Six shot dead: ‘red flags’ missed on killer grandfather Peter Miles

A WA grandfather who killed his four grandchildren, daughter and wife in Australia’s worst mass killing since Port Arthur left a long and disturbing trail of clues.

It has been two years since Aaron Cockman lost his four children after they were killed, together with their mother and grandmother, by their grandfather. Picture: Marie Nirme

A grandfather who killed his four grandchildren, daughter and wife in Australia’s worst mass killing since the Port Arthur massacre, had a violent family history that raised “red flags” and led to a ­recommendation the children’s time with their grandparents be limited.

Peter Miles shot his grandchildren Taye, 13, Rylan, 12, Arye, 10, and Kayden, 8, their mother Katrina and his wife Cynda before killing himself at the family’s rural property at Osmington, near Margaret River, south of Perth.

Two years later, the children’s father, Aaron Cockman, who had separated from his wife, is still fighting for a public inquest into their deaths, which he says would shine a light on the role he ­believes the Family Court of Western Australia played in placing the family under intense financial and emotional pressure.

Instead, on the two-year anniversary of the tragedy on Monday last week, he was informed the state coroner’s office had issued their death certificates.

Katrina Miles, 35, Peter Miles, 61, Cynda Miles, 58, and Katrina’s children Rylan Cockman, 12, Kayden Cockman, 8, Taye Cockman, 13, and Ayre Cockman, 10.

Mr Cockman wrote to WA Coroner Ros Fogliani on Friday to ask whether this meant she had completed a report into their deaths. He said he had been provided with no information and could not understand why the ­inquiry had been conducted “in secret”.

He has also urged WA ­Attorney-General John Quigley to insist on a public inquest to help prevent children being killed.

“We have public inquests, in the public interest, into such a wide range of deaths,” he wrote in his letter to Mr Quigley on Friday.

“Why would there not be one into such an extreme set of murders when there is a clear opportunity that it might illuminate ways to protect future generations of our children?”

In his letter to Ms Fogliani, he said the anniversary of the tragedy was a particularly difficult time, so he was surprised by the timing of the death certificates.

“For me, it felt like another example of how the State Coroner’s Office has treated me over the past two years,” he wrote.

"Forever Dreaming", the 12ha organic farming property out of Margaret River where Peter and Cynda Miles, their daughter Katrina and her four children moved in late 2014. All died here in the early hours of May 11. Picture: Supplied

For the first time, Mr Cockman has revealed an alleged history of violence and dysfunctional relationships in his ex-wife’s family, and that authorities were aware of that. Miles was estranged from his own mother and his father had tried to kill him. Miles’s son — Katrina’s brother — had once burnt down a shed in a family fight and later committed suicide.

Katrina had also once threatened to kill herself and the children by driving into a tree.

However, the children were ­allowed to continue living with their mother and grandparents on the same rural property where they were home-schooled. Mr Cockman told The Weekend Australian he believed it was the Family Court litigation that had caused the family to “spiral out of control”. He said Miles had paid his daughter’s legal fees of about $100,000 and the involvement of lawyers had intensified the conflict between them.

Mr Cockman has alleged members of his ex-wife’s family had a history of violence, and that authorities were aware of that. Picture: Courtesy of Nine News

He said that in a similar case, involving the Cuzens family in WA, in which a mother had killed two of her daughters, a public inquest had usefully examined shortcomings in the family law system. This case was highlighted by The Australian this week, when daughter Grace spoke out about her sisters’ murders for the first time.

Mr Cockman said nothing had changed since the Cuzens inquest in 2016. He said he had been ­gagged by the Family Court from speaking about the full details of the case, because of its belief a ­public inquest would be held.

A spokeswoman for the coroner’s office said it had completed the investigations, adding: “The findings are only provided to the senior next of kin and are not released to the public.” Mr Cockman said he had not yet been advised the investigation was complete.