Inquest kicked off complex plan to capture a monster

BRETT Peter Cowan, known only as P7, was one of many convicted sex offenders who testified at the coronial inquest into Daniel Morcombe’s disappearance.

BRETT Peter Cowan, initially known only as P7, was one of many convicted sex offenders who testified at the coronial inquest into Daniel Morcombe's disappearance.

Among the pedophiles police investigated were three men who visited the Sunshine Coast the day Daniel disappeared to watch young boys in nippers on Mooloolaba, Maroochydore and Alexandra Headland.

Cowan, who was listed in the police investigation as person of interest number seven, P7, told the coroner in early 2011 that Daniel Morcombe was out of his age group.

"I was interested in six- to eight-year-old boys," Cowan said.

The scruffy man - with long, mousey brown hair - who slumped in the witness box back then was nothing like the clean-cut man in a striking suit in Brisbane Supreme Court for the past five weeks.

A crime where a juvenile boy is snatched from a public place and neither he nor his kidnapper is ever found is so rare that it has only happened once in Queensland in Cowan's lifetime.

That one case is Daniel Morcombe.

"So the bastard who did this, to take your words from the Northern Territory, not only happened to do this unfortunately while you were driving right by, but you're unlucky enough that he actually looks like you as well," counsel assisting the coroner Peter Johns said to Cowan at the inquest.

"And as if this isn't some great celestial joke that God's playing on you, someone's gone and parked a car like yours 100m from the scene at the same time.

"You are the unluckiest man around, aren't you?"

P7 shrugged his shoulders.

"I was not involved in Daniel's disappearance," he said.

COMMENT: BRETT COWAN BEYOND REHABILITATION

Mr Johns said Cowan laughed when police questioned him about the gap in his movements on the Sunday Daniel disappeared.

Mr Johns said P7 knew 30 minutes was ample time, longer than he took in Darwin when he almost killed a boy.

"You denied and denied and you lied and you lied about what you did (in Darwin) until it was made clear that you were going to be found out by your DNA," Mr Johns said. "And that's when you cracked.

"The offence in Darwin shows you will say anything until it is very clear to you that you have no other choice.

"I say you intentionally killed Daniel (because) you found out it was very annoying to have a victim survive and come and identify you."

Cowan left that inquest on April 1, 2011, to fly back to his new life in Perth.

But it was on that plane from Brisbane that he met undercover police officer Joe Emery.

It was a fateful moment that would lead to a convincing, secretly recorded confession four months and nine days later.

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