William Tyrrell: where foster mum fits into missing toddler mystery

William Tyrrell’s foster mother has been thrust into the spotlight, charged with misleading police as investigators work to piece together his disappearance. Here’s what we know so far.

The foster mother of William Tyrrell is facing a raft of charges, none of them related to the little boy’s disappearance, as it can be surmised that detectives are putting her and her husband under pressure.

If confidence could catch whoever is responsible for the suspected murder of the toddler, then that person would be charged and in the dock.

Police have been confident before — but others who were once prominent persons of interest have been investigated and cleared. Nor was there any evidence for another theory that William was abducted by a paedophile ring.

Then in November last year, then-police commissioner Mick Fuller revealed there was a new person of interest in the investigation. It was the foster mother.

Investigators with Strike Force Rosann moved back to Kendall on the state’s north coast to concentrate a massive search on the home that had belonged to William’s foster nana, the foster mother’s mum, signalling that they were searching for human remains.

William Tyrrell’s 2014 disappearance is still a mystery.

The house in Benaroon Drive was where the foster mother took the now iconic photograph of him on the deck in his Spider-Man suit at 9.37am on September 12, 2014. She has said that as she then sat drinking tea with her mum, she heard William roar as he pretended to be a tiger — and then “nothing”.

Metadata has confirmed the photograph was indeed taken at that time after questions during the inquest into William’s disappearance that it may have been taken two hours earlier.

The shift in focus of what has become one of the country’s most enduring mysteries coincided with Detective Chief Inspector David Laidlaw taking over the strike force in 2019 after his predecessor Gary Jubelin was moved aside and later resigned from the police.

Like Jubelin, Laidlaw is a veteran homicide investigator but the two men have publicly differed in who they believe may be responsible for William’s disappearance.

The cosy relationship police had with the foster family soon broke down under the new leadership.

The first indication of Laidlaw’s suspicions came in July 2019 when documents released by the inquest into William’s disappearance included a statement that suggested police could not corroborate the foster mother’s evidence that she saw two strange cars in the street on that September morning.

She had initially told police that about 9.30am, she had seen a car drive past and do a U-turn in a neighbour’s driveway as William rode his bike.

William Tyrrell’s foster mother faces charges not relating to the toddler’s disappearance. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Then she said that the next day, as she drove home after picking up her sister from Port Macquarie airport about 5pm, she remembered seeing two cars parked in Benaroon Drive from about 7.30am to 9.30am.

Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame was due to hand down her findings from the inquest in June 2019 but they have been postponed indefinitely because of the fresh police investigation.

The search of the Kendall house and surrounding bushland is understood to have yielded no evidence of William. Police also seized the foster nana’s grey Mazda from its new owner in Gymea to undergo extensive forensic examination in case it was used to move William’s body before the foster mother dialled triple-0 at 10.57 that morning.

The car had already been searched but it is not known if anything new was found.

Police conducting the fresh investigation were hoping to put pressure on the foster nana who was the only other person present with the foster mother when William disappeared. However she has since died.

William Tyrrell was last seen in Kendall in 2014.

It is no secret that both the foster mother and the foster father have been taken down to the forbidding headquarters of the powerful NSW Crime Commission in Kent St. Both have been charged with giving false or misleading information to the commission.

The commission has wide and coercive powers to force people to give evidence,

The 56-year-old foster mother was issued with a court attendance on Tuesday by NSW Homicide detectives. Her husband was charged with identical offences earlier this year and has pleaded not guilty.

Both of Tyrrell’s foster parents have also pleaded not guilty to charges in November last year in relation to the alleged assault of another child — not William.

His foster mother also faces charges of stalking and intimidation.

In a police interview in September 2016, given in evidence at the inquest, the foster mother said it was “outrageous” to think that something had accidentally happened to William and it was covered up.

As investigations into the happy toddler’s disappearance continue, there remains no certain evidence about what happened to him as legal experts have warned that the police could be leaving themselves wide open to a massive civil claim for damages from the foster parents.