William Tyrrell case: Bill Spedding police interview footage emerges
Shocking interview footage shows whitegoods repair man Bill Spedding being accused by a police officer of “grabbing” missing boy William Tyrrell. READ THE TRANSCRIPT
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Shocking footage of the moment Bill Spedding was accused by a police officer of abducting William Tyrrell has emerged.
The interrogation began shortly after the Spedding home was raided in January 2015, turning the whitegoods repair man into the highest profile person of interest in the case.
Mr Spedding has consistently denied any involvement in William’s disappearance, including in evidence during the recent coronial inquiry.
In the footage, obtained by ABC’s Four Corners, a NSW detective investigating the abduction of the little boy from his foster grandmother’s home in Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast, accuses Mr Spedding of “grabbing” the child.
“We believe that you may have grabbed William … from the front yard of that address and you may have left the area without anyone knowing,” Detective Justin Moynihan told Mr Spedding.
Detective Moynihan asked Mr Spedding: “Did you take William Tyrrell?” to which Mr Spedding replies: “No”.
After six hours, Mr Spedding was released without charge.
Mr Spedding said as he was being let out of the car, Detective Moynihan turned around and said to him: “We know you did it. We’re going to get you. I’m going to come and arrest you,” and I said, “I haven’t done anything. What are you talking about?”
Speaking for the first time about the unsolved case to Four Corners, Mr Spedding told the ABC the NSW police had ruined his life by wrongfully making him the investigation’s key person of interest.
Mr Spedding, who has launched NSW Supreme Court action against the NSW Police over their treatment of him in relation to the investigation, had been to the house of William’s foster grandmother to fix a washing machine, three days before the three-year-old disappeared.
He told Four Corners someone he knew had contacted the police in the days after William Tyrrell went missing.
He believes the tip-off related to allegations made against him 30 years earlier that he had abused two children.
The allegations had been investigated and dismissed at the time.
“It was going back to within a couple of days of William’s disappearance, that they received a false report regarding me,” Mr Spedding told Four Corners.
“And at that point of time, that was when the entire investigation was derailed.”
Justin Moynihan, Four Corners reported, has been removed from the homicide squad pending an internal police investigation which is not related to the William Tyrrell case.
Mr Spedding had told police that on the morning William disappeared he was 20 minutes away, visiting a cafe and attending a primary school assembly to watch his grandchild receive an award.
The repairman’s alibi was corroborated this year at the coronial inquest by a parent who said he saw Mr Spedding at the school assembly.
Mr Spedding and his lawyer, Peter O’Brien, believe the police focus on him came at the expense of other more promising leads, Four Corners reported.
During the interview, detectives accused Mr Spedding of deleting the record of a phone call made to his mobile by William Tyrrell’s foster mother a few hours before the child disappeared.
Mr Spedding protested his innocence, arguing that he didn’t believe such a record could be deleted.
“If a fellow was guilty, I could well see why someone would break. It was intense. It just got really, really intense from that point onwards,” Mr Spedding said.
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Mr O’Brien said he later discovered police were wrong about Mr Spedding’s mobile phone.
“We naturally enough sent the material to an expert who confirmed that because he was on a telephone call at the time the message was received on the handset, it would not have been recorded on the handset,” Mr O’Brien said.
“There was an innocent explanation as to the message not being there, rather than it having been deleted. Then that was something that was erroneously put to him. It was based on a falsehood and ought to have been checked thoroughly.
Margaret Spedding, the wife of Bill Spedding, told Four Corners she wanted an apology from the police.
“I would like to hear the police apologise to him what they put him through because they just told him they’re going to ruin him, and they did.”
Mr Spedding told Four Corners the investigation had destroyed his life.
“Well, it’s all shattered. Basically, the business no longer exists. We have no, up until this point, we’ve had no life at all, and we’ve basically got to restart over again, but the thing is that the publicity was worldwide.
“It wasn’t just New South Wales. It was Australia and worldwide, and that is damage that can never be repaired.
When asked how that affected him, Mr Spedding said: “Well actually describing the feeling is very difficult, but it’s sad.
“We just don’t know, when someone’s going to pop out of the woodwork, and grab me around the throat again, and say, ‘You’re Bill Spedding. What’d you do with William?’”
Earlier this year, the former lead detective in the William Tyrrell case, Gary Jubelin, was removed from the investigation.
The inquest into William Tyrrell’s disappearance resumes next March.
BILL SPEDDING’S POLICE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Detective Moynihan: I believe you went to that address at 48 Benaroon Drive, Kendall on the 12th of September, 2014.
Bill Spedding: I never went near there.
Detective Moynihan: You were there to fix that washing machine.
Bill Spedding: No I wasn’t.
Detective Moynihan: But perhaps you didn’t make it to the house cause as we know William Tyrrell was wandering around the front yard of his grandmother’s house at 48 Benaroon Drive Kendall on his own. He had no supervision by any parent at that time for a few minutes. We know that.
Bill Spedding: Mmmm
Detective Moynihan: OK
Bill Spedding: I wasn’t there
Detective Moynihan: We believe you were there.
Bill Spedding: I wasn’t there.
Detective Moynihan: We believe that perhaps you may have seen William.
Bill Spedding: No, I never seen him. Never met him.
Detective Moynihan: Further to that we believe that you may have grabbed William from that front address from the front yard of that address, you may have left the area without anyone knowing.
Bill Spedding: Well you obviously believe it ‘cause they’re searching the house and home.
Detective Moynihan: We, of course, we, we very much believe it.
Bill Spedding: Mmm. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.
Originally published as William Tyrrell case: Bill Spedding police interview footage emerges