Belinda Peisley’s father Mark Wearne will forever regret his final phone call before she disappeared

Sydney truck driver Mark Wearne will always regret the argument he had with his daughter Belinda Peisley during their final phone conversation when she begged him to sort out an acquaintance who became a person of interest in her disappearance.

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Sydney truck driver Mark Wearne will always regret the argument he had with his daughter Belinda Peisley during their final phone ­conversation.

He said Belinda had begged him to come up to her home in Katoomba with some mates to “sort out” an acquaintance called Jeremy Douglas in about July 1998.

By September that year, she had disappeared.

Douglas was later named as a “person of interest” during a coronial inquest looking into Ms Peisley’s disappearance and suspected death.

Mark Wearne, father of Belinda Peisley, who was 19 when she went missing in September 1998 at Katoomba. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Mr Wearne said although he refused to help his daughter deal with Douglas, he had offered to help check her into a rehab centre.

Mr Wearne said Belinda was a good mum to her two boys. Picture: Supplied

“She told me to piss off and that I was an arsehole,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“I regret the situation. I always think, could I have done more, could I have re-established contact a couple of weeks later?

“It is extreme to try and live with — it’s there 24/7 and it is always in the back of your mind, especially being a truck driver. You sit and stew on things.”

Mr Wearne described Belinda as outgoing, a lonely soul, a good mother to her two young boys.

“She was an all around good kid but what killed her was the drug.

“She was very outgoing, she was passionate about animals, and always coming home with something, whether it be a cat nobody wanted or the local stray dog.”

He said it took seven years before the police started a proper investigation into his daughter’s suspected murder.

“The initial police investigation was disgusting. It was non-existent. Back in those days they treated it as just another junkie gone missing.”

Originally published as Belinda Peisley’s father Mark Wearne will forever regret his final phone call before she disappeared