Jon Winfield fought for media blackout on missing wife Bronwyn

The estranged husband of Bronwyn Winfield told police he was ‘dead against’ any media coverage to try to find her, saying it was to protect his children.

Retired NSW detective Glenn Taylor, left, and Jon Winfield. Picture: Bianca Farmarkis, Liam Mendes

The estranged husband of missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield told police he was “dead against” any media coverage to try to find her, while insisting he believed she was still alive.

Five years after Bronwyn went missing, bricklayer Jon Winfield sought a total publicity blackout when detectives were reinvestigating, saying it was to protect his children.

Mr Winfield said there had already been plenty of media in the past, and that the fact Bronwyn had not been found indicated she “doesn’t want to come back”.

Detectives tried to impress on Mr Winfield in his only police interview the importance of public awareness in trying to locate missing people, but he could not be convinced, a new episode of the Bronwyn podcast has revealed.

“Like I said, it’s, I’m really dead, dead against any more media because of what, the kids, you know,” he said. He was being interviewed at Ballina police station by Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor and Detective Senior Constable Wayne Temby in August 1998.

No one had seen or heard from Bronwyn since Mr Winfield turned up at the family home in Lennox Head on the state’s north coast on the night of Sunday, May 16, 1993. Later that night, he spontaneously drove Bronwyn’s two daughters to Sydney, saying Bronwyn had suddenly left with an unknown person who arrived at the house in a car.

He has always denied harming Bronwyn, 31, or having any involvement in her disappearance.

Asked by Sergeant Taylor if he thought his wife “might be deceased”, Mr Winfield replied: “No, no, no reason for me to think that way.” Sergeant Taylor sought to clarify whether Mr Winfield thought “she’s somewhere in this country, under another identity”.

Mr Winfield said: “Well, well, I mean I, I’ll tell you the truth, I reckon I could go anywhere I like and assume another identity, I don’t see why anyone else can’t. I mean, it wouldn’t be hard.”

When Bronwyn was a girl her mother, Barbara, had gone overseas and disappeared for years, he said. Bronwyn’s daughter from a previous relationship, Chrystal, was 10 when her mum went missing. Bronwyn and Jon had a daughter together, Lauren, who was five when she disappeared.

Mr Winfield told the detectives he was “very concerned” about police going to the media and disrupting the girls’ lives.

“Well, like I, I said before from my recollection there’s been probably five or six media attempts and they range from newspaper and photo in the Brisbane paper, um, radio broadcast in Sydney, newspaper article here locally, television here locally and radio here locally,” he said. “And when all that was going on my kids went through a bad time at school and, I mean, and over the past five years they’ve adjusted quite well and I just want to keep it that way.”

Taylor: “You understand that the media’s a valuable tool …”

Winfield: “I realise that but …”

Taylor: “In trying to locate people.”

Winfield: “I realise that but I mean, I guess after all avenues are exhausted and all of the investigations I might reconsider it but at this stage …”

Sometimes missing people were located as a result of media coverage, the detective said.

Mr Winfield replied: “I see that on TV all the time but, I mean, like, I’ll say there’s, probably, because the fact that there’s been plenty of media I feel and there’s been no, it hasn’t been successful, then I mean … maybe she doesn’t want to come back, you know.”

Sergeant Taylor assured Mr Winfield there would not be “any decision to use any media outlets until we exhaust our current inquiries”. That included speaking to all relatives and anybody else.

Mr Winfield or his legal adviser would then be consulted, the detective said.

Sergeant Taylor asked Mr Winfield if there was anything else he wanted to raise in the interview.

“Oh, no, just I’d like to reiterate about the media, that’s all,” Mr Winfield replied.

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