‘Racial bias’ blamed for letting down dead Bourke Indigenous girls

Despite some relief almost 37 years on, no one will ever be held accountable for the deaths of two Indigenous girls on a NSW highway, the family says.

Dawn and June Smith, front, with their family outside the Bourke courthouse on Tuesday.

A mother says she “wants to be able to hold someone accountable” after a coroner found an ­“inexplicably deficient” police investigation, imbued with racial bias, helped an intoxicated, non-Indigenous man avoid prosecution for sexually interfering with her daughter’s body on the side of an outback highway almost 37 years ago.

NSW coroner Teresa O’Sullivan on Tuesday handed down her findings in Bourke courthouse – the same court where 40-year-old ­excavator driver Alexander Ian Grant was acquitted in 1990 of killing ­Indigenous cousins Jacinta “Cindy” Smith, 15, and Mona-Lisa Smith, 16, in a road crash.

Ms O’Sullivan found, “horrifyingly”, that there was “some form of sexual interference by Mr Grant”, including touching Cindy’s breasts or genital area “after she had passed”. A charge of sexual ­interference was withdrawn by prosecutors because of a technicality, just before the trial began ­

Grant died in 2017 without ever having spent a day in jail over the teenagers’ deaths in 1987.

Cindy’s mother, Dawn Smith, who attended Bourke court on Tuesday, said the inquest granted them “a little bit of relief” but ­“because the police didn’t do the right thing … we won’t be able to see anyone held accountable for what happened to our girls”.

She said the “findings were good” but the “pain and the hurt are still with us and always will be”.

Cindy’s sister Kerrie, who was also in court with Mona’s mother, June, and sister Fiona, said “the police would have treated the ­sexual assault of a white child differently”.

Cindy Smith, left, and Mona-Lisa Smith. Picture: Adam Taylor

“We will never see anyone held accountable for assaulting our sister, who was a child,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan said the families, who she described as “unrelenting advocates”, raised concerns over many decades about the “inadequacy” of the police investigation, which were repeatedly dismissed. She said they were ­“entirely vindicated” by the evidence in this inquest.

On December 5, 1987, Wangkumara girl Cindy, and Murrawarri and Kunja girl Mona-Lisa – described as “young, bright … (and) sparkling with life and excitement” – accepted a lift from Grant, who agreed to take them the short distance home.

Instead, he “plied” them with alcohol.

Grant was known to “scope the Bourke township for young girls to ply with alcohol and to sexually proposition” – conduct the coroner called “predatory and disgraceful”.

In the early hours of December 6, the ute travelled north on the Mitchell Highway between Bourke and Enngonia before it lost control, ran off the road, and rolled over. The girls, who weren’t wearing seatbelts, were thrown out of the car and died of their ­injuries.

The coroner found Grant was driving, despite telling lead investigator Peter Ehsman at the time that Mona had been driving when the ute crashed. “Intoxication, ­fatigue, road speed and lack of lighting” likely played a part in the accident.

Grant’s lawyers also argued at the trial that Mona was driving, and he was in turn acquitted by an all-white jury of culpable driving causing the deaths of both girls.

Detective Sergeant Ehsman told the inquiry last year that he “believed” Grant’s account that one of the girls wanted to drive – something the coroner said “cannot be understood without imputing level of unconscious (racial) bias on his part”.

June and Fiona Smith in Bourke near the site of the tragic car accident where June's daughter Mona-Lisa and her cousin Cindy died in 1987. Picture: Bronwyn Wood

After Ms O’Sullivan handed down her findings, Fiona Smith said “it brings me great peace to ­finally have recognition … that my sister Mona wasn’t driving that car”.

The coroner also found that it was “clear beyond doubt” that the initial investigation “suffered very serious deficiencies”, and that vital evidence, including Grant’s truck, was not secured at the scene and was lost. The car steering wheel, for example, was ­removed at Grant’s request before police could examine it.

The coroner also said she had “little hesitation” that there was racial bias within the NSW police force at the time, which “impacted upon the investigation”. June and Dawn Smith told the inquiry they felt they were treated differently because they were ­Aboriginal, including that they became aware of the girls’ deaths from family members, rather than being formally advised by police.

June Smith still expressed anger at the police. “If you don’t like Blackfellas, why they come out here? she said after the inquest.

“We all bleed the same. We are proud to be black. For cops to treat us different because of racism is wrong … If it was two white girls it would have been different.”