missing boy’s foster parents previously both faced charges of lying to the Crime Commission and were both acquitted in court.
During the foster mother’s court hearing on the charge, a series of questions that she was asked at the Crime Commission hearing were read out, including: ‘Did you find his body in the ferns and in the foliage under the verandah that day?
The foster mum – who cannot be identified for legal reasons except by the initials ‘SD’ – was also asked: ‘Did you find his body and realise he has died and there’s no point calling emergency services?’
Another question asked was: ‘I want to suggest to you what happened that day was William went around on that verandah and toppled over and it was nobody’s fault.’
Each of the questions were accompanied by SD’s steadfast denials of having any knowledge of William’s disappearance in September 2014.
William disappeared when he was aged three and hasn’t been seen since September 12, 2014, with the mystery becoming Australia’s most notorious missing person’s case.
It had been suggested to the foster mother at the Crime Commission hearing that she ‘may have dumped William’s body near a riding school’.
Counsel assisting the Crime Commission, Sophie Callan, asked the foster mother: ‘Did you take his body down (to the riding school at Kendall, on the NSW Mid North Coast)?’
She answered: ‘No.’
William Tyrrell’s foster mother was grilled at the NSW Crime Commission about whether the three-year-old fell from the verandah of his grandma’s house and his body was disposed of in bushland
William was playing on the verandah of the Kendall house (above) before he vanished, according to his foster mother
SD was then asked: ‘Did you decide to take care of the situation that was beyond remedy?’ and ‘did you decide to take care of the situation and hide his body rather than let your (SD’s) mother take .. responsibility.’
SD denied both of the propositions put to her. They related to William’s foster grandmother, who owned the home where he disappeared from, and has since died.
Ms Callan then put to the foster mother that she found William’s body ‘and you put his body in your mother’s car, and that’s why you took the drive (to the nearby Kendall riding school) that day?’
Ms Callan then said: ‘Just to be clear there is no suggestion you injured him or caused his death, just that you moved his body.’
The foster mother denied Ms Callen’s allegations: ‘No, I didn’t.’
The Crime Commission’s questioning of the foster mother came after she had been door-stopped by two detectives with a summons for her to appear before it three years ago.
The 2021 questioning of both foster parents about William’s case came just before police renewed efforts to find the remains of the missing boy.
William’s foster mother was found not guilty of lying to the Crime Commission following a hearing where police alleged she had falsely stated during her evidence that she did not strike a child – who is not William – with a wooden spoon.
Both foster parents (above, left and second right) were interrogated by the secretive NSW CRime Commission and charged with lying, but later acquitted
William Tyrrell was playing at his foster grandma’s house in Kendall (above) when he went missing in 2014 and no trace of him has ever been found
When Detective Sergeant Andrew Lonergan served the summons on SD at her home to appear before the Crime Commission, another detective Scott Jamieson told her: ‘We’re not here to f***ing bluff, let me tell you that.
‘We aren’t guessing. We aren’t bluffing. We know how, we know why, we know where he is.’
Detective Lonergan said to SD: ‘I can tell you something … it’s not personal it’s about finding what happened to William’, to which Det. Jamieson added, ‘make a decision for William today and no-one else. We know you’re a good person’.
Lonergan told SD that ‘We know William was loved, dearly loved’ and SD responded, ‘I’m trying to breathe. So you are now effectively saying you believe I hurt William’.
The inquest is currently investigating the police theory that William’s foster mother buried his body in bushland after he fell from a balcony and died on the morning he vanished.
Counsel assisting the inquest, Gerard Craddock SC, told the inquest when it reopened on Monday that the police theory was that ‘William must have died at [his foster grandmother’s home at] 48 Benaroon Drive [in Kendall].
‘The theory… police assert, is that she must have quickly resolved that if the accidental death of William was discovered she might lose ‘Lindsay’.’
Lindsay – not her real name, which can’t be revealed for legal reasons – was another foster child in the care of the foster mother at that time.
‘Police assert that in that frame of mind, [the foster mother] placed William in her mother’s car,’ Mr Craddock said.
‘After alerting [a neighbour] to William’s disappearance, [she] drove her mother’s car to Batar Creek Road and placed William’s body somewhere in the undergrowth.’
The inquest into the toddler’s disappearance is entering its final stages and will be wound up before Christmas
Mr Craddock has said the area around Batar Creek Road had been extensively searched by police who did not believe any trace of William was left there.
He also said that in the search for William after his disappearance – with police, fire fighters, cadaver dogs, chainsaws and hydraulic equipment – meant that the little boy had not simply just been lost in the search area.
‘William under his own steam could not travel beyond the area of the intensive search,’ he said.
‘The conclusion there must have been human intervention.
‘It’s beyond argument that no eye eyewitness can provide an account about how he left the boundaries of 48 Benaroon Drive.’
The inquest, which began in 2019 but has been beset by protracted delays has now entered its final block of hearings, is being held this week, and over the week before Christmas.
The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame – examining William’s disappearance and suspected death – was delayed last year when prosecutors weighed up charges against the boy’s foster mother.
Police handed a brief of evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions that recommended William’s foster mother be charged with perverting the course of justice and interfering with a corpse.
William’s foster father was also acquitted of five counts of lying to the NSW Crime Commission.
The couple has denied any wrongdoing or disposing of his corpse.
