By Lucy Cormack, Angus Thompson and Latika Bourke
An inquiry into the 2003 conviction of Kathleen Megan Folbigg, dubbed by the media as "Australia's worst female killer", has produced evidence that "reinforces her guilt", a former chief judge of the District Court has concluded.
Folbigg was jailed for at least 25 years in 2003 after she was found guilty of killing her four babies – Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura – in the decade from 1989.
The four children all died aged between 19 days and 18 months over a 10-year period, from February 1989 to March 1999.
On Monday night, NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman announced the findings of a recent inquiry into Folbigg's guilt, led by former chief judge of the District Court the Honorable Reginald Blanch AM QC, who ultimately found he did not have "any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Kathleen Megan Folbigg for the offences of which she was convicted".
"I agree with the findings and decisions made pre-trial, during the trial and on appeal," he said.
Kathleen Folbigg answering questions about her diary entries during an inquiry into her convictions.Credit: AAP
"It remains that the only conclusion reasonably open is that somebody intentionally caused harm to the children, and smothering was the obvious method. The evidence pointed to no person other than Ms Folbigg."
Folbigg's solicitor Stuart Gray said he and his team were "obviously very disappointed", adding that he had not yet had a chance to speak with his client and would be seeking instructions on Tuesday morning.
"Whilst we're disappointed with the views of the commissioner we look forward to the consideration of the transcript and report that will now be undertaken by NSW Governor Margaret Beazley," he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
"We remain hopeful that consideration will be given to the evidence of the various experts that appeared at the inquiry and those that submitted reports after it."
When she was handed her sentence in 2003, Folbigg earned the title of "Australia's worst female killer", but she has always maintained her innocence, claiming her children died of natural causes.
In August last year, the NSW government agreed to a judicial review of Folbigg's convictions, with hearings held in March and May this year, following a lengthy petition by Folbigg's supporters to have her convictions reviewed.
On Monday night, Mr Speakman, who is in London on a private holiday, told reporters the inquiry had caused him great distress.
“Of course that distress is incomparable with the distress the Folbigg family has been through, in particular Craig Folbigg, the children’s father over the past years,” he said.
The Attorney-General said he had decided to order the inquiry because the Crown had told the jury during Folbigg’s trial that there had never been a case of three deaths in one family that could be attributed to unidentified natural causes.
“That has turned out to be wrong and that was the catalyst for my decision to recommend to his Excellency the then-Governor that there be an inquiry into the convictions.”
After refusing to testify at her own trial, Folbigg gave oral evidence to the inquiry, which Mr Speakman described on Monday as "a pack of lies and a pack of obfuscation trying to disguise the real truth that she had killed her four children".
On the final day of the inquiry's hearings in early May, John Folbigg, the eldest brother of Kathleen’s former husband, Craig, described the inquiry as "unnecessary" and "unwelcome."
"However we have endured it, and as ultimately it would, we feel, help to ensure that the justice that Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura received in 2003 is upheld," Mr Folbigg said outside the NSW Coroners Court earlier this year.
Craig Folbigg stood silently behind his older brother, remaining as passive as he had been during two and a half days of evidence by his former wife, in which she repeatedly denied that certain entries of her infamous diaries alluded to her having killed her children.
"The problem that I felt that landed me in the position that I’m in is assumptions being made, and things being taken out of context, and nobody understanding what it was I was trying to say when I was writing in these diaries," Folbigg said.
She repeatedly told the inquiry she believed that a supernatural power had killed all of her children.
In his report, Mr Blanch said Folbigg's "own explanations and behaviour in respect of her diaries" made her guilt of the offences "even more certain", while adding that her "untruthfulness to the police and in the evidence she gave before the inquiry was a deliberate attempt to obscure the fact that she committed the offences of which she was convicted".
Mr Speakman said the findings by Mr Blanch put "beyond doubt Ms Folbigg’s conviction", and provided the public confidence "that the jury system worked... and that no stone has been left unturned".