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Some say if the Bowraville children had been white their killer would have been brought to justice by now. But 20 years later, after two investigations, two trials, a coronial inquest, a change to the law, two appeals to attorneys-general and a petition to Parliament, no one has been convicted.
One reason for this could be that NSW lags other parts of Australia in how it treats some Aboriginal people in court.
In late 1990 and early 1991, Colleen Walker and Clinton Speedy, both 16, and four-year-old Evelyn Greenup went missing from the Aboriginal community at Bowraville, west of Nambucca Heads. Colleen has never been found, although her clothes were discovered in a local river. The remains of Clinton and Evelyn were located; each had been killed by a blow to the head.
The only suspect was a local tannery worker, Jay Hart, a 27-year-old white man with a reputation for violence who supplied alcohol and marijuana to members of the community and had sex with some of them. He was attracted to teenage girls.
In 2006, he was tried for the murder of Evelyn Greenup and found not guilty (just as when he was tried for Speedy’s murder 12 years earlier). Some who attended the trial say certain Aboriginal witnesses came across poorly for cultural reasons that should have been explained to the jury. Such explanations, known as “the Mildren directions”, have been provided regularly in northern Australia for many years.
Wayne Martin, Chief Justice of Western Australia, told the Herald about two of the most common problems white jurors can have with Aboriginal witnesses: “In white society we use eye contact as a way of assessing veracity. If someone looks away, that’s regarded as a sign of embarrassment or even lying. In many Aboriginal cultures, eye contact is impolite. It’s the same with ‘gratuitous concurrence’. Many Aborigines have a culture of deference and agreement. It’s not uncommon to see an Aboriginal witness who agrees with everything put to them, even mutually inconsistent propositions.” Read more
Sources
- Michael Duffy in The Sydney Morning Herald
- Image: ABC Open
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