“It was a very sad moment to see him with tears and fear in his eyes,” Donna Hannah,the partner of John’s brother Peter,told the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes in Sydney on Wednesday. “A few days later,he passed over.”
Donna Hannah and Peter Russell,sister-in-law and brother of John Russell,outside the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes in Sydney on Wednesday.Louise Kennerley
Peter Russell,who described his brother as “the most caring soul that anyone could meet”,said the loss of John,aged just 31,“surely led” to his father’s early onset dementia “and he never got over the grief”.
Russell’s suspected murder is one of dozens of unsolved deaths in NSW between 1970 and 2010 that is being examined by the inquiry,which has uncovered fresh leads in some cases including in the 1993 murder of former AC/DC manager Crispin Dye.
The lead counsel assisting the inquiry,Peter Gray,SC,formally submitted on Wednesday that it was “highly probable” Russell “met his death at the hands of one or more gay hate assailants”.
Peter Russell,who told the inquiry it was “gut-wrenching” that most of his five children would never meet his brother,pumped his fists in the air as Gray endorsed a coronial finding in 2005 that John died after being thrown from the cliff by an unknown attacker or attackers.
The head of the inquiry,Supreme Court Justice John Sackar,will deliver his findings at a later date.
Gray revealed on Wednesday that the inquiry was seeking to obtain new DNA evidence in Russell’s case and had sent his clothing for forensic testing this year.
The results were expected to be available shortly,but Gray noted Russell’s blood-stained clothing appeared to have been “washed or cleaned in some way” by police in 1989 before it was placed on a mannequin as part of an appeal for information.
DNA testing “was only in its infancy in this state” in 1989,Gray said,but police had subsequently sent the clothing for testing in 2002. It produced no useful result. Further testing was conducted in 2016,which revealed a “mixed DNA profile” on Russell’s jeans.
John Russell,Ross Warren and Gilles Mattaini.The Sydney Morning Herald
“That indicates,as we understand it,that the DNA is from more than one person,” Gray said.
The inquiry heard that hairs found on Russell’s left hand,which Peter Russell told the inquiry were too long and the wrong colour to belong to his brother,had been lost by police by 1990 and were never forensically examined. A cigarette packet,lighter and Coca-Cola bottle found near his body also appeared to have been lost.
The inquiry has highlighted gross inadequacies in the initial police investigation of a series of deaths,including the disappearance and suspected death of another gay man around the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk:TV newsreader Ross Warren,25,in July 1989. French national Gilles Mattaini,27,also disappeared in the area in September 1985. Their bodies have never been found.
Counsel assisting Peter Gray,SC,formally submitted that it was “highly probable” Russell “met his death at the hands of one or more gay hate assailants”.Louise Kennerley
Gray and a second counsel assisting,Christine Melis,formally submitted on Wednesday that it was “highly probable” Warren had also met his death at the hands of one or more gay hate assailants.
They further submitted it was a “distinct possibility” Mattaini had been murdered and that LGBTIQ bias was a factor in his death,but said “the evidence available does not permit a positive conclusion in either of those respects”.
The original officers in charge of investigating Russell’s death and Warren’s disappearance considered the men had died as a result of misadventure around Marks Park,a known gay beat. Mattaini’s disappearance did not appear to have been reported to police in 1985 and was not investigated until 2002.
Counsel assisting said in written submissions that at least six attacks on gay men around Bondi and Marks Park were reported to police between 1987 and 1990.
Then deputy state coroner Jacqueline Milledge found in 2005 that Warren and Russell had died after meeting with foul play. She said the cause and manner of death of Mattaini was undetermined,but there was a strong possibility that he had died in similar circumstances. She praised the work of detective Stephen Page,who left the force in 2004,as “thorough” and “impeccable”.
However,the inquiry has heard NSW Police subsequently set up the secretive Strike Force Neiwand in 2015 to reinvestigate all three deaths. Without informing the men’s families,the coroner,or Page,Neiwand concluded internally that Warren and Russell’s deaths should be classified as “‘undetermined’ despite the 2005 ‘homicide’ findings of the Coroner”.
Counsel assisting described those conclusions as “remarkably audacious and insouciant,as well as unjustified”. Police decided to stop work on the Mattaini case in April 2017,the inquiry heard,because his cause of death could not be determined.
The grief was palpable as John Russell’s family observed the submissions in Sydney.
“The Russell family lost more than just a son,brother,uncle and friend,” Donna Hannah said.
“We lost part of ourselves. For all these years even the highlights in our lives were never quite as joyous as they could have or should have been.”
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