Broken dad Aaron Cockburn wants name cleared

Aaron Cockburn lost his four kids in a murder-sucicide, yet he’s still treated with suspicion.

Ocean of grief: Aaron Cockman at Gnarabup Beach, Margaret River, where he’d hoped to scatter the ashes of his children today. Picture: Marie Nirme

One year to the day since he lost his four children at the hands of his gun-wielding father-in-law, bereaved father Aaron Cockman says there are still those in the close-knit community of Margaret River who treat him as if he had some part in the tragic murder-suicide.

“I’m sad to have to say this but I think it’s important for me to be able to clear my name too,” he wrote to the WA coroner this month, after it contacted him in relation to an inquest into the deaths of his sons Taye, 13, Rylan, 12, and Kayden, 8, and 10-year-old daughter Ayre.

“Because of the secrecy associated with Family Court proceedings, I’ve been left under greater pressure for the past year because some people have the wrong idea about what may have happened,” he responded. “People who don’t know me have come to their own conclusions — and sometimes made these views public.”

Yet 41-year-old Mr Cockman also knows most locals will grieve with him today over the shocking murder-suicide that occurred on May 11 last year, the worst mass shooting in Australia since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

The laid-back civility of this West Australian wine and surf region­ was shattered when grandfather Peter Miles, 61, shot the children, then their mother, his own daughter Katrina, 35, then his wife Cynda, 58, and finally, sitting on the veranda of the farmhouse they all shared, himself.

Mr Cockman is left with four urns of his children’s ashes, which he’d have liked to have scattered today at Gnarabup Beach, where the kitesurfing dad taught his kids to love the ocean as much as him.

“I was going to spread their ashes in the ocean in one hit, but then I thought: ‘No I can’t do that, I want Kat’s ashes to be with the kids.’ I wouldn’t want them to be separated from their mum.”

Peter Miles, centre, wife Cynda, back, daughter Katrina and the grandchildren, all victims of his murder-suicide.

So today will be spent with his extended family at a location near the Miles property at Osmington, ironically called Forever Dreaming Farm, where the separated dad would park out by the roadside and wait to pick up the kids for acces­s visits.

“Access” is part of the painful lexicon of thousands of families across Australia suffering breakdown. When Aaron and Katrina’s marriage fell apart in mid-2014, what followed was a four-year rift between Miles and his skilled ­carpenter son-in-law, who were once friends.

Everyone suffered as legal fees, court orders and arguments over access escalated. But for Miles it was compounded by his deep depression­, worries over a family illness and a shortage of work that may have contributed to his terribl­e murderous acts. An added layer of concern may have been that Katrina believed the children were autistic and required intensive home schooling.

“Kat was very intelligent, very good at teaching the kids,” says Mr Cockman. “And they were fantastic in their own way. Rylan could read a comic faster than me, Taye won an arts award, and Ayre and Kayden could build things. I see it all as ability.”

On Facebook a month before her death, Katrina accused him of “stalking and harassing me”. Yet when Mr Cockman was given supervised visits by the court, he received favourable reports. And a week or so before the murders, Katrina, her estranged husband and the children sat in a cinema watching an Avengers movie togethe­r. “Me and Katrina even shared an ice cream,” he told The Weekend Australian. “All I ever wanted was to be able to spend time with my kids.”

Mr Cockman says he feels strongly there should be an open formal inquest, to expose how acrimony deepened when family members found themselves fighting each other in court.

“It was such a big event that it affected not just me and my family but the whole community and to some extent the whole country,” he wrote to the coroner about the deaths. “For everyone’s sake, I feel there’s a need for there to be a widespread understanding of what happened.”

The WA Coroner’s Court will make a decision in coming weeks. Meanwhile, in the way that profound loss propels people into action, he launched the aaron4kids foundation in February at Parliament House in Canberra. He called on the Prime Minister to initiat­e a royal commission into the family law system.

He says he found kinship with For Kids Sake, a non-profit organisation dedicated to “healthier approach­es” to family separation.

“Far too often, people take sides when families separate,” says Karen Clarke, the charity’s ambassado­r.

“Tragically, in Australia, a child is killed by a parent or family member every two weeks — and Family Court proceedings are one of the common denominators.

“We believe family separation is a major health and social issue — in fact, it’s a public health crisis — and it doesn’t belong in the courtroom. Sadly, neither major party has a policy on this issue.”

For Mr Cockman, if he can get better mediation for families, it will provide a speck of meaning in an ocean of grief.