‘I'm haunted by eyes’: Man denies making fraudulent war trauma claims before wife’s death
“My problem wasn’t the gun, it was the eyes. I’m haunted by eyes.” A Hobart man who is now a “person of interest” in his wife’s death has been grilled in the penultimate day of an inquest.
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A Hobart man who has become a “person of interest” in his wife’s 2010 death has been intensively grilled on the witness stand in the penultimate day of an inquest.
Palliative care nurse Helen Bird was 43 when her husband Mark Gordon Bird found her deceased in their Blackmans Bay home.
Mr Bird, now aged about 60, is representing himself in an inquest aiming to uncover whether his wife really did die by suicide as long held, or whether he may have been involved.
Coroner Robert Webster previously heard Mr Bird served jail time after his wife’s death for setting fire to his two homes to make fraudulent insurance claims.
On Wednesday, Mr Bird explained he’d enrolled in the military when family finances became tight.
He said he was deployed to East Timor, suffering a neck and spinal injury in 2000, receiving incapacity benefits from the Department of Veteran Affairs until he was cut off in 2002.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Letitia Fox, suggested Mr Bird then “invented” or “exaggerated” two incidents in a bid to lodge a claim for post traumatic stress disorder, including one event she described as a “total fabrication”.
Mr Bird repeatedly denied her suggestions, saying they were “bulls…”.
Ms Fox said one of the incidents Mr Bird tried to claim involved a person who “waved around a firearm and made you feel threatened” in East Timor.
She asked why, if he was so traumatised, he continued to apply for firearms licences back in Australia to go hunting.
“My problem wasn’t the gun, it was the eyes,” he replied.
“The eyes of the guy. All I can see is his eyes staring at me.
“I’m haunted by eyes.”
Mr Bird did admit to extramarital affairs and that he’d been a drug addict after East Timor, dependent on a long list of prescription and non-prescription drugs that he’d stockpile and keep in his wardrobe.
However, he said in the lead-up to his wife’s death, he’d been “clean”.
The inquest will conclude on Thursday, with Mr Webster to hand down his findings at a future date.
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Originally published as ‘I'm haunted by eyes’: Man denies making fraudulent war trauma claims before wife’s death
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