Cairns courts: Police tight-lipped over search for remains of Allison Bernard at Archer River
Police remain tight-lipped about the search for the remains of a woman who disappeared near Coen nine years ago, after a coroner ordered officers to undertake fresh excavations.
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Police remain tight-lipped about the search for the remains of a woman who disappeared near Coen nine years ago.
Northern Coroner Nerida Wilson is presiding over an inquest into whether Allison Neridine Bernard, who was 23 years old at the time of her disappearance on February 10, 2013, is in fact dead, and how she died.
She is also examining the adequacy of the police investigation.
The mother-of-two was last seen by Archer River Quarry caretaker Thomas Byrnes, who told police he took her back to his place after drinking at the Exchange Hotel.
He said she urinated on herself, had a shower, and the pair had a consensual sexual encounter before Ms Bernard walked off into the night wearing nothing but a towel, never to be seen or heard from again.
Mr Byrnes said he had washed her clothes in the washing machine – but nine days after she went missing, it came to the attention of police the new quarry caretaker said there was no electricity to the washing machine.
Ms Bernard made a mystery 10-minute phone call from the quarry landline to the mobile phone of her stepmother, Dellis Burns, on the night she went missing.
Ms Burns told police it wasn’t she who answered the phone.
There were two other people at her house that night and neither of them were interviewed about the call.
The inquest, which was adjourned in April with the Coroner giving police very specific search instructions and requesting it be actioned within four months, is expected to resume next month.
The inquest previously heard that on the day after Ms Bernard went missing, Mr Byrnes called police to say she had stolen a car – only to call back 13 minutes later to tell police he had just forgotten where it was.
He told police the car was “stuck down a hole in the gravel pit” and he injured his chest and forearm retrieving it from where it was bogged, the inquest heard.
Mr Byrnes did not call police to report Ms Bernard missing.
Police ultimately visited the quarry three days later, after Ms Bernard’s family reported her missing.
The first thing Mr Byrnes said to police was: “I haven’t done anything with her. I haven’t murdered her or did anything else”, the inquest heard.
In April, Ms Wilson ordered a targeted police investigation and search of locations including a site that was freshly excavated in February 2013 at the Bowyer quarry at the Archer River.
She ordered that police liaise with individuals with local knowledge and identify disused mine shafts that could be of relevance.
She asked police to look into any excavation done by Mr Byrnes at the dam closest to the Bowyer Quarry in February 2013.
The Cairns Post asked the Queensland Police Service (QPS) specific questions about the progress of the search.
QPS responded in a statement “investigations are progressing with a number of QPS officers currently engaged in searches in the Coen area”.
“For operational purposes we are unable to provide any further information.”
Former Exchange Hotel workers Michael Barry and Dean Lloyd in December 2021, during the first sitting of the inquest, told the court of a drinking session at the Exchange Hotel in September or October 2020 where Mr Byrnes allegedly told them words to the effect of: “I could bury you next to her and you would never be found”.
Mr Byrnes subsequently told the inquest his comments had been misconstrued and what he actually said was that he wished he could say something like that to “shut people up”.
No trace of Ms Bernard has ever been found and no charges have ever been laid over her disappearance.
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Originally published as Cairns courts: Police tight-lipped over search for remains of Allison Bernard at Archer River
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