Commissioner wants politics taken out of William Tyrrell investigation

NSW’s Police Commissioner has spoken out amid widespread criticism of the investigation into William Tyrrell’s disappearance, saying ‘personalities’ need to be removed from the police probe.

“Personalities” should be taken out of the investigation into the disappearance of William Tyrrell and the focus should be solely on finding the missing toddler, NSW’s Police Commissioner says.

“At the end of the day, the commissioner is a mother, a detective, someone who has worked in forensic services, surveillance and child mistreatment,” a spokeswoman for Karen Webb told The Saturday Telegraph.

“If anyone wants to know the truth and find out what happened, it’s her.

“She doesn’t get involved in the politics and people. The commissioner I know just wants the facts, the truth.”

The comments come as criminologists, former police and politicians raise concerns about the handling of the eight-year investigation into three-year-old William’s disappearance.

Missing toddler William Tyrrell. Picture: Supplied by NSW Police

Michael Kennedy, a former detective and now Associate Professor at the University of New England, said last week that NSW had “gone down the path of eroding due process for the sake of getting an outcome”.

“There’s been a major stuff up and police have been expected to get outcomes that aren’t possible,” Dr Kennedy said.

That followed a Sydney magistrate finding William’s foster mother not guilty of knowingly giving false or misleading evidence during a secret hearing of the NSW Crime Commission.

The woman, who cannot be identified, was hauled before the commission to answer questions about William’s disappearance from a Kendall property on September 12, 2014.

“We need to revert back to a time where police were able to be in control of their own investigations and you couldn’t put pressure on them to get outcomes because it worked politically,” Dr Kennedy said.

NSW Labor MP Paul Lynch said this week: “Something seems quite wrong with the way the presumption of innocence has been trashed here.

“Focusing on only one alleged suspect gives a whiff of trying to build a particular case rather than investigating all avenues,” he said.

“I’d hate to think this is the result of how investigative agencies have responded to the enormous and legitimate public interest in this case.”

William Tyrrell’s foster mum, who was cleared of charges of lying to the Crime Commission. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

One Nation MP and former detective Rod Roberts believes the current police investigation should be scrapped and a fresh team of detectives appointed to start over.

Mr Roberts, a former senior instructor at the Detectives Training Course, said: “It’s been a dog’s breakfast of an investigation as far as I’m concerned.

“There needs to be a whole new team, a fresh set of eyes.

“They need to forget about the previous persons of interest that have been very publicly named, forget about everything previous cops have told them and start at the very beginning.”

Police looking into the disappearance declined to comment on the status of the investigation.

“As there are ongoing criminal proceedings and the matter also remains subject to a coronial inquest, we will not be providing further comment,” a police spokesman said, referring The Telegraph to the statement issued by Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty in September.

Mr Roberts said that “hiding behind the fact” the coronial inquest was still active wasn’t good enough.

“The coronial inquest can run it’s own course but in the background, you can have a fresh new team hunting for evidence that doesn’t interfere with the coronial process.

“They’ve used the media to announce suspects, searches, when it suits them.

“Yet now that investigative journalists are asking some hard questions, the cops are hiding behind the fact that the case is before the coroner. Well they’ve been saying stuff for the last eight years when it suits them.”

MP Paul Lynch says ‘all avenues’ have to be investigated.

Mr Roberts pointed to the very public announcements of key persons of interest through the years – two have been cleared of any involvement in William’s disappearance.

Washing machine repairman Bill Spedding is suing the State of NSW in the Supreme Court for malicious prosecution, seeking compensation for reputation harm and psychological treatment.

He’s also seeking exemplary damages to punish police for allegedly using the courts for an improper purpose.

Mr Spedding claims NSW Police maliciously pursued him over unreliable child sexual assault claims — of which he was cleared — as part of a “high-risk and improper strategy” to help their investigation into William’s disappearance.

Paul Savage became the next highly publicised person of interest.

Then-detective chief inspector Gary Jubelin retired from the force and was later convicted of offences under the Surveillance Devices Act after it emerged he had illegally recorded Mr Savage in 2017.

Mr Savage, who was never charged with any criminal offence, lived across the road from the home where William was last seen.

Last year former police commissioner Mick Fuller told 2GB: “There is one person in particular we are looking closely at.”

Mr Jubelin later accused Mr Fuller of making things “personal”.

In court last week, a senior detective said police believed William’s foster mother knew where he was buried.

There has been no evidence made public that implicates William’s foster mother and she strenuously denies any involvement or wrongdoing. She has never been charged in relation to William’s disappearance.

Mr Roberts believes police went public about focusing on one person of interest and a subsequent high-profile search because they felt pressured to show they were making headway.

“I believe they felt under pressure because a week or two earlier the WA cops had found missing girl Chloe Smith.”

The little girl went missing from a camping site on the West Australian coast. Two weeks later she was found “alive and well” inside a Carnarvon home and a 36-year-old man was arrested nearby.

“The WA cops were heroes. In a couple of weeks they tracked down and found Chloe still alive and arrested the alleged offender.

“Then you have NSW police with this case and it’s going nowhere.

“I believe NSW cops felt pressured so they came out saying they were looking at one person, they knew where the body was, when clearly they don’t know where the body is.

“All of those pieces of fabric and other so-called evidence they took from the very public search site in Kendall. What did they find? What are the results of the forensics testing? We’ve heard nothing.”

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