John Edwards inquest: Killer dad stalked wife Olga at yoga
A father who murdered his kids in Sydney’s northwest had been stalking his estranged wife at her yoga class in the months before his horrific crime, an inquest has heard.
Police & Courts
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A young constable failed to run killer dad John Edwards’ name through the computer system when his estranged wife Olga rushed from yoga to tell Hornsby police that he had turned up unannounced at her class, an inquest has been told.
Had that been done, police would have seen that there was an earlier instance when an AVO had been taken out against Edwards for stalking another family member, raising fears for Olga’s safety.
Instead, Olga Edwards’ report was never followed up, just like an earlier report that she had made to the same police station just six weeks earlier that her estranged husband had been assaulting their children Jack and Jennifer was never followed up by another police officer, the inquest has heard.
With hindsight he should have done more, ex-constable Rowan Kingdon, who was on duty on the morning when Olga Edwards arrived at Hornby station at 6.45am, straight from her yoga class, told the inquest.
“If everybody could go back and change something, yes I would have changed (it),” Rowan Kingdon, who retired medically unfit from the police earlier this year said.
“Unfortunately you can’t go back.”
That was on February 8, 2017, and if police had determined Edwards was stalking his estranged wife, they would have been obliged by their own rules to seek an AVO to protect her.
In July 2018, Edwards, 67, stalked Jennifer to the home where she, her brother and their mother had been hiding from him and shot Jack, 15, and Jennifer, 13, dead.
He then killed himself.
Olga, 37, committed suicide six months later after her mother had returned home to Russia.
Yoga teacher James Campbell said seeing her husband at the 6am class that morning and the stress of her divorce proceedings had turned Olga from a “happy little joyous” person to a shell of herself
Olga had been attending the yoga studio at West Pennant Hills for about five years. John Edwards has had been going for a few weeks.
Mr Campbell said that he had not known Edwards was Olga’s estranged husband but had been acting so strange, he had told him that same morning never to come back.
Mr Campbell said there were a couple of yoga positions where you have to keep your head down and Edwards used to keep looking around the room, making the class feel “exposed”.
When Olga reported her husband to police on February 8, Mr Kingdon said she didn’t tell them she was afraid of her husband but appeared more “pissed off” that he had turned up at her yoga class.
He had rung John Edwards who told him the couple had been going to the same class for years, even before they split up.
Counsel assisting the inquest Chris Mitchell put it to the ex-cop that had he followed Olga’s report up, he would have found out not only about the previous stalking but that Edwards was lying about being a regular at the yoga studio.
Mr Kingdon said that would have raised red flags and “completely change” how he dealt with it but he had checked with his senior officer at Hornsby and been told he had dealt with it correctly