Bronwyn Winfield case: Key 1998 police interview may face legal challenges
The only recorded police interview with the estranged husband of missing Lennox Head woman Bronwyn Winfield could be inadmissable in any criminal proceedings against him.
The only recorded police interview with the estranged husband of missing Lennox Head woman Bronwyn Winfield could be inadmissable in any criminal proceedings against him because he was not cautioned.
Detective Sergeant Glenn Taylor conducted the interview at Ballina police station in 1998 at the start of his reinvestigation of Bronwyn’s disappearance five years earlier.
Sergeant Taylor spoke to Bronwyn’s husband, bricklayer Jon Winfield, as a witness and did not alert him to his rights, including the right to silence.
Rachel Fisher, a lawyer experienced in criminal defence cases, told The Australian’s investigative podcast Bronwyn that police should issue cautions “in every circumstance” or expect to be challenged in court.
“If my client is sitting down with police and making what we refer to as admissions, which is statements that go against their interest, then absolutely it would be the first thing that I do,” Ms Fisher said.
Mr Winfield’s claims in the interview that he had an “amicable” discussion with Bronwyn the night she disappeared from her family home in May 1993 has been contradicted by family and friends.
Yet his version of events in the interview, including any potential lies or omissions, could be off limits in any prosecution because of the lack of a police caution.
The then Sergeant Taylor was an experienced detective who had worked in the homicide squad.
Now retired, he believes that despite there being “red flags” and suspicions around Bronwyn’s disappearance, he did not need to caution Mr Winfield because the interview was so early in his investigation.
Mr Winfield, 70, has never been charged in connection to Bronwyn’s disappearance, and has always denied any involvement.
“I believe it would be admissible because as an investigator, we had not made up our mind that there was sufficient evidence at that point, because we virtually hadn’t interviewed anyone,” Mr Taylor said.
“Jon Winfield was the very first person that was interviewed, just to commit a version from him. “
NSW police had not previously taken any formal statements about Bronwyn’s disappearance, leaving Mr Taylor to rely on the running sheets of the former detective in charge, Graeme Diskin.
At the start of the interview, he asked Mr Winfield to declare he was telling the truth, and that it was evidence he was prepared to give in court if necessary. “You make it knowing if it is tendered in evidence, you shall be liable to prosecution if you have wilfully stated in it anything which you know to be false or do not believe to be true,” he told Mr Winfield.
He was convinced Mr Winfield “would have been legally represented or advised by a solicitor not to answer any questions” if he was interviewed later.
“We would get no version from him whatsoever. That’s my belief. He would have closed up shop and said ‘No I’m not going to answer anything because you clearly think I’ve murdered Bronwyn’. We needed to gather evidence.”
Ms Fisher said if someone was not considered a suspect, it was still “quite important for police to tell people that they don’t have an obligation to speak to them”.
In cases where a witness later becomes a suspect, the police state of mind and reasons for their actions at the time of the earlier interview are critical.
“If there is anything that I would discover, usually through a subpoena of police notebooks, police indices, that would indicate there might be some reason that the police have a suspicion about this individual … I would absolutely be putting on an application to exclude it on the basis that the police have improperly obtained an interview,” Ms Fisher said.
A court would balance the rights of the suspect with the possibility of losing powerful evidence, she said.
Retired NSW homicide detective Stuart Wilkins played a key role in the investigation into serial killer Ivan Milat. As a junior detective he was present for a 1991 police interview with former rugby league star Chris Dawson about the disappearance of his wife, Lyn. Police cautioned Dawson part way through the interview, when the officers believed there was “potentially enough evidence to go down a criminal path”.
The interview was admitted into Dawson’s murder trial in 2022 and became an important part of the evidence against him.
“I’ve been in a number of homicide investigations where, unfortunately, that caution wasn’t delivered prior to police asking questions of suspects and the actual information … and the answers to those questions have been precluded from being sent to court,” Mr Wilkins told the podcast.
“It is very difficult and it gets frustrating. I remember another case where it was the execution murder of an ex … and his partner actually had taken out a contract and actually killed that poor chap.
“We interviewed the suspect and whilst he wasn’t a suspect at the time … the law and the legal process was that we should have thought he was a suspect no matter what information we had on him. We had a lengthy and detailed interview of him that unfortunately got precluded with evidence.”
Do you know something about this case? Contact Hedley Thomas confidentially at bronwyn@theaustralian.com.au
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