John Edwards inquest: Murdered teen Jack used gaming to escape violent reality
The effects of killer dad John Edwards’ appalling abuse of his son Jack were clear in therapy when his “eyes welled up”, an inquest has heard.
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Murdered Sydney teen Jack Edwards used online gaming to escape the violent reality of his abusive father, an inquest has heard.
A psychologist who treated Jack in 2017 said the teenager was clearly emotional in their sessions but “denied any feelings” and was refusing to attend school.
The psychologist admitted he should have reported Jack as a child at risk of significant harm.
On July 5, 2018, Jack and his younger sister Jennifer were murdered by their father John, who shot them at the West Pennant Hills home where they lived with their mother Olga.
He then drove home and killed himself. Olga took her own life five months later.
An inquest into the tragic murder-suicide has been under way for three weeks before state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan, who is investigating how NSW Police, the firearms registry and the Family Court could have done things differently.
The psychologist, who cannot be named, first saw Jack on June 21, 2017.
The 14-year-old was accompanied by his mother Olga. They told the psychologist about John’s escalating violence towards Jack, which started when he was 10 years old.
Jack was struggling. He had a school attendance rate of just 32 per cent and was angry and aggressive to his sister and mother, the inquest heard.
He had also developed a gaming addiction, which the psychologist saw as a reaction to the physical abuse.
Jack was using the screen time “as an avoidance technique”, he said.
Notes from one session recorded that Jack was “very emotional at times but denied any feelings” and that he “says he’s been fine but in moments of intense pain eyes welled up”.
He also dissociated at points, the psychologist said, “Like he was somewhere else. Just for short periods.”
The psychologist agreed that “in hindsight” he should have reported Jack to Family and Community Services as a child at risk of significant harm.
On Wednesday another psychologist told the inquest she had seen Jack four times and Jennifer five times, and that the children reported numerous instances of violence to her, some of which John admitted to.
She also did not make a report to FACS because the kids were living with Olga and John did not know the address.
The inquest continues.
Lawyer called mum of killed kids ‘hard-nosed bitch’: Inquest
The lawyer representing the children of killer dad John Edwards in family court proceedings thought their mother Olga was a “hard-nosed bitch”, an inquest has heard.
But a family therapist warned the children’s lawyer that it was Edwards who “might be more dangerous than he seems” and he had a narcissistic personality, the inquest heard.
The therapist, whose identity has been suppressed, said she had asked the children’s lawyer Debbie Morton not to tell Edwards what she thought of him because she “feared his retribution”. She told the inquest that she feared he would try to denigrate her professionally.
The clash between the lawyer and the therapist has been revealed at the inquest into the deaths of the Edwards children — Jack, 15, and Jennifer, 13 — who were shot dead by their father in July 2018. Edwards, 67, then shot himself dead.
Their mother Olga Edwards, 37, committed suicide six months later.
The therapist said Jack and Jennifer, who had both been assaulted by their dad, had told her that they didn’t think Ms Morton had been listening to them when they told her how their father had assaulted them.
She said Ms Morton had told her she had thought Olga Edwards had presented as a “hard nosed bitch” in court.
The inquest was told that Ms Morton — who was appointed to represent Jack and Jennifer after their parents separated in March 2016 — had written in an email in 2017 to the other lawyers representing Olga and Jack that herself and the therapist had agreed to a “plan”.
Part of that plan, according to Ms Morton’s email read to the inquest, was that if “Olga continued to thwart the possible restitution of the relationship between the father and the children she will leave no alternative” but to recommend to the court that both children or at least Jack be removed from their mother’s care and placed in their father’s care.
The therapist told the inquest she never agreed to that and knew nothing about it.
“Absolutely not,” she said today.
The therapist said Jennifer had told her that she had caught her dad watching porn several times and she “hated his guts”.
“I feel scared. When I see him my heart starts pounding really fast,” she said Jennifer told her.
“He has done all sorts of horrible things and I don’t think I can ever forgive him,” Jennifer said.
The inquest heard Jennifer hated her dad for neglecting the family’s dog and told the therapist said she had not been surprised that his previous families had left him.
He had eight older children to six other partners.
While Jack had told her that if he had to go and live with his dad, he would have to be dragged there.
“He used to beat me in the past, I don’t care for him anymore,” she said Jack told her.
The therapist had noted during one consultation with John Edwards that he told her: “Olga had brainwashed the children against him and she had made up this story of fear and there was nothing to fear.”
The inquest continues at Lidcombe Coroners Court.