Bronwyn Winfield’s police suspect husband cut off her sole parent pension

Missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield’s sole parent pension was cut off just weeks after she disappeared, after her estranged husband applied for the money to be diverted to him instead | LISTEN

Bronwyn Winfield, with husband Jon and daughter Lauren, vanished on May 16, 1993.

Missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield’s sole-parent pension was cut off just weeks after she disappeared, after her estranged husband applied for the money to be diverted to him instead.

Jon Winfield moved quickly to stop and take over his wife’s ­social security payments, despite telling police she had gone away for a short break and could be back any time, a new episode of the Bronwyn podcast reveals.

Just over two weeks after last seeing her, Mr Winfield told the welfare agency later known as Centrelink that Bronwyn had disappeared and their children were now in his care.

Bronwyn’s brother, Andy Read, said Mr Winfield had aroused further suspicion by stopping and diverting Bronwyn’s payments so soon after she went missing from Lennox Head almost 32 years ago.

A long-time police suspect in Bronwyn’s disappearance, Mr Winfield, who turned 70 this week, continues to categorically deny any involvement.

“If your story was that your wife walked out the door and had a chance to go away for a while, why within about three weeks of her doing that did you go and change all monetary payments for the kids into your name, so they came into your account, not hers?” Mr Read said.

Mr Winfield is the last known person to see or hear from Bronwyn, saying she was picked up in a car by an unknown person at their Lennox Head home on the NSW far north coast on the night of May 16, 1993. He reported her missing to police 11 days later, on May 27, at the insistence of her worried brother, Mr Read.

Back then Mr Winfield told a detective, Graeme Diskin, that Bronwyn was aware he would take the girls to Sydney for eight to 10 days while she enjoyed what he called her break from the kids, the podcast reveals.

Bronwyn Winfield was last seen by her husband on the night of May 16, 1993.

Another detective, Glenn Taylor, began investigating Bronwyn’s disappearance five years later and prepared a 120-page police statement in 1999.

Bronwyn had been entitled to a sole-parent pension since separating from Mr Winfield in March 1993. But Mr Taylor discovered her weekly pension payments were cut off soon after she disappeared. “Mrs Bronwyn Winfield’s husband Jonathan attended the Ballina Social Security office on 2 June 1993 to advise that Mrs Bronwyn Winfield had disappeared and the sole-parent pension was suspended on that day,” Mr Taylor stated.

“Records reveal that there has not been a further claim or any payments since the payments were suspended.”

Bronwyn’s pension was cancelled on June 25, 1993, Mr Taylor said. “It was determined there were no children in Bronwyn Winfield’s care, as another person had applied for a sole-parent pension – Jonathan Winfield – claiming the children to be in his care. Bronwyn Winfield’s family allowance payment was also cancelled from that date.”

Jon Winfield, left, with Bronwyn's daughter Chrystal and Perry Levitas, the then husband of Bronwyn's cousin Megan.

Interviewed for the podcast, Mr Read and his wife Michelle questioned not only why Mr Winfield stopped Bronwyn’s pension in the weeks after she went missing, but how he was able to. “For someone that’s supposedly just gone off for a few days to get her head clear, right, why have you then gone and demanded that she be taken off the single pension? And how can someone else do that?” Mr Read said.

Ms Read added: “That’s what worries me, how quickly he went and changed the Centrelink payments. What sort of proof did he have? You’re going to tell me he walked into a social security place and said, ‘My wife’s getting the ­social security, and she’s not here anymore’. ‘Oh, OK sir’. How do you do that?”

Mr Taylor also found that on May 10, 1993, six days before she went missing, Bronwyn applied for an assessment of separate child support she was entitled to from Mr Winfield. The support was to help feed, clothe and raise her daughter Chrystal, 10, from a previous relationship, and Lauren, 5, her daughter with Mr Winfield. ­“Inquiries with the Child Support Agency, Sydney, confirmed that a claim had been made by Mrs Bronwyn Winfield for payments to be made by her husband for the support of the children,” Mr Taylor stated.

“A document was located which sets out the proposed ­arrangement. This order was ­apparently never acted upon as Bronwyn had gone missing.”

A child support registrar wrote to Bronwyn, advising her application had been accepted.

Mr Winfield would need to pay her $231 a month and owed her back pay of $607 to when they ­separated.

Mr Read suspects his sister’s body and other incriminating evidence may have been buried under concrete at a house in Illawong in southern Sydney where Mr Winfield was working immediately before and after she went missing.

With the help of lawyer Karina Berger, who has been assisting the podcast investigation, Mr Read detailed the reasons for these suspicions in a letter to NSW State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan on December 5 last year.

The letter outlines Mr Winfield’s alleged unusual and suspicious movements, including his hasty, unplanned road trip to Sydney with Bronwyn’s daughters the night she vanished, and his ready access to the Illawong house construction site. Council documents have been discovered by Mr Read, a builder himself, showing three days before Bronwyn went missing an inspection was carried out at the Illawong property in preparation for a concrete pour.

A confidential source has also said he questioned Mr Winfield about his unusual movements in rushing back to Sydney. Mr Winfield is said to have become angry and “blurted out” that he had to be back for a concrete pour.

The coroner is yet to respond to Mr Read’s call to use her powers to order investigations at the Sydney property that could include scanning and drilling into the concrete and bringing in cadaver dogs.

Former NSW director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery cited insufficient evidence when he rejected a coroner’s recommendation in 2002 that Mr Winfield be charged with Bronwyn’s murder.

Do you know more about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas on [e-mail]