William Tyrrell’s birth father has blamed welfare authorities for his disppearance, saying “they f***ed up” in dramatic evidence by both the missing toddler’s biological parents.
Speaking out for the first time, the birth father described the day police knocked on his and the birth mother’s door to say their fostered out son had vanished.
Police initially thought he and the birth mother had William with them at their house in Granville in western Sydney, but it was a younger child.
The birth father said he was smoking a cigarette in the back yard and police hammered on the door and told his then partner that William was missing.
“I said ‘he’s f***ing what?’,” the father told the court.
“They f***ed up. The minister has a duty of care to keep him safe until 18.”
The court heard that the birth father had told his mother early on the same morning he had a feeling that “something doesn’t feel right” and he wasn’t going to work.
He told court that at the time, when he had gone to McDonald’s for several hours that morning he was “incoherent”.
But he said, “I do remember having that feeling, sensing something was wrong in that period ... making me sound crazy.”
He said since the disappearance, “I broke down, I lost it” and that he blamed authorities for William’s alleged abduction.
William’s birth mother also described how police knocked on her door the day William disappeared and thought her other son was the missing toddler.
In dramatic testimony, the 30-year-old ridiculed court orders suppressing publication of her name, saying “They all know our names, what’s the big deal? I’ll lose it.”
Wearing a black trouser suit, cream stilettos and a cream and black striped shirt, her hair drawn up into a bun, the boy’s biological mother appeared for the first time at the inquest into her missing son.
She described how she and William’s father had taken the boy away on the day Family and Community Services welfare workers were due to take him off into foster care.
She agreed with counsel assisting the inquest, Tracey Stephens, that she and the birth father had “absconded” with William for five to six weeks in February 2012.
But she said she had no plans to leave Sydney with him.
“We weren’t really thinking ahead,” she said, weeping and wiping her face with tissues as she sat in the witness box.
She said after FACS workers eventually located the couple and took William away, she had met the foster mother who the boy was placed with.
She knew their surname and “roughly” where they lived “but not the address”.
She said when she learned that the foster couple were trying to adopt her child she had been “not happy”.
But then on the afternoon of September 12, 2014, when she was “heavily pregnant” and caring for another young son the police came knocking about William’s disappearance.
“Two police officers knocked on the door,” she said.
“They asked if William was there. They looked around and saw our son.
“They thought he was William. He wasn’t.”
She said William’s father had become “very upset and angry” learning the boy was missing.
The court heard the birth mother’s statement to police made after the disappearance, saying she “definitely didn’t take William”.
“If I took him, I would be gone and take [William’s sister] as well.”
After taking the stand, William’s birth father also took sole responsibility for abducting William in February 2012.
“It was me who took William, I was the culprit for that,” he said.
He told the court that he had not had a normal life since the abduction and that on the day in question he had been sick of dealing with welfare authorities over his son.
“I feel sick of all this stuff that was going on in my life, dealing with DOCS and authorities.”
Sitting in the front row of the court were William’s foster parents and their supporters listening to the birth parents’ testimony at Lidcombe Coroner’s Court in western Sydney.
This morning two local police senior constables gave evidence that two “odd” or “different” men who were in the street from which William disappeared had been cleared and their properties searched.
The inquest is being held into the disappearance of William, then three years old, from the NSW Mid North Coast town of Kendall on September 12, 2014.
No trace of the toddler, who was last sighted at his foster grandmother’s house on Benaroon Drive, Kendall, has since been found.
After a week of hearings, the William Tyrrell inquest will resume in August.
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "William Tyrrell inquest: Biological parents give evidence - NEWS.com.au"
Post a Comment