Potts Point murder showed signs of ‘anti-LGBTIQ bias’,inquiry hears

His friends called him “Skinny John”. On May 6,1989,the body of John Gordon Hughes was found in his Potts Point apartment in a scene police described as “particularly brutal”.

His hands and feet were bound with electrical cord. A pink pillowslip had been placed over his head and he had been strangled with a leather belt.

John Gordon Hughes,whose body was found on May 6,1989,in Sydney.

John Gordon Hughes,whose body was found on May 6,1989,in Sydney.Nine

The 45-year-old was known by his friends and associates to be a “passive,kind,soft-hearted and generous” gay man,the NSW inquiry into hate crimes against lesbian,gay,bisexual,transgender,intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people heard on Tuesday.

A former flatmate of Hughes,Ian Jones,was charged in 1990 with Hughes’ murder and faced a NSW Supreme Court trial in 1992. A jury acquitted him of the crime,and Jones has since died.

“Notwithstanding that acquittal,my submission will be that Mr Jones was likely responsible for Mr Hughes’ death,” Kathleen Heath,one of four counsel assisting the inquiry,said on Tuesday.

There was evidence Jones was motivated by “anti-LGBTIQ bias”,Heath said,in addition to a desire to rob Hughes – a “low-level dealer in heroin and other drugs” – or to exact revenge over a property dispute. A bank passbook belonging to Hughes was found in Jones’ jacket.

On Tuesday,the inquiry began a third tranche of public hearings and examined three deaths,including Hughes’ murder,that were previously investigated by Strike Force Parrabell,a NSW Police review of 88 deaths between 1976 and 2000 that potentially involved motivations of gay-hate bias.

Counsel assisting the inquiry told Commissioner John Sackar,a NSW Supreme Court judge,that the deaths of two other men reviewed by Parrabell,Graham Paynter and Russell Payne,were probably misadventures.

Heath submitted it was “more probable than not” that gay-hate bias was a factor in Hughes’ death and “it can be hypothesised that Mr Hughes’ status as a gay person made Mr Jones perceive him as a target that would be less protected by police and by the courts”.

Parrabell did not conclude in its 2018 report that any of the three deaths was a bias crime.

Heath said officers failed to note a witness statement that Jones said after Hughes’ death:“The guy was a f---ing faggot dog. He deserved everything he got. If I could kill the dog again I would,he deserved it.”

Heath said this was a “compelling indication of anti-LGBTIQ bias on the part of Mr Jones”,who had also told police he moved out of Hughes’ flat because it was “full of drugs and poofters”.

Police appeared to assume “the presence of a motive such as robbery or profit tells against the simultaneous existence of LGBTIQ bias”,she told the inquiry,but Jones’ comments suggested he was “able to justify or excuse his selection of Mr Hughes as a victim on the basis of his belief about his sexuality”.

A report prepared by forensic psychiatrist Danny Sullivan last year noted “sexualised elements” of the crime scene,including binding,strangulation and hooding,and said the method of death may be reflective of a hate crime.

Heath submitted the inquiry should find Hughes died “as a result of asphyxiation caused by strangulation with a ligature” and “the available evidence points to the strong possibility” that Jones was responsible.

The inquiry also examined the death of Graham Paynter,whose body was found at the bottom of a cliff at Shelley Beach,Tathra,in October 1989. Heath submitted the commissioner should find he died “as a result of multiple injuries sustained in an accidental fall”.

While Paynter’s body was found with his jeans around his lower legs and his underpants around his thighs,Heath said expert evidence suggested the fall displaced his clothing.

She said Paynter was “not known or considered by his family to be a member of the LGBTIQ community,although his family expressed that they were open to possibility and would have been very supportive”.

Heath also submitted that the inquiry should find that Russell Payne,whose body was found in his kitchen in Inverell in February 1989,died as a result of septicaemia after he inserted a “foreign body” into his urethra. This occurred “likely in the setting of autoeroticism”,she said.

The inquiry continues.

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Michaela Whitbourn is a legal affairs reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.

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