Police watch on psychic during Bronwyn Winfield search ‘absurd’

Family and friends of a clairvoyant who was put under surveillance during the flawed original police investigation into Bronwyn Winfield’s disappearance say he was also a respected local theatre director, author, teacher and father.

Lennox Head theatre director, author and father David Addenbrooke, who moonlighted as a tarot card reader using the name Pendragon.

A clairvoyant put under surveillance during the flawed original police investigation into Bronwyn Winfield’s disappearance was also a respected local theatre director, author, teacher and father.

David Addenbrooke’s family and friends have described as ­“absurd” the early police interest in him that was instigated by Bronwyn’s estranged husband, Jon, after the mother of two young girls vanished from Lennox Head on the NSW far north coast 31 years ago.

The Bronwyn podcast in June revealed that when Mr Winfield first reported his wife missing in late May 1993, police wrote down that no one had seen or heard from her for 11 days “except for a brief interlude with a clairvoyant, David”.

Police subsequently put Addenbrooke, who used the name “Pendragon” in his tarot readings, under surveillance for at least two days and nights.

At the same time, investigators initially accepted the version of events put forward by Mr Winfield, who only later became the prime suspect in her suspected murder.

Addenbrooke’s son, Andy Addenbrooke, said the thought of his loving, flamboyant kaftan-wearing father, who called everyone “darling”, being watched by police was as amusing as it was perplexing. “I was laughing with my brother about it last night. They would have been sitting out the front and just hearing Dad smoking 100 cigarettes and yelling at the cat for two days and two nights,” he told The Australian.

Addenbrooke’s thesis for a master’s degree was turned into a book on the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was a stalwart of local theatre in northern NSW and Queensland, directing productions right up until his death in 2021 at the age of 77.

Lismore Theatre Company president Sharon Brodie said Addenbrooke was a “treasure” who was greatly missed. “We had a great respect for David,” she said. “He was a very valuable member of our theatre community.

Actor Elyse Knowles played starring roles in productions directed by Addenbrooke and knew him as caring and professional.

“Absolutely absurd in my opinion,” she said on hearing of the police surveillance. “I was very close to David. He was just a truly beautiful person, someone I felt incredibly safe with.

“The absurdity of the idea of David being in any way under suspicion boggles the mind. It couldn’t have been more of a waste of time.”

Andy Addenbrooke contacted The Australian this week, saying friends had told him: “They’re talking about your dad on this podcast.”

When Bronwyn went missing, Addenbrooke was working as a TAFE teacher and raising three sons, including Andy.

Mr Addenbrooke, pictured not before his death in 2021, was highly respected in the local theatre community.

Tarot readings were done in his spare time from the family home in Sunrise Crescent, Lennox Head.

“My Dad, even though he was a clairvoyant and tarot reader, he was more of a counselling sort of person. It was just really helping people out,” Andy said.

His father often referred clients to doctors, lawyers or the police, and used the same solicitor for his divorce that Bronwyn subsequently used for her pending divorce, Chris McDevitt. Andy believes his father would have recommended Mr McDevitt to Bronwyn if she saw him for tarot card readings and spoke of her separation.

“I don’t know if the police ever found tapes (in Bronwyn’s case), because my Dad recorded every session for the client. He gave them a tape at the end,” he said.

The surveillance of Addenbrooke “met with a negative result”, according to a Ballina detective’s police report dated July 14, 1993, eight weeks after Bronwyn disappeared. “Arrangements are now in place to have a regional crime squad surveillance unit carry out further observations, particularly of his night time ­activities,” the report states.

Bronwyn went missing on Sunday, May 16, 1993, after her husband returned from Sydney, where he had been working, earlier on the same day.

Mr Winfield had rushed back to Lennox Head after hearing Bronwyn had moved back into the family home in Sandstone Crescent with her two daughters after previously moving into a townhouse. He denies any involvement in his wife’s disappearance and has never been charged with any offence in connection to it.

Andy Addenbrooke said he could only guess that NSW police in the early 1990s would not have known what to make of his father.

“My Dad was quite an eccentric person. Very, very flamboyant. He would have called the police officers ‘darling’,” he said.

“It seems shocking that more questions weren’t asked. It is ­pretty sad. I really feel bad, especially for the little girls who had to grow up without their mum.”

The next episode of Bronwyn is due out next week.

Know something about this case? Email Hedley Thomas at [e-mail]

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