Missing Marion Barter’s daughter Sally Leydon takes aim at decades of failures by authorities

Missing teacher Marion Barter’s daughter says officials should have taken action against a convicted conman when they first concluded he’d obtained his citizenship fraudulently.

Missing woman Marion Barter, her daughter Sally Leydon and Marion's son Owen; at Sally's engagement party in 1997. Picture: Supplied

The daughter of missing Queensland teacher Marion Barter says Australian authorities should have taken action against a convicted conman years ago when they first concluded he’d obtained his citizenship fraudulently.

Sally Leydon has been constrained in her public comments because she hasn’t wanted to interfere with an ongoing NSW inquest into her mother’s mystery disappearance, but has taken aim at decades of failures by authorities in dealing with serial fraudster Ric Blum.

She says that if Belgium-born Mr Blum had been stripped of his citizenship and kicked out of the country, after police and immigration officials discovered his serious criminal history abroad, her mother’s life and the lives of everyone in her family could have taken a dramatically different course.

Whatever the reason for Barter’s unsolved disappearance, she vanished after a secret relationship with Mr Blum, now accused of befriending and then ripping off a series of women around the world.

“What breaks my heart is to think that if the information had been actioned when it was documented by the appropriate authorities, he would never have met my mum,” she said.

“The fact for me is that I’ve lost my mum and I’ve lost my brother.

“My brother died, he committed suicide, and the more I go down this path I believe that was the icing on the cake for him, that Mum had left, and that we’d been told by authorities that they’d located her and she didn’t want to be found, she didn’t want anyone knowing where she was or what she was doing.

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“That had massive ramifications. And yet this guy’s still living his best life, walking the streets of Ballina.”

In 1997, Barter secretly changed her name without telling friends or family to Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel, quit her job at The Southport School on the Gold Coast, sold her home and travelled overseas.

The surname she adopted was one of dozens used by Mr Blum.

He confirmed at the inquest that they had an affair before she vanished, but denies knowing what happened to her or having any involvement in her disappearance.

Other women have since come forward saying Mr Blum deceived and stole from them, sometimes after meeting them through personal ads.

Mr Blum placed one such ad in French-language newspaper Le Courrier Australien in 1994 under the name Fernand Remakel.

The ad was discovered by volunteer researcher Joni Condos, who has been assisting Ms Leydon for almost four years after coming across the case on Seven News podcast The Lady Vanishes.

Ric Blum. Picture: Tessa Flemming

It eventually led to Mr Blum being connected to Barter for the first time, after NSW police for years refused to even acknowledge her as missing.

There has been no trace of Barter since October 1997, when she withdrew large sums of money in Byron Bay, and authorities now presume she is dead.

Mr Blum was at the time of Barter’s disappearance living close by with his wife and teenage children in northern NSW. His international travel movements follow a similar pattern to Barter’s.

Ms Leydon said that if her mother was still alive she would have to be a “modern day Houdini” who could live in a world of technology and not be seen or heard from for a quarter of a century.

The Australian this week detailed how Mr Blum was able to become an Australian citizen in 1976 despite a serious criminal history abroad that included being jailed in France for four years for fraud.

Sally Leydon with her mother, Marion Barter, in the last photo they had taken together. Picture: Facebook

Sally Leydon in 2019. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

He then committed further serious fraud offences overseas, receiving further jail time, and was still able to come back to Australia to stay and claim welfare for decades.

Immigration files released by the National Archives show that by 1980, the Australian Federal Police and immigration officials were fully aware of his criminal record abroad, had placed him on a border watch list and were considering charging him for citizenship fraud, as well as stripping him of citizenship.

Yet he appears to have dropped off the radar amid a frenzy of shifting identities, going on to obtain a total of nine Australian passports under seven different names.

Ms Leydon said other women in Australia had also suffered as a result of Mr Blum being able to stay in the country.

Two, Janet Oldenburg and Ginette Gaffney-Bowan, went to police about him and gave evidence at the inquest.

“If we put Mum to the side for the moment, there’s a bucket load of stuff that this guy should get questioned on,” Ms Leydon said.

“There’s so many elements of this I find extremely frustrating. I just don’t understand why none of it’s been actioned. He seems to be getting away with it.”