Once branded a killer, Kathleen Folbigg says what happened next rubbed salt in her wounds

It is 18 months since Kathleen Folbigg was released from prison, and the woman once branded a killer is speaking effusively about her rescue dog Snowie, a “snuggle bear” who spent her early life in a cage.

“She saved me, I saved her,” she said. “She offers an unconditional love. There’s no strings. It’s pure.”

Kathleen Folbigg and her rescue dog, Snowie, at Stockton in Newcastle.Credit: James Brickwood

Folbigg, 57, has spent more than a third of her life incarcerated. She was pardoned in June last year by the NSW governor and released from prison immediately, having served 20 years of a minimum 25-year sentence over the deaths of her four young children.

Her release was triggered by a landmark inquiry that concluded genetic evidence cast reasonable doubt about her guilt over her children’s sudden deaths in infancy and early childhood. Folbigg’s convictions – three counts of murder and one of manslaughter – were formally quashed in December.

But, almost a year later, the state government is still wrestling with the question of compensation, and Folbigg said the complex and drawn-out process has rubbed “extra salt” in the wound.

There is now broad support among NSW MPs for her to receive compensation in the form of an ex gratia or “act of grace” payment, likely to total millions of dollars. They believe it should be paid soon.

“I support an ex gratia payment,” said Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, who was attorney-general in 2022 when Governor Margaret Beazley acted on his recommendation to set up an inquiry into Folbigg’s convictions.

Folbigg said it was a “travesty” the process for receiving an ex gratia payment had been so complex.Credit: James Brickwood

Greens upper house MP Sue Higginson said: “Time is of the essence. How long and what does it take for a woman who has been so wronged to actually get justice in a manner and form that she deserves?

“We’re just dealing with a system that keeps failing her.”

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party upper house MP Mark Banasiak said Folbigg’s release from prison “is only part justice”.

“For her to get complete justice in all this, she needs to be compensated for this traumatic experience. To drag it out, for whatever reason, is cruel and unusual.

“My message for the government is: pull your finger out and get it done. This woman’s been through enough.”

Nationals upper house MP Wes Fang said “there’s no question that the state government should be providing her compensation”.

“That it’s taken as long as it has is only exacerbating the trauma that she’s undergone.

“If it was my decision, I would be looking to right this wrong the day she was released. It is extraordinary that [Attorney-General] Michael Daley and [Premier] Chris Minns have been sitting on their hands seemingly waiting for the problem to go away.”

A spokesperson for Daley said Folbigg’s application for an ex gratia payment, submitted in July, was being “carefully considered” and that “after all that has happened over the last 20 years, it is impossible not to feel great sympathy for all involved”.

“Every ex gratia application is considered on its own facts and context and assessed on its merits.

“The attorney-general acknowledges concerns about timeliness and this matter is receiving the attention it deserves, balanced with the need to carefully consider the significant material forwarded in support of the application.”

The size of any payout to Folbigg, now living near Newcastle, is likely to make history, but how it will be calculated is opaque.

Lindy and Michael Chamberlain received a combined $1.3 million ex gratia payment in 1992 from the Northern Territory government after their convictions over the death of their daughter Azaria were quashed in 1988. Lindy had spent three years in prison.

A former NSW school student will receive more than $1.2 million in damages for a violent bullying attack in 2017 after a Supreme Court ruling this year.

Folbigg said it is not about “wanting money for the sake of money”, and she was interested in donating some of the money to genetic research, funding additional transitional centres for women leaving prison and animal welfare.

She believed it was a “travesty” that the process for receiving an ex gratia payment had been so complex.

As they made the case for a payment, Folbigg and her lawyer Rhanee Rego were welcomed to a lunch in the Strangers’ Restaurant overlooking the Domain at NSW Parliament on August 27.

COUNTING THE COST

Kathleen Folbigg’s lawyer, Rhanee Rego, says an ex gratia payment for Folbigg should cover:

• Past and future loss of income;
• Loss of liberty for 20 years;
• Punitive or exemplary damages.

In attendance were the Shooters and Fishers’ Banasiak and Robert Borsak, Higginson, Fang and upper house Labor MP Stephen Lawrence. Labor’s Cameron Murphy also dropped in.

If Folbigg ever has the money to buy a home, she would like to get a “playmate” for Snowie, now about 20 months old. The whippet-cross was rescued from an RSPCA shelter in the Hunter.

“I liked the idea of being able to go to a rescue place because to me that’s pretty much like doggy jails,” Folbigg said.

“They spend too long in there and sometimes some of them don’t ever get to come back out. It’s a dismal end for some.”

Folbigg outside the Court of Criminal Appeal after the convictions were quashed in 2023, with solicitor Rhanee Rego and close friend Tracy Chapman (right).Credit: Kate Geraghty

Asked about her relationship with grief, Folbigg said that “grief, as far as I’m concerned, is an eternal thing”. But she is conscious that “anger’s not worth anything”.

She said she had met women in prison who had not had the opportunity to attend their children’s funerals – something she was able to do.

“I’ve had to sideline and put to bed the whole business of where are my children’s ashes,” she said.

She believed they had been “scattered somewhere”, but hoped one day in her own home to “set up my own space that will celebrate them and [to] be able to go to them”.

Folbigg’s former husband, Craig, who remarried and did not support the inquiry process, died from a heart attack in March this year.

Former NSW chief justice Tom Bathurst, KC, who presided over the inquiry into Folbigg’s convictions, concluded last year that her diaries, a key plank of the prosecution’s case in her 2003 trial, did not contain reliable admissions of guilt over the deaths of the couple’s children, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah, and Laura, between 1989 and 1999. They were aged between 19 days and 18 months.

“The evidence before the inquiry, at most, demonstrates that Ms Folbigg was a loving and caring mother who occasionally became angry and frustrated with her children. That provides no support for the proposition that she killed her four children,” Bathurst said.

Folbigg resued Snowie from an RSPCA shelter in the Hunter.Credit: James Brickwood

The inquiry heard expert evidence that a genetic variant Folbigg shared with her daughters might cause cardiac arrhythmias – irregular heart rhythms – and sudden unexpected death. It also heard Patrick might have died as a result of an underlying neurogenetic disorder such as epilepsy. The genetic variant was discovered after Folbigg’s trial.

Rego said the case for an ex gratia payment “falls into three broad categories, the first being payment for economic loss Kathleen suffered as a result of being convicted”.

“She lost the opportunity to have a career and will not be able to have one in the future.”

The second category was for loss of liberty for 20 years.

Rego said this was “not just about her being put in jail for 20 years, it’s about how bad that 20 years was for her – the isolation, the torment, the assaults and the psychological trauma, most of which will never leave her”. The third category was “exemplary or punitive damages”.

Rego said Folbigg “was convicted based on speculation rather than evidence, then the appeal courts failed to realise the system made a mistake”.

“A first public inquiry failed her. All the while Kathleen was in jail – the experience of 20 years was harrowing. Many people who serve time can avoid attention and fly under the radar; Kathleen couldn’t because she was ‘Australia’s worst female serial killer’.”

Folbigg said her life had been populated with firsts since her release, including fixing her first flat tyre recently. Her favourite place is her car.

She said Snowie’s paw pads were “so soft” when she first rescued her “because she’d never been running around anywhere.” But now they were tough.

“What makes me happy is seeing her happy, when she’s running around zooming and playing with toys.”

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.