I didn’t believe most of what the accused said about crash: ex-cop

A former police officer has told an inquest he didn’t believe ‘a large majority’ of what Alexander Ian Grant told him about a devastating accident that killed two Indigenous girls 36 years ago.

Cindy Smith (left) and Mona-Lisa Smith (cousins) who tragically died 36 years ago near Bourke in a car crash.

A former police officer has told an inquest he didn’t believe “a large majority” of what accused man Alexander Ian Grant told him about a devastating accident that killed two Indigenous girls in Bourke, NSW, 36 years ago.

The retired constable, Christopher Clarke, agreed that Grant’s claim that the younger accident victim propositioned him and removed her clothes moments after being catastrophically injured in a utility crash “does sound like rubbish’’.

In its first three days, the resumed inquest into the deaths of Bourke Aboriginal cousins Jacinta Rose Smith, 15, and Mona Lisa Smith, 16, has heard from four former police officers who said they didn’t believe Grant, or that Grant initially admitted to driving when his ute crashed, before changing his story and naming Mona as the driver.

The middle-aged excavator driver, who had been drinking heavily on the night of the double fatality in December 1987, escaped conviction over the girls’ deaths.

Mr Clarke, who conducted a preliminary interview with Grant, admitted “I could have asked more questions but I didn’t’’ about Jacinta being found deceased and in a near-naked state at the crash site outside Bourke.

Mona-Lisa Smith in sixth-grade.

Grant, then 40, was lying next to the girl with his arm across her exposed breasts.

The inquest has previously heard former NSW constable Kenneth McKenzie accuse former Bourke detective Peter John Ehsman – who initially led the investigation – of “a gross miscarriage of justice (in) the way that (he) investigated the crash’’.

Testifying on Wednesday, Mr Ehsman admitted that even before a crime scene unit arrived at the crash site outside Bourke, he had decided Mona Smith had been driving Grant’s ute when it crashed, because “he (Grant) told me what happened’’.

He told the inquest: “I’d already ascertained who was the driver, from Grant … I didn’t have any doubts, no.

“Grant told me one of the girls wanted to drive.’’

Despite accepting this story at face value, Mr Ehsman said he suspected that Grant had sexually interfered with Cindy’s body and lied about this.

Mr McKenzie said he had told Mr Ehsman that Grant originally admitted he was driving but changed his story as soon as he learned the girls had died.

Mr Ehsman denied this. “I’ve never heard him (Mr McKenzie) say that,’’ he said. He said if Mr McKenzie had told him Grant had changed his story, he would have been more suspicious of Grant’s claim Mona was driving the ute when it crashed.

The inquest has heard official statements were not taken during Mr Ehsman’s investigation from the first police and ambulance officers who attended the crash site and who overheard Grant say he had been driving when his ute crashed.

Grant died around 2017 in NSW, and never spent a day in jail over the teenagers’ deaths or over his alleged sexual assault of Cindy Smith’s body.

In 1988, he was charged with indecently interfering with Cindy’s corpse and culpable driving causing the death of both girls, but was acquitted at his 1990 trial.

His lawyers successfully argued that Mona was driving the crashed ute, while the interfering with Cindy’s body charge was “no billed” or withdrawn by prosecutors shortly before Grant’s trial because of a technicality.

The inquest is investigating whether racial bias played a role in the police investigation into the girls’ deaths.

Grant’s vehicle was not seized by Bourke police and the crash site was not properly secured or thoroughly photographed, the inquest has heard.

Mona Smith would have turned 52 on Wednesday. Her mother, June, is expected to testify this week.