Unsolved homicide unit to work on suspected gay hate murders

NSW police will apply for fresh inquests into the death of four men suspected to be gay hate crimes, as the Minns government commits to implement the report of a landmark inquiry.

Scott Johnson died in 1988.

The NSW Unsolved Homicide Unit has begun working on applications for fresh inquests into the death of four men suspected to be gay hate crimes, with the Minns government announcing its support for all 19 recommendations of a landmark Special Commission of Inquiry.

A confidential volume of the 3500-page report by inquiry commissioner Justice John Sackar has also been provided to the NSW Police Force and the NSW Crime Commission “to inform any current or future criminal investigations or prosecutions”.

The inquiry looked into the unsolved deaths of LGBTIQ+ people that may have been hate crimes between 1970 and 2010 that had been the subject of previous investigation by NSW Police.

Those deaths included television newsreader Ross Warren, former AC/DC manager Crispin Dye, US mathematician Scott Johnson, French national Gilles Mattaini and retired schoolteacher William Allen.

Steve Johnson was believed killed in a gay hate crime in Australia. AFP photo

The Commission’s report, released in December, identified alarming shortfalls in the way police and other authorities responded to more than 30 deaths and found that investigations “were not consistently handled with professionalism, fairness, respect, and compassion”.

“In many cases, the immediate effect of violence was compounded by responses from the NSWPF, and from some of its members, who were indifferent, negligent, dismissive or hostile,” Justice Sackar said.

The inquiry examined 32 cases in detail and found there was reason to suspect LGBTIQ bias in 25 of them.

Justice Sackar accused NSW Police of taking an “adversarial or unnecessarily defensive” approach to the inquiry, after police lost crucial evidence, belatedly requested extensions of time and challenged the scope of the inquiry.

Gilles Mattaini, 27, was last seen in Bondi on September 15, 1985. He was reported missing on 2002 and ruled dead in 2005.

Of the 19 recommendations, seven were directed to specific cases, including the unsolved murder of grandfather Richard Slater, who died in 1980 after being assaulted in a public toilet in Newcastle.

Police are also working to request a fresh inquest in the death of Mr Johnson, whose body was found at the base of a cliff near Manly’s North Head in December 1988. A previous inquest found the 27-year-old died by suicide. In 2023, Scott Phillip White pleaded guilty to manslaughter over Mr Johnson’s death.

Another 27-year-old, Paul Rath was found by a coroner to have “accidentally” fallen to his death from cliffs at North Head in 1977 but the inquiry threw that finding into question.

A gang of youths had targeted gay men for assault and robbery in that area years.

Musician and rock manager Crispin Dye, 41, was brutally bashed and robbed by three youths in Little Oxford Street, near Taylor Square on December 22, 1993 and died in hospital three days later.

Police are now liaising with the FBI over the death of 27-year-old Gerald Cuthbert, found stabbed to death in a Paddington apartment in October 1981 with more than 60 wounds to his body.

As a result of the Sackar inquiry police are also monitoring all available DNA databases in a bid to identify a match for hair found on Crispin Dye’s shirt.

Police are also taking steps, including DNA analysis, to reconsider suspects who might have been prematurely excluded from the investigation into the death of 53-year-old Kenneth Brennan, who was stabbed to death in Elizabeth Bay in June 1995.

Police undertake a search at North Head near Manly, following an arrest in relation to a 1998 cold case, in Sydney, Tuesday, May 12, 2020. A man was arrested in the 1988 cold-case murder of US-man Scott Johnson who was found at the bottom of a cliff near Manly in a suspected gay-hate crime. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

In February, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb apologised on behalf of police for failings in investigating hate crimes and promised police would learn lessons from the inquiry’s findings.

“To the victims and families that NSW Police failed by not adequately and fairly investigating those deaths between 1970 and 2010, I am sorry,” she said.

“I realise that this has meant missed opportunities to identify possible offenders as new leads emerged or as new forensic advances became available.”