Granddaughter’s heartbreaking message about murder of grandfather

Yvonne remembers the smell of her grandfather’s aftershave, his “old-fashioned corduroy cap” and his gentle laugh.

Known affectionately to his grandchildren as “Fardy”, the Derbyshire-born Richard Slater “would build me a cubby house made from old sheets and wooden crates”, she recalled.

Newcastle Herald article dated December 24, 1980, about the death of Richard Slater.

Yvonne was 11 when Slater died, aged 69, on December 22, 1980, three days after a brutal assault in a public toilet in Birdwood Park in central Newcastle.

“Murder is a haunting that never leaves you,” she said. “A sense of fear always has a presence, even though you pretend it does not. Your world was once a safe place, and now you are vulnerable.”

Slater’s death is being examined as part of NSW’s landmark inquiry into hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people because the toilet block was a gay beat and a suspected assailant was known to target presumed beat users for robberies.

The inquiry heard on Friday that Slater’s family “assume him to have been heterosexual and have no information suggesting that he may have been gay”. He had lived in Newcastle for 40 years and met his wife at a country dance.

“There is evidence that Mr Slater was known to have a prostate condition that necessitated he frequently urinate,” one of a team of counsel assisting the inquiry, William de Mars, said.

The inquiry heard Yvonne’s late mother recalled her father had been beaten so badly that he was “entirely non-verbal”. He died after a cardiac arrest at 5.07pm on December 22, 1980.

Counsel assisting said it was “highly likely” a man called Jeffrey Miller, who died in 1986, was responsible for the assault that led to Slater’s death, but he submitted the inquiry would hesitate to make a formal finding because Miller was not alive to answer the allegation and a prosecution case against him was dropped in 1983.

Richard Slater, who died in Newcastle in December 1980 after a brutal attack.

Miller had been charged in September 1982 with Slater’s murder, but the prosecution subsequently filed a “no bill” and the case did not proceed.

“If the inquiry were satisfied that Mr Miller was the perpetrator, there is evidence that he had a practice of targeting beat users as targets for robbery,” counsel assisting said.

The inquiry heard Slater’s money purse containing about $30 was missing.

If Slater had died at the hands of Miller, counsel assisting said his death was “likely to have involved the targeting, or ‘discriminatory selection’ of someone presumed to be gay” or a beat user, whether or not that assumption was correct, “on the basis that he was … seen as a vulnerable target of robbery”.

“It is submitted that such a case … is one in which LGBTIQ bias is present.”

Supreme Court Justice John Sackar, who is heading the inquiry, thanked Yvonne for her submission, in which she remembered her grandfather as “a loyal and humble family man with a caring nature, just going about life with integrity”.

“Richard’s life story will probably be considered by most as ordinary; however, through the eyes of a granddaughter, it is in the ordinary that the greatest treasures and memories are found,” she wrote.

“The horrific and heartbreaking impact that his murder has had on my life is very hard to express openly and words often evade me when talking about it.

“I witnessed my beloved grandmother (his wife) and my beloved mother (his daughter) suffer immensely in their grief, both broken-hearted.”

While he was yet to receive submissions from NSW Police, Sackar said there was “no doubt that Mr Slater died as a result of a cowardly attack upon him”.

“You were one of the first people to make contact with me when my appointment was announced,” he told Yvonne. “I thank you for that. Your grandfather would rightly be very proud of you.”

He extended the inquiry’s condolences to Yvonne and her extended family.

“My true hope and intention in this statement about Richard Slater is to shine a light on his life and not for him to be remembered as a victim or a news headline, but for him to be remembered as someone who had a raison d’etre – a reason for being,” Yvonne said.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.