y to focus on Family Court system

Events leading up to Australia’s worst gun massacre since Port Arthur may finally be examined after WA’s Attorney-General flagged a parliamentary inquiry.

Peter Miles (centre) with his wife, Cynda Miles (back), their daughter Katrina Miles, right, and her four childre. Picture: Courtesy of Nine News

Events leading up to Australia’s worst gun massacre since Port Arthur look set to finally be examined in detail after Western Australia’s Attorney-General flagged a parliamentary inquiry into the killings.

Attorney-General John Quig­ley on Tuesday met with Aaron Cockman and his parents, Philip and Kim Cockman, to inform them that he would not be able to grant their request for a coroner’s inquest into the 2018 massacre of Aaron’s four children by their grandfather Peter Miles, but he said he would instead request an inquiry into the deaths by a WA parliamentary committee.

Mr Cockman’s daughter Taye, 13, and his sons Rylan, 12, Arye, 10, and Kadyn, eight, along with their mother Katrina and Miles’s wife Cynda were all shot by Miles at the family farm in Osmington, just outside Margaret River in WA’s southwest, in May 2018 before Miles shot himself.

Aaron Cockman and his partner Yasmina. Picture: Colin Murty

Mr Cockman had been pushing for intervention from Mr Quigley since State Coroner Ros Fogliani informed him earlier this year that there would be no public inquest into the deaths.

Mr Quigley said while he had received legal advice that he did not have the authority to overturn the coroner’s inquest decision, he believed the parliament’s community development and justice standing committee would be the best forum for an inquiry into the deaths.

The committee inquiry would spare families from the expense of lawyers and also allow a broader examination of their concerns around circumstances leading up to the tragedy.

The inquiry could also look at whether family disputes were being handled in the best way possible under WA’s Family Court system, which is a key area of focus for Mr Cockman.

“We all know, sadly, that this has not been a one-off and there have been other murder-­suicides resulting from family disputation,” Mr Quigley said.

While there appears to be bipartisan support for the move, the looming state election means it may be several months before any inquiry is officially confirmed.

Liberal justice spokesman Peter Katsambanis, who chairs the current committee, noted it would be dissolved once the WA parliament rises in three weeks and it would be up to the next parliament’s committee to formally decide on the inquiry.

He said he would push for the next committee to carry out the inquiry if he was still chairman after the election. “It really needs to look at the systemic issues that led to this tragedy and how all levels of government can learn from this,” he said.

Aaron Cockman said the parliamentary inquiry was “exactly” what he was hoping for.

He and his parents are eager to see the committee examine whether the Family Court process contributed to amplifying tensions between him and his father-in-law and exacerbating the financial and health pressures in the Miles family.

“The law court system got us into this and it all spiralled out of control … It’s almost like it’s designed to do that, to tear families apart,” Mr Cockman said.

Philip Cockman said he had warned in 2015 that the Family Court process could lead Miles to a mass murder, and argued that elements of the present Family Court system were being “misused”.

“The fingerprint is there and it’s going to be seen,” he said.

WA’s Coroners Act is also likely to come under review in the wake of the Osmington massacre.

Mr Quigley noted that the act currently required any appeal of an inquest decision within seven days, a time limit he said was ­clearly far too short for grieving families.