William Tyrrell inquest: Kendall resident says he saw William Tyrrell being driven away by young woman

A man says he saw William Tyrrell in a car being driven at speed by a young woman the day he vanished.

William Tyrrell in his Spiderman suit.

A well-respected Kendall resident, Ronald Keith Chapman, is convinced he saw William Tyrrell standing in his Spiderman suit in the back of a car being driven at speed on the morning of the boy’s disappearance.

Mr Chapman told the Coroner’s Court this morning that the fair-skinned child was standing unrestrained in the back, with his hands against the glass, and his face peering out.

He said the car was being driven erratically.

“Do you think that in fact you saw William Tyrrell?” the counsel assisting Mr Gerard Craddock said. “I do. Yes,” he replied.

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Mr Chapman said he did not immediately report the matter to police because he’d heard a local police officer on the news that very night, saying detectives would be knocking on the door of every house in a one kilometre radius. He waited, but nobody came.

A few weeks later, having told his five sisters and many other people, he decided to make a formal report.

“Well, there’s a local police officer in Kendall, and her and her husband used to go to the Kendall Services Club on the Friday night,” he said.

He said he had known the local cop, Wendy Hudson, “since she was a babe in arms.”

“So I went down to see this police officer, to mention about seeing William. But actually, she wasn’t at the club, her sister in law was there.

“I didn’t actually speak to her (Hudson) directly ... it was passed through the sister in law to her.”

He assumed the information had been passed on to detectives investigating the case, but in a stunning development, it seems that it wasn’t until April 2017 when police came to take his recorded statement.

William went missing in September 2014.

Speaking calmly and directly, Mr Chapman told the Coroner’s Court that he was particularly alert to movement in his street, which is less than a kilometre from where William was staying on the morning of his disappearance because he’s a flower judge and pot plant aficionado, and he was expecting a delivery of delicate plants from Garden Express that day.

It was a Friday and he wanted to make sure they didn’t get stuck in the post office over the weekend.

He heard what he thought was the lid of the mail box at around 10:45am, and went outside to see if his package had arrived.

He stepped onto the verandah, and he had his hand on the handrail at the top of the stairs when he saw a car coming and “what made me look was, the car was being driven around the corner at speed.

“There was an eight foot drain in front to the house, and I heard gravel running … she was almost in the drain,” he said.

“It was a woman,” he said, of the driver. “She was almost off the tar.

“In the back seat was a young boy with his hands up on the window … his face was sort of in between.”

Asked about age, he said: “I would say three or four. He was standing. He wasn’t crying.

“He was wearing a Spiderman suit.

“It was an old box-type 4WD. I couldn’t tell you what the make was. Fawn colour. Beige is a bit light. (The driver) was a woman in her late 20s to late 30s, blonde hair, very fair complexion, she wore a white, short-sleeved blouse.”

Asked by the counsel assisting: “You could see his hands, and his face?”

“Clearly,” he said.

He also said he was sure the boy was wearing a Spiderman suit, because of the red top, the blue sleeves, and the black pattern. A boy who lived next door had one just like it.

“He was looking out the window, and he wasn’t restrained, he didn’t have a seat belt on,” Mr Chapman said.

“I did utter profanity under my breath for the woman being stupid for not having the kid restrained.

“(She) almost lost control as she come around the corner, at a wide angle.”

He said the boy had “light blondey-browney colour” and “he was fair.”

A few moments later, a second car “come around and cut the corner. It was virtually two wheels on the grass.” He was on the wrong side of the road, “he would have had a head on” had another car been coming.

He heard about William going missing on the news that night, and immediately thought he’d seen him.

“Why didn’t you call the police?” said Mr Craddock. “When you saw that thing on the news, why wasn’t your next action to pick up the phone and call the police?”

“Well, the detective in charge made several announcements over the TV … They were going to come and interview everyone in a kilometre radius, and I was waiting for a knock on the door,” he said.