Bronwyn podcast: Coroner’s response ‘a first step in right direction’

The brother of missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield hopes the case is ‘heading in the right direction’ after the state coroner’s office replied to his call to search a Sydney property.

Andy Read with Bronwyn’s cousin Madi Walsh, left, and his wife, Michelle, right.

The brother of missing NSW mother Bronwyn Winfield says he hopes the case is “heading in the right direction” after the state coroner’s office replied to his call to search a Sydney property for her remains.

Andy Read has waited years for meaningful progress in the investigation into his sister Bronwyn’s disappearance and sus­pected murder almost 32 years ago, learning that the wheels of justice can be excruciatingly slow in turning.

He is grateful for any movement forward, and took it as a win when State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan’s office got back to him in a personally addressed email this week.

It arrived more than three months after Mr Read wrote to Ms O’Sullivan outlining why the property at Illawong in southern Sydney, where Bronwyn’s estranged husband Jon Winfield was working when she dis­appeared, should be investigated as a possible location of her ­remains. Previously, Mr Read had only received an anonymous acknowledgment his letter had been received.

The new response from the coroner’s office said the information he provided would “be considered in due course upon the completion of the current investigation”, Mr Read said.

“At least it’s something formal, which I’m pleased with. We’re heading in the right direction and they’re heading in the right direction, they’re taking it seriously,” he told the Bronwyn podcast.

Mr Read’s 12-page letter to Ms O’Sullivan was sent on December 5 last year and outlined key facts pointing to the Illawong site being of “crucial relevance”.

Council documents recovered by Mr Read show a concrete pour was imminent at the property in the days leading up to Bronwyn’s disappearance from her home at Lennox Head on the NSW north coast on the night of Sunday, May 16, 1993.

Mr Winfield returned to Lennox Head from Sydney that evening after learning Bronwyn had moved back into the family home with daughters Chrystal, 10, and Lauren, 5. He has said she suddenly decided to go away for a break and was picked up in a car by a person he didn’t see.

Bronwyn Winfield has been missing for almost 32 years.

Mr Winfield then drove through the night back to Sydney with the girls.

He has always denied any involvement in Bronwyn going missing.

The response from the state coroner comes as the Bronwyn podcast recreates a 2002 inquest into the disappearance. Mr Read’s evidence began with clarification that his long-term address was at Caringbah in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire.

It was close to a Cronulla shopping centre where a psychologist, Jane Johnston, caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman she thought was Bronwyn.

Another witness, Dianne McMillan, also thought she saw Bronwyn in Cronulla after seeing the side of a woman with blonde, wavy hair.

Mr Read told the inquest he had deep connections to the area as president of the Sharks Little Athletics Club and through his involvement in local football and cricket clubs.

For more than a decade, he played A grade cricket.

He knew “a squillion people around the Cronulla area”, and there had been no other suggestions Bronwyn was seen nearby, he said.

“A large number of people in the Cronulla area would recognise Bronwyn,” he added.

Bronwyn was struggling to support herself and her children after she separated from Mr Winfield and rented a townhouse in Lennox Head, he told the inquest.

Mr Read confirmed he encouraged her to return to the family home in Sandstone Crescent.

The day after Bronwyn vanished, Mr Winfield arrived at Mr Read and wife Michelle’s home in Sydney in the afternoon, and produced a receipt for petrol he bought at 11.06pm the previous night.

“He basically brought the receipt out of his pocket for some reason to prove the exact time he left Ballina. For what reason, I didn’t know at the time.”

Mr Winfield had “very limited clothing for the children” and insisted Bronwyn was “only gone for a couple of days”.

Anything to do with Bronwyn was off limits in front of the children, so Mr Read didn’t ask the girls what had happened.

“It was Jon’s insistence from the absolute word go that nothing was ever, ever spoken about in front of the two children,” he said.

At first, Mr Winfield leaned on the Reads for advice on how to care for the girls “but the more and more inquisitive that the questions became from myself and my wife, the contact became less and less, to the point of absolutely nothing,” he said.

Do you know more about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas on [e-mail]