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Speaker 4The family of missing Baptist woman, Janine Vaughan, has made an emotional plea for information into her whereabouts. To be quite blunt with you, the moment of this, if he's done it, arrests the man. This stuff has tortured me for a long time. It drives me insane. It breaks my freaking heart.
Speaker 3Some people in Bathurst insist they already have a very good idea about who abducted and murdered Janine. In December 2001, Barry Cranston is one of these locals. Barry is in his 70s and he hasn't been well lately. And because of the COVID-19 global pandemic, he's being especially careful these days.
Speaker 5At the moment, I'm in this high risk zone. I've got emphysema and I'm on oxygen. You know how most of us are with this coronavirus thing.
Speaker 3Barry claims that there has been an official cover-up engineered. But he's not sure what's going on with Janine's case. And as far as he's concerned, it's been going on for two decades. In that time, apart from the murder investigation, there have also been two high-profile inquiries. And both were managed independently of police. An agency called the Police Integrity Commission ran the first of these inquiries. The commission took a particularly keen interest in the allegations of a connection between Janine Vaughan and Brad Hosemans, the deputy mayor. The second high-profile public inquiry, soon after the commission's probe, was headed by Mary Jerram, who was then a senior magistrate and the deputy state coroner for the state of New South Wales. There were trolleyloads of evidence in both investigations. We've obtained this evidence and we are unpacking a lot of it. Neither of those two high-profile inquiries came close to any finding that Hosemans or any other of the known persons of interest, for that matter, was involved in Janine's disappearance. Neither inquiry established that Hosemans had actually met or talked to Janine. He has always emphatically denied wrongdoing. But Barry Cranston isn't budging from his contrary view.
Speaker 5I'm the one that said Brad Hosemans did it. Everything that's gone missing and all the people's statements were changed has all been done by police.
Speaker 3Barry was the one who said that Hosemans had actually met or talked to Janine. He was the trusted taxi driver Janine usually turned to when she needed a ride somewhere. Over many taxi trips, they became friends and Barry told me Janine was usually bubbly, friendly, a good talker. He particularly recalls their talks about Brad Hosemans. You say she told you about being pursued by a fellow she didn't want to have anything to do with. Who was that and what did she tell you?
Speaker 5It was Brad Hosemans. And she told me what he was doing. And people that she worked with knew. They knew. Her girlfriends knew. She rang me up while I was driving around in the cab one night and said he was at the pub. I said, okay, wait there. I'm in town. I'll be there within two minutes. I pulled up out the front of the pub and parked and walked in and here he is sitting at a table on his own just staring at her. So I said, look, hop up and move around the other side of the table with me. And she did. He got up and moved to a table on the other side from where he was sitting so he could stare at her again. And he was doing this to her at work. He was sending her flowers.
Speaker 3There are many people in Bathurst like Barry Cranston who remain deeply suspicious of the then detective sergeant. Some long-time residents of this country town, including friends of Janine, express concern that Hosemans has been unfairly stitched up.
Speaker 6I just wonder sometimes whether, you know, everything came together in like a perfect storm that basically destroyed him. You know, small town. Did the town just turn on him?
Speaker 3Felicity recalled being told by Janine that Hosemans was showing an interest in her. At that time, he had a reputation for his attraction to pretty women and their attraction
Speaker 6to him. I do know that she was saying to me, oh, he keeps asking me out, but I could never go out with him because, you know, he's done all of this. And I did say to her, well, you know, dad's met him a few times. And he said, well, he's done all of this. Probably not as bad as all that.
Speaker 3Let's pause there for a moment. According to Felicity, Janine told her that Brad Hosemans kept asking her out. But according to Hosemans, in his interviews with me, his statements to police at the time and afterwards, and his sworn testimony, he had never talked directly to her. And he had not met her. But Hosemans had asked at least one other young woman working in retail near Janine's menswear store. And she
Speaker 6said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 3She's adamant that Janine was worried about Hosemans. What did she tell you about his attention?
Speaker 5That he was trying to get her to go out with him and she didn't like him. And I said, no, it's okay. I said, don't worry about it. I said, there are a lot of girls in this town who are like you. They're very pretty. And he wants to go out with all of them. You haven't got a car. Most of the other girls have. And he pulls them up in the car. And he's going to book them unless they go out with him. If they go out with him. If they go out with him, he doesn't book them.
Speaker 7Had you had any contact with him? Had he booked you for anything prior?
Speaker 5No, he was getting other coppers to do it. What were they booking you for? Anything they could do. What, speeding or seatbelts? Speeding, PCA, prescribed concentration of alcohol.
Speaker 3You became fond of Janine, didn't you?
Speaker 5Yes, she was a beautiful girl. Absolutely gorgeous, she was. And I said, I'm sick of him annoying you. I don't want him doing it anymore. I just told Janine, look, I'm worried about him. I'll go into the police station this afternoon and see him. And she just told me not to do it.
Speaker 7What do you say to the suggestion that has come from police and also from Brad Hoseman's that he never talked to her,
Speaker 3he never sent her flowers, never went out with her, never asked her out?
Speaker 5Never been a bigger bald-faced lie told by anybody. Look, I mean, I don't know how you people get your story, but Brad Hoseman said he wasn't in Bathurst to start with, didn't he? He was in Bathurst talking to Janine. He was with Janine at the Metro. His mother owned a little red car.
Speaker 7Can you tell me how you know that?
Speaker 5No, I can't. It will get back to them.
Speaker 3Janine's sister Kylie said she knew about it too.
Speaker 8We go to the police, I talk to the police and they just shut me down. I don't
Speaker 9know where I
Speaker 8heard it. It's just the talk of it. of Bathurst at the time and everyone was ringing up saying that Brad's mother's car has been burnt out and we have information on his mother's car, don't we?
Speaker 9Sometimes it feels like there's so many rumours that end up, when you try to verify them, kind
Speaker 10of just falling away. I don't know whether you've been frustrated by that yourself but
Speaker 9I want to keep an open mind about it. It's just that we can end up going down rabbit holes and coming up empty handed. Hello?
Speaker 7Oh, hello Mrs Hosemans, it's Hedley Thomas. Hello Mr Thomas, how are you? Can you tell me have you ever owned a red car? Never. Okay. Ever owned a car that's reddish or pinkish? Nope. Three grey cars. Okay. Ever had a car that's been stolen or burnt out? No. Has it ever been suggested to you that that might have happened? No. Right, so are you hearing for the first time from me that you've owned a red car which was found burnt out and was possibly the car
Speaker 9that was used to abduct
Speaker 7Janine Vaughan? Have you ever heard that story before? No, no I haven't. And what's your reaction now on hearing it? Well I'm quite amazed why I would, having not had a red car, why somebody would say that.
Speaker 3The widely circulated claim that the mother of Brad Hosemans owned a small red car or any car which was burnt out after Janine's disappearance is false. But it has been treated as a hard fact for years in the Bathurst community. Barry, what about the other fellow who said that he killed Janine, Dennis Briggs?
Speaker 5Yeah, who would have got him to say that? They are the most corrupt police in Australia. One guy said to me once, he said, oh and how do you know that? And I said, oh well I'm the one that put a copper in for when that girl went missing. He said, oh that was you, was it? He said, a big game. And I said, oh I don't think so mate. I said, how would you feel if it was your daughter? Oh yeah, he said, I never thought of it like that. He said, it's a bit different when you think of it being your own, isn't it? I said, yeah and what about Janine's mum and dad? Like I mean, it's even ruined Kylie. She'll never forget it.
Speaker 7The police are pretty adamant
Speaker 9that the CCTV footage outside the pub that night doesn't show Brad Hosemans there. Are you still fairly confident or not confident that you saw him?
Speaker 5I'm 100% sure. I said 99% sure before because I didn't know if he had a twin brother or not.
Speaker 3Hosemans has also sworn that he was neither in nor outside the Metro tavern or anywhere else with Janine that night or any other night because as he insists, he had never talked to her. Analysis by police and by Janine's family and by me of CCTV footage from the Metro tavern does not support Barry Cranston's claim of Hosemans being at the Metro when Janine disappeared.
Speaker 5Even my aunt and daughter has told me that I didn't see Janine that night. Have you seen the full CCTV footage? No, nobody has. You know why? The police have cleaned three hours of it. Three hours that he was inside the pub.
Speaker 9Barry, would you agree that if he had nothing to do with Janine's disappearance, he's paid a pretty heavy price because of the innuendo that he did?
Speaker 5No, you're saying if. I'm saying no if.
Speaker 7No, well, I'm just raising a hypothetical.
Speaker 5Yeah, well, there is no hypothetical. I know it was him. I've been thinking about it for 19 years. But I can't do anything. Not a thing.
Speaker 3Barry Cranston's certainty about Brad Hosemans now is in stark contrast to Janine's. It's in stark contrast with his uncertainty when interviewed by Detective Sergeant Daniel Rogerson in May 2007. The detective took Barry right back to his first written statement, one he gave to police a week after Janine's disappearance in December 2001.
Speaker 6When you made that statement at the time, did you know who that person was?
Speaker 5No. That's as I said, I thought it was Brad Hoseman. But he didn't look at me. And from the back, it could have been a lot of people. But as I said, he never looked at me once. So I didn't see his face.
Speaker 6So percentage-wise, how sure would you have been that that would have been Brad Hoseman's out the front that morning?
Speaker 5That's very hard to say. As I said, I thought it was him. But it would be very hard to swear in court that it was him.
Speaker 3Peter Murphy assessed the credibility of many witnesses who appeared before him when he was serving as a judge. We discussed the evidence and the allegations of Barry Cranston.
Speaker 11Yeah, mate, look, he's a worry, I think. It's one thing to see a witness's version change over time, and we know his version has changed over time. But it's quite another thing when somebody says something's happened as a matter of absolute certainty, and we know it didn't happen, and we know it didn't happen because we've got the CCTV footage. Yeah, well, I mean, if you're looking for someone
Speaker 3who could poison the well, the local well in Bathurst in terms of prejudice and finger-pointing against one bloke in particular being Brad Hoseman, I don't think you've got to look farther than Barry Cranston.
Speaker 11Well, you couldn't do much better. He's got him hung, drawn and courted.
Speaker 3He's the local taxi driver, so, you know, plenty of people are getting into his car and he's presumably telling them what he's telling us. Which is that he saw things which he can't have seen and which we know he's actually backtracking on later on and then doubles down years later. His memory seems to have improved. Peter and I have been trying to get to the bottom of what often feels like overwhelming community suspicion about Hoseman's when the evidence just isn't there.
Speaker 11You know, in terms of conspiracy theories, well, you know, they don't get much better than the way Cranston constructs conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theory about the Bathurst Police Force. What do you think motivates someone to take that position? Yeah, I mean, is it just, what, hatred of the police? Is it, you know, he's got something in for Hoseman's in particular? Or is it just that, you know, taxi driver driving around Bathurst day and night over many, many, many years who hears things, he talks about things, he comes up with opinions about which he's absolutely certain and over time, guess what? They're facts now. They're not opinions. They're not queries. They're not questions that you ask. Things have become facts.
Speaker 3Kylie Vaughan walked into the Bathurst Police Station three weeks after Janine had vanished. She was anxious every night that the TV news would break a story about the discovery of a woman's body in bushland near Bathurst. Kylie, her brothers Adam and Rodney, and parents Ian and Jenny were numb with worry, but they had not given up hope. When Kylie drove to Bathurst, to visit an elderly woman in care, she stopped in for an update on the ongoing police investigation. She was told to talk to Detective Sergeant Brad Hoseman's about it.
Speaker 8So when I first went into the police station and I was told that this is Brad Hoseman's, the conversation went, oh, hi, obviously I'm Kylie, Janine's sister, you knew my sister, and that's how I said it, you knew my sister, and he said, no, I've never met her. And that's exactly how he said it to me. No, I've never met her. And I just sat there thinking, okay, that's, you know, not what I had heard from my mum.
Speaker 3Brad Hoseman's would not have known it at the time, but this comment by him had a significant impact on Kylie and the rest of Janine's family. It would sow confusion and then mistrust. And that's because some people close to Janine distinctly remembered her speaking of Hoseman's in a way that suggested that she was a woman. Suggested they had at least met.
Speaker 8Maybe I was annoyed at the time. Like, I just thought, well, why, you know, Janine had come home in that November and said to mum that, oh, just my luck, this guy's interested in me and he's the police officer. And so I already had that knowledge in my head of this person. So when they introduced me to him, it was him pretty much saying straight to my face, no, I'd never met her.
Speaker 3One of the most perplexing things, about this whole case is the purported contact between Brad Hoseman's and Janine Vaughan. If Hoseman's is right, that is, if there had never been any contact between him and Janine in the weeks and months before she vanished, it probably follows that many in Bathurst have unfairly accused him. We're going to try to get to the bottom of Hoseman's and the alleged contact he had with Janine. The town chatter back then was that Hoseman's wanted Janine, that he was trying to attract her attention. Some people said he was constantly walking past the Ed Harry's menswear store she managed. managed. Some friends, workmates and family of Janine say they gave police in Bathurst information about some of this in those early weeks and months of the investigation. But for some of these witnesses, the details did not appear in the written statement which police took at the time. Jenny Vaughan, the woman Janine called mum, remembered Janine having described Hosemans as drop dead gorgeous. Jenny has been dead for seven years. What you're about to hear are the exact words from her sign statement dated early January 2002.
Speaker 12I don't recall Janine talking about any other guys in her life other than a guy she had seen in Bathurst and who she described as drop dead gorgeous. Apparently he had made some inquiries about Janine and used to walk past her shop. Janine found out that his name was Brad Hogan. And that he was a policeman. As far as I know Janine never spoke to this bloke but she was initially keen on him and had inquired about him.
Speaker 3Now this sounds unambiguous. As far as Jenny was concerned, Janine didn't speak to Hosemans. She had never talked to Hosemans. But Janine was initially keen on the detective sergeant and deputy mayor according to Jenny's recollection.
Speaker 13Janine told me she came up home one weekend and she said, there's a detective that wants to take her out. And she said, I won't go out because he's a sleaze. Did you get any pushback
Speaker 10when you asked for Detective Sergeant Brad Hosemans to be removed from the case?
Speaker 13Not that I can remember, no. No, no. That's
Speaker 3Janine's father Ian who went to the homicide squad's Paul Jacob a few months after Janine's disappearance to ask him to take Brad Hosemans out of the investigative picture.
Speaker 13Paul Jacobs. I asked him, I said, he shouldn't be on this case. I want him off.
Speaker 3Nicole Nolan has driven five hours to meet me in Bathurst to talk about Janine. They were work colleagues in the shopping centre.
Speaker 14Brad would usually walk through the centre with one of his other colleagues. He would stand out because he'd always be in a suit. The lady I worked with, Rachel Rich, was his friend. So, you know, he'd wave or, he started to come in and say hello to Rachel. Obviously, he was a public figure in Bathurst, so most people knew him. And then a couple of times he spoke and I had told him Janine was single. Oh, you don't know any single girls, Nick? And I said, yeah, Janine across there, she's single, quite a good looking girl.
Speaker 3One night after this conversation, Nicole recalled bumping into Hosemans in town. She asked if he had followed through with Janine.
Speaker 14I said, have you asked Janine out yet? Oh, Nick, you know, I'm too shy. I'm too shy for that. And I laughed at him and said, seriously, you shy? Like, he was the deputy mayor. He had, he was a public figure. He was a detective. He was not shy. He goes, yeah, I haven't as yet. And I'd also said to Janine in that sort of area of time as well, that Brad had been asking about her. And she said, oh, here. And I said, well, you know, don't believe everything you hear. Perhaps you should just meet him and see. He's interested in you. And then she said she had noticed him walking past the store. A lot of girls liked him.
Speaker 10Did you ever feel like he was being predatory around you?
Speaker 14No, I feel like he was being forward around me.
Speaker 10Yeah. Did you see him meet her?
Speaker 14I did not see him meet her, no. I did not see them together, no. Some of his partners were stunning and nice, nice people, nice, quiet people.
Speaker 10And have you ever heard that he was violent or aggressive towards former partners?
Speaker 14No, I do not know that. But I think things have gone astray, really wrong from the beginning. His name was mentioned in the beginning. Why did he then investigate the case? Why was he allowed when not only myself said his name? Rachel Rich said his name as well. Why did he investigate then? That's not right. And that makes me feel sad and sick.
Speaker 3Nicole's disclosures in this interview with me sound heartfelt and sincere. But we are still left looking for someone, anyone with a shred of evidence or certain knowledge of a direct connection between Hosemans and Janine. Janine was a very friendly and outgoing young woman who knew a number of men in Bath. She was a very friendly and outgoing young woman who knew a number of men in Bath. She By this I mean she knew them to talk to, to hang out with. She knew some as boyfriends, and some as customers of the menswear store. She knew some to go and have a beer or a glass of wine with. Some as students of Charles Sturt University. And she knew some of these men as the friends of friends. But all of these men who knew Janine are not now and never have been serious murder suspects for the Bathurst community. Yet somehow, Brad Hosemans, the one man who swears he did not know Janine, swears he never met or talked to her, and who hasn't been contradicted by hard evidence, became public enemy number one.
Speaker 14And he made it no secret he was interested because we told him she was single. And he said he was going to, you know, pursue her, ask her out. He said that.
Speaker 10And you also had direct contact with
Speaker 14Janine. We told her that he'd asked us about her. We told her that directly.
Speaker 3Let's pause for a moment to clarify this point. Hosemans hasn't denied having known of Janine. He hasn't denied having asked others about her. He has denied having met Janine, having ever asked her out, having spoken to her.
Speaker 14I have a terrible guilt. I said to him, Janine is single. Why don't you ask her out?
Speaker 4And now she's gone. And I'll feel bad about that for the rest of my life. I do keep her in my prayers and say that I'm sorry I ever mentioned to ask her out.
Speaker 10And you've lost confidence in the local police because, in your view, they've covered up for Brad Hoseman.
Speaker 14Yeah, totally. It is because he was mentioned in the first instance. He denies knowing anything. And they are police officers. Surely weren't they trying to see through bullshit? Why should the local police all be allowed to stay looking at it when their colleague is one of the people that are heavily? There is a
Speaker 3striking absence of credible evidence against Brad Hoseman so far in our investigation and in all the official probes years before this podcast. Fresh leads and tips are being investigated every week and there's still a way to go in this series. But just the idea that Hoseman's has been wrongfully accused of murder is deeply unpopular with many in Bathurst who continue to accuse the former cop. Weeks before Janine's disappearance, Hoseman's was embroiled in a notorious night of heavy drinking and the alleged groping of a woman at the Bathurst golf club. Janine wasn't there. Something happened there that night, but it was a far cry from murder. A large number of people in this town are
Speaker 11absolutely convinced that he murdered Janine Vaughan. Yeah, exactly. And going by what people tell us, you know, a majority of people in town seem to think he's right for you, you know. And I think it's one of those classic examples of where rumour, repeated often enough, simply becomes fact.
Speaker 3At his home in the Hunter Valley town of Scone, renowned for its horse stud farms, I spoke to Janine's brother, Rod Vaughan. Rod and Janine shared a unique bond. They were close. Like Janine, he grew up calling Jenny and Ian mum and dad. And like Janine, Rod was adopted too. Rod told me that after Janine moved to Bathurst, he'd been married to a woman named Janine. After Janine moved to Bathurst, he had noted that her boyfriends were always younger. He sometimes teased her, gently and good-naturedly.
Speaker 15I remember her saying, look, yeah, actually, I started seeing a guy, and all I remember was her saying he was a deputy mayor. Oh, that sounds promising. Deputy mayor? That sounds great. I just thought to myself, oh, this sounds different to the normal guys that she normally goes with. And that's why it stuck in my head.
Speaker 3Rodney recalled another conversation with Janine a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 15I got on the phone and we're talking and I said, so how's this deputy mayor going? And she went, oh, no, no good there. Didn't happen. And that was pretty much it. She just shut me down. So it was very interesting to me when he said later on that he didn't know her. Then never met her. Never met her. So I know he did. And I'm not the only one. She spoke about it with mum. As well. But to
Speaker 3be absolutely factual, though, can we say with certainty that she definitely was or that she definitely said she was?
Speaker 15Because if you didn't witness it. Yeah, I didn't witness it. She said she started to sort of see. Now, what that means, I don't know. Whether they went out on a date or it might have been nothing. He might have just been called into the shop and said hello and she might have been keen on him. I don't know.
Speaker 3Yeah. And a number of people say this, but I haven't heard from anybody or seen any statements. that anybody's given where they say, I actually saw them dating. I saw them out together.
Speaker 10Yeah, OK. Have you seen anything like that? No. When Janine told you something or when she told your mum and Jenny something or Kylie or any of her friends, something like that, would you accept it on face value? You'd have no reason.
Speaker 15I don't think she'd ever lie to me. I don't think she had any reason to lie to me about that.
Speaker 3I raised some of the claims with Dan Murphy one of Janine's staff from the menswear store. We met in the studio he's built for band practice and hanging out with his mates in the yard behind his house. Dan needs little encouragement to promote Bathurst.
Speaker 16Not many towns get their own racetrack. You can go and drive one any time you like. Up the Mount, we play a lot of ACDC. It gets well received. Yeah, that's very popular up there.
Speaker 10So, do you recall how. Do you recall how Janine described Brad and whether she seemed concerned in any way about his interest in her?
Speaker 16Yeah, yeah, yeah. She told me that he was interested in her.
Speaker 17Yeah, I don't
Speaker 16think she was ever fearful but more concerned that he was interested and she wasn't interested.
Speaker 10Do you remember any particular brush-off that you got when you first raised the issue of Brad Hoseman's and his interest in Janine?
Speaker 16When I brought it up that he'd been someone who was interested in her, that she wasn't interested in, it was definitely somebody that should have been looked at. They said that Avenue had been exhausted.
Speaker 10And when you say they, who are you meaning?
Speaker 16The police officer that I was. That he had given that statement to at the time. That it wasn't an Avenue that they were going to really look at. That it was just something that they weren't seeing as a concern.
Speaker 10But he's denied knowing her. He would say, I've never met her. Wow. I've never talked to her. Wow. Never bought her flowers. Wow. And I asked a friend about her.
Speaker 16That's all. Well, he'll always be a part of this story. And that's one of the worst things that's ever happened in Bathurst. So, yeah, there's nobody jumping to his defence at all.
Speaker 3The man you're about to hear is a former cop.
Speaker 18Well, he's my friend. There's not too many people that have stuck up for the bloke. That's just what your mates do, is you stick up for each other. So, my name's Bradley Edward Taylor. Currently, I live in Bathurst in New South Wales. I started with the New South Wales Police. In 1985. And ended up exiting the police in 2003.
Speaker 3Brad Taylor is standing up for his friend, Brad Hosemans. He's doing it knowing that there's every possibility some of the accusers of Hosemans will take this interview as evidence of a police conspiracy and cover up.
Speaker 18You know, if you're one of these people that thinks the earth's flat, well, you just keep thinking it's flat. It doesn't matter what you hear or what evidence you get. You go, oh, well, the earth's still flat.
Speaker 3Brad Taylor was equalised. He was equally dismissive when I asked him about the unsubstantiated allegation that other cops were part of the conspiracy to protect Hosemans.
Speaker 18You know, we'll play the game. If that was the case, could you imagine how many people must have been involved in that to make that a plausible scenario? And the levels of people that must have been involved in it, too. Well, the bloke got run out of town. You know, it was just relentless, the. For a period of time, the media scrutiny and the innuendo. Mate, he could have been handing out money and people wouldn't have bloody taken it off him. You know, it's just. The bloke just got hounded and hounded and hounded to the point that I suppose that was the part where he did get defeated and just went, oh, OK, I'm done. You know, I've got to go. You know, you can only be stoic for so long. The dramas and the crap that he's been put through, it has changed him.
Speaker 3Brad Taylor was confident that Hosemans could have risen to the highest ranks of the police force if his career had not been derailed.
Speaker 18He could be the commissioner. And I wouldn't be Robinson Crusoe to say that, either. You could rely on him. If something happened and it got a bit hairy, he wouldn't go missing. He'd be right there with you. I wouldn't think there'd be too many crooks that'd get the better of him.
Speaker 3Taylor and other cops who worked with Hosemans dismissed the murder allegations, as ridiculous. This was their position two decades ago and it hasn't changed one bit.
Speaker 18In my opinion, and most of the people I know, just thought it was just fanciful. You know, like, whenever anything comes up about it, there's still that innuendo. But you sort of look at it and go, someone couldn't have orchestrated this better.
Speaker 3The senior homicide squad cop leading the probe back then knew at least some of the things Janine's friends and family were saying. They were saying and sharing about Brad Hosemans in the early stages of the investigation. Paul Jacob made this brief entry in his official police notebook in early March 2002, four months after Janine's disappearance.
Speaker 19Brad seen. Flowers, chocolates, leading up to disappearance. Statement takers left out Brad.
Speaker 3Jacob knew that there were six or seven persons in his words who had given what he described as various versions about Hosemans and purported contact with Janine in the months leading up to her disappearance. This was very sensitive. The town was buzzing about the Bathurst Golf Club Seafood Night and the alleged antics of Hosemans and others. He had been charged over it and a prosecution in the local magistrate's court was just a few months away. If word leaked to the media that the detective and deputy mayor was also being looked at, in the context of Janine's disappearance and probable murder, it would become a runaway scandal. A scandal which could set back the entire investigation. Paul Jacob filed a report to much more senior officers in Sydney. These are his words. It's not his voice.
Speaker 19On June 4, 2002, just prior to leaving Bathurst on our previous trip, information was received which indicated that Detective Sergeant Hosemans might have had some contact with missing person Janine Vaughan prior to her disappearance. This contact was alleged to have included telephone contacts, visits to her shop, requests of her for a date. Nothing of a criminal type nature.
Speaker 3Paul Jacob produced a second internal report in January 2003. In this report, he ruled out Hosemans as a person of interest in the disappearance of Janine. After what he described as a thorough investigation, Jacob concluded that
Speaker 19there is no evidence of any criminal conduct. There is no evidence from associates from her work that Detective Sergeant Hosemans called into her shop. No evidence that he purchased and returned goods. No evidence that he telephoned her at the store. No evidence that he had any contact with her at all there. There's no evidence on any of the call charge records that any telephone connected to Detective Sergeant Hosemans had been used to contact Janine Vaughan. There is no evidence that those closest to Janine Vaughan were told about any of these issues. There is no evidence that Janine Vaughan was in fear of the attention she claimed she was receiving. There is no evidence that she wanted any action taken in relation to these issues alleged, although such support was offered by at least one of these persons. It is clear that the versions that Janine Vaughan has given to these various persons are not consistent with the information she has received. They are not consistent in detail to one another.
Speaker 3I asked Kylie her view now about how police had treated her family and Brad Hosemans in the early stages of the homicide investigation.
Speaker 20I know from the very first initial guys that was on it, they let us down big time. I don't think they took it seriously in the beginning. Then we got the, you know, the Paul Jacobs, you know, big detective from Seattle. Sidney come out and he got angry. I possibly quoted CSI too many times. So he used to get cranky at me a little bit and, you know, you watch too much TV and it doesn't work that way and I'd bring up Hosemans quite a lot. And he slammed his hand down on my parents' dining room table once and yelled at his, Hosemans has got nothing to do with it, on the top of his voice. We were always talking to them about Hosemans because Hosemans' name was very always brought up in, you know, people would say, oh, it's that copper, it has to be that copper. That was the only name that come off our lips, I think, at the time. And I'm really, I'm cranky that he's, of his involvement because he has, he's taken the effect away from Janine, you know. So many people were so out to get him that they've missed so much of what, evidence could have still been there and leads that they may have had because everyone's so focused on this police officer.
Speaker 3The sensitive internal report by the homicide squad's Paul Jacob referred to another possible explanation about the purported Hoseman's connection. This is what Jacob wrote. These are his words again,
Speaker 19it's not his voice. Relevant prior behaviour of Janine Vaughan should also be considered. Janine Vaughan has allegedly previously manufactured issues which she has reported to friends and police. The stalking, the flowers, the threatening letters. It is reported by Janine's former sister-in-law that Janine is a drama queen who simply made these things up.
Speaker 3Paul Jacob was referring there to the sister of Phil Evans, Janine's former partner who had persuaded her to move to Bathurst to be with him. Phil's sister, Janine Evans, had disclosed to police her suspicions. That the stalking incidents were not what they seemed. We heard some of this in an earlier episode. I suggested to Kylie that Hoseman's had been telling the truth all along. That he did not actually know Janine, but that she believed he was interesting and she had talked to other people about him. That's,
Speaker 20that could be how it has played out too. She may have had the fascination about him. I can't understand why she would bring him into the story. I don't know. I don't know. I don't something. And then all of a sudden, what, two weeks later she goes missing. I don't, I don't get
Speaker 10that. Had you ever known her to exaggerate stories about guys that she thought, you know, were interested in her?
Speaker 20I have heard that since, yes, that she was a bit of an exaggerator. But to me, she's never, you know, told me anything like that.
Speaker 3I asked Rebecca Howell if her good friend Janine said things about men that seemed made up or grossly exaggerated.
Speaker 21I could see that the guys found her mesmerising. So I don't believe that she had the need to exaggerate because there were plenty of blokes out there that thought that she was attractive and thought she was beautiful and would want to have dated her.
Speaker 10Dan, is it possible that Janine was a bit of a drama queen? Have you exaggerated the interest of men like Brad Hoseman's?
Speaker 16No, I've witnessed his interest in her. So, yeah, having seen it firsthand, I definitely believe everything she said.
Speaker 6Janine was prone to hyperbole and possibly, yeah, exaggerating.
Speaker 9And Felicity, when you say she was prone to hyperbole, just tell me how, how you came to that view.
Speaker 6Look, she was just dramatic. I mean, I was 19 back then and she was as dramatic as some of the other 19-year-olds.
Speaker 3Across the media, the former cop is still regularly singled out for special mentions. Here's leading TV broadcaster Lisa Wilkinson, host of Network 10's The Project, when the Night Driver podcast series launched. And I think it's important to clarify that police do not see Brad Hoseman's as a chief suspect.
Speaker 22The three persons of interest in Janine's case are Bathurst locals, a pharmacist who was seen in the area around the time Janine disappeared, and an aged care worker who confessed to the crime and later recanted. The most prominent, a police detective, all three deny any involvement in the murder and disappearance of Janine Vaughan. For the first time, the police detective shared his side of the story. Well, Brad, Hoseman's is a chief suspect, Hedley. Why do you think he agreed to speak to you?
Speaker 3He spoke because I think, as he said to me, he wants nothing more than this case to be solved because he swears he had nothing to do with Janine's disappearance, that in fact he had never met her, never talked to her. And I suspect that his hope is that the podcast will unmask who has really done this. A man who had been one of the most prominent citizens of Bathurst was very reluctant to be a part of this podcast series. I know this from him and from his sister, Janine Hoseman's. In one of my first recorded telephone conversations with Brad Hoseman's, I asked if he had received many media approaches for interviews about Janine Vaughan's disappearance.
Speaker 23I have. I have. And I've sought to decline them all. But there's been a lot of people who have been a number of reasons for that, too. It's not just my mental welfare, my well-being that's on my mind, you know, that that's a big driving factor. But there's other ones that are equally important to me, Hedley, and that is consideration to the to the Vaughan family as well out of this, because, I mean, they've gone through a hell of a lot. They don't know where where a loved family member of theirs is and they don't have an outcome. They don't have an answer. And I have strong, strong sympathy towards that family in that regard. That would be a terrible thing to have to live with as well. And thirdly, there's an ongoing police investigation that's yet to reach a conclusion. And nobody besides the Vaughan family and myself want an outcome and an offender arrested to this than what I do. But at the same time, you're probably the right person to tell the story.
Speaker 3Some of his critics on social media and in direct contact with me describe Hoseman as a man brim full of arrogance and swagger. This might have been how he presented in Bathurst as a deputy mayor and an investigations manager for the district before it all started to go awry. It's not how he presented when we met. Brad Hoseman's appeared nervous, apprehensive at our first off the record meeting in the lounge bar of a prominent hotel in the centre of Sydney in the weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic struck
Speaker 23hard. Yeah, I find all those feelings that I was having before 18, 19 years ago are starting to resurface. And the anxiety within me is getting stronger. And I just feel like now I'm having to relive it again. And the publicity that something like this is likely to generate, which means that I'm going to have to cope with that again. If I can go through some pain and we can get that result and something comes forward which helps the police, the offender in this matter, it's all going to be worth it.
Speaker 3He told me in one of a number of telephone interviews after our meeting that 19 years of being accused of murder and corruption can change your character and your outlook.
Speaker 23When you're going through this sort of process and it's something that's out of your hands, so you're kind of along for the ride, you keep telling yourself often that you'll be all right. I mean, when this started for me, I was within that environment. That's what I used to do for a living. But it kind of doesn't prepare you for what it's like on the other side. And as many times as you take comfort in the fact that you haven't done anything and then you rely on that, you still have these dark moments where your mind just wanders to what if and how did I end up here and what's the outcome going to be? And am I going to be all right? And am I mentally going to survive this? And when you're in a small city and you have to live and you have no anonymity, so every day you're going through this, the impact on you mentally and to another extent physically is immense. And it really takes some reckoning to deal with it. It hits you really hard.
Speaker 3and our principal sponsor, Harvey Norman. Since late 2017, when I started pursuing Chris Dawson for the 1982 murder of his wife, Lynn, Harvey Norman has been a loyal backer. It began with The Teacher's Pet and Harvey Norman and its CEO, Katie Page's support has continued for over eight years. I'm proud to have had their backing on all of mine and the time I've spent with them. And I'm proud to have had their back on mine. Shandy's story, Shandy's legacy, The Teacher's Trial, The Teacher's Accuser, Bronwyn, and most recently, The Sick to Death podcast. For more information on this podcast, go to theaustralian.com.au. There is an ongoing concern about talking on the telephone among some of those who believe there has been a conspiracy by police in Janine's case.
Speaker 5He thinks his phone's been bugged and he doesn't know if mine has or not. Is that Dennis?
Speaker 3Yeah. I met Dennis Mead on my first visit to Bathurst for this investigation. Like Barry Cranston, Dennis is in his 70s and his health has been up and down of late. But Dennis has boundless energy. He has investigated Janine Vaughan's case closely over the past decade. He spent tens of thousands of dollars of his own money to try to get to the bottom of what happened. Before his quest started, Dennis had no connection to the family of Janine Vaughan. He had never heard of Janine's sister Kylie, her brothers Adam and Rod, and her parents Jenny and Ian. But Dennis did have a terminally ill close friend called Les who told him that Janine's disappearance was probably the result of police corruption.
Speaker 24And said, I want you to take a look at this. And I said, what's going on? He said, this family's being shafted. He said, the sham of an investigation, a sham of a coronial inquest, he said, it's not fair. He said, I'm not too well, as you know. And he said, I want you to promise me that you'll help the family and you'll follow it up. So I said I would. I agreed to follow them up. Anyway, Les passed away a couple of years later. I'd made contact with Adam Vaughan and arranged to meet the family. And we met on a deer farm, which was at Neville, which was south of Bathurst. And the owner there agreed to have a secret meeting there. The family would not go to Bathurst. They didn't want the police to know. They were very suspicious. And we agreed to work together. And it went from there.
Speaker 3Dennis has contacted many witnesses over the years, even taking signed statements from them. He drove me around Bathurst and we stopped in his four-wheel drive opposite McKesson. Caddy Park, next to where Janine was last seen. The park in the heart of town is the site of the notorious old Bathurst Jail, where condemned prisoners were hanged at the gallows through the 1800s. At the hanging of John Coyne there in 1872, there were screams from the public gallery of spectators. The hanging had gone awry. Coyne's body was parted from his head. His trunk dropped into the pit below, but his severed head remained dangling. Coyne had been convicted of the murder of Aveline Littler, and she had been struck in the head with his axe. The woman's family went to Bathurst Jail to see a final act of justice take the former convict Coyne away forever. They witnessed that as well as a horrifying malfunction. This is how a Bathurst newspaper journalist wrote it up at the time.
Speaker 25The cause of the terrible catastrophe was the want of any allowance on the part of the ex-convict. For the executioners, for the age and attenuated frame of the convict, death of course was instantaneous. And although it might be merciful as a rapid and painless mode of taking life, the result was certainly most revolting.
Speaker 24This is the building that was formerly the premises where the nightclub operated from, where Janine disappeared from. Now, you would have to believe that she knew. the car was coming to pick her up. She was purposefully sitting out to the corner. The car swung around, the door opened and she got straight in. I don't believe that it was a chance meeting. I think that the meeting for her to be picked up was prearranged. And that she was aware that someone was coming to pick her up. That would have meant that she had to have been contacted at some point either outside of the club. or inside of the club before she left, so that she knew that the vehicle was coming to get her.
Speaker 3At his home in the nearby town of Orange, Dennis Mead shared his opinion about the conduct of investigations by police, and the role of the man that he believes was getting police protection.
Speaker 24The investigation was never conducted properly in the first place. So it's been a travesty for the family. You've become quite obsessed with this case, haven't you, over the years? I want to get rid of it. I'd just like to see justice done, and then the family get something done. Some closure, and everyone get on with their lives.
Speaker 10And I think you've got a pretty firm view about the person, in your
Speaker 3view, most likely responsible. Dennis told me he has been profiling Brad Hosemans for years. This has meant investigating properties, entities and employers associated with Hosemans, finding out about the former officer's contacts, colleagues and friends. These investigations by Dennis have led to him looking at members of the Hosemans family too. Even people such as another Janine in this story. Janine Hosemans, the sister of Brad Hosemans. Janine Hosemans is a prominent resident of Bathurst.
Speaker 10You're accusing a man of murder who's never been charged with murder. I'm sure you don't make allegations this serious lightly.
Speaker 24If Hosemans were given the opportunity to contest all of this, all of the evidence against him in a court of law, and he won and he was found innocent, that's fair enough. But there's a massive amount of evidence from quite a number of people that has never been followed up on. Anyone living in the Bathurst area were well aware that the police were doing what they wanted to with no oversight. What would be his motive to allegedly arrest him? How would they abduct her? He'd been pursuing her for some time and, you know, it wasn't in his nature to take no for an answer. And I believe that on the night of her disappearance that he was tipped off that she was drunk and she was out and about and I think they took advantage of the fact that she was in that vulnerable state, offered her a lift and I think that it went from there.
Speaker 3It is obvious that Dennis Mead has a position of trust within Janine's family. Can you tell me about Dennis?
Speaker 17I don't know the obsession. You know, I've thought long and hard about that as well and I want to know why and I can't really understand it. Who is he and what's his background? He's just a salesman, businessman from Orange.
Speaker 3Janine's brother Adam remembers his first meeting with Dennis.
Speaker 17Out of the blue, wanted to meet us at a shack up a dirt road. It was quite frightening when we were heading there. You know, we were ringing our family and telling them where we were and what we could see and how many metres up the road it was and what the mailbox looked like and. Why were you doing that? I guess it could have been the people that took Janine. Yeah, it was frightening but we were led by adrenaline and. What did he have for you when you saw him? What didn't he have? He had witnesses and statements and a big map like I was watching MASH from 1980. Scrawled it out on the table and marked his chess pieces out and he knew exactly, "Now, this is where Hoseman was and this is where they would have turned around." And, of course, we're just being fed by this obsession. And it was so early on and he's never lost it. He's traipsed through bushland. And followed people and set up cameras. Like, it sounds great. Like, he's solved it. He had all this on that first day that he contacted us. Like, nothing's changed. He had the map drawn out. He had the car. He knew where they'd changed their mind at the T intersection and has it down to the minute. How he would have got the car back. Where he would have washed it. How long it would have taken him. How long did it take him to get out of town and back into town. Everything. He's done so much.
Speaker 10There's a very strong theory. What is it?
Speaker 17That Hoseman's done it with help from his police workers, friends.
Speaker 9But it's all a theory, isn't it? It's all a theory.
Speaker 10And there's not a shred of evidence in the car?
Speaker 3No. There is no mistaking the ongoing commitment of Dennis Mead and his affection for Janine's loved ones. But I think it's questionable whether his efforts are helping. They might be making some things worse. Muddying the water.
Speaker 17He's been a great comfort for Kylie. To push her along. But he's also absolutely ripped her whole heart into pieces with pressure and. But it's been ten years since he contacted us, or longer, and we're still here. With probably a lot more. hate and unanswered questions.
Speaker 3On a subsequent visit to Bathurst, I met the mystery witness who has been telling Dennis about a woman's body with a man in a vehicle in a Bathurst forest. This man says he saw the body because he was in the forest, and he believes that it was Janine. Dennis has talked to Janine's family about him. He has suffered a serious brain injury. His account sounded wrong. He said, "It sounded highly improbable to me." Part of a far-fetched conspiracy theory, again revolving around the former deputy mayor.
Speaker 26And I really then thought, this is shit. Like, how dare you say that you saw my sister in the back of the car and never say anything because you were scared? I've kindly helped just block him out altogether. Is he trying to show them where the body is, or is it just another way of going after Hosemans?
Speaker 3The weaving of what we believe are elaborate conspiracy theories. in the absence of solid evidence, is unfair to Janine's family, and unfair to those being accused of their crimes. of complicity in murder.
Speaker 20I keep thinking of him and I think, you know, if you were interested in my sister, why have you done nothing to help find her? Why has it all been hindered and cover-ups and incompetence? And, you know, if I was a detective and I was interested in someone and that person just went missing, I would want to prove to the world that I was the best detective, Mr Hoseman's, and find her. And get to the bottom of it.
Speaker 3It is an intriguing idea. Over the years, Janine's sister Kylie has been alternately suspicious and dismissive of Hoseman's as a person of interest. And sometimes she sees him as someone who just might be able to crack the case wide open. Hoseman's tells me his personal scarring has been deep. Revisiting the source of this pain would be very difficult.
Speaker 23When you go through something like this which has a big impact on your life, you tend to, in order to deal with it, you tend to repress it, you tend to push it down, you tend to try and rebuild, you put it out of your mind, and it's a defensive mechanism. But if you want to stay sane, if you want to cope with it, you really have to do it. Look, I know I'd wake up in the morning, 3 o'clock in the morning for no reason, because sleeping was difficult. And your eyes would fling open, you'd be instantly awake, you'd have this sense of dread. Before your feet hit the floor, it's on your mind, you're thinking about it, you know, what if, what if, how do I end up in this, this is so wrong, and those sort of inner voices and that negative impact over time, because this process doesn't happen quickly, as you can imagine, it takes months. It's just, it just becomes debilitating on your mental health, it really does, and you start to wonder, like, can I cope with it?
Speaker 20I've gone down every single avenue of, you know, where these people feel, fit, so I've been very confused, very tormented by three persons of interest. But it could be none of them. Someone slipped through the radar, but I can't not go and look. I can't not go check it out, because, you know, people send you stuff and little mud maps of where they think that she could be buried and who they think's involved, so yeah, we've, we've gotten better. We've gotten in the car and gone, and gone onto properties, and dug on properties, and down on the, on the, the water, you know, we've got to the point where, you know, we've found a tarp, and we're like, do we, do we pull that tarp out? You know, it's in the same vicinity where these people have led us to, and, like, your heart's pounding, and you're just like, oh my gosh, if I pull that out and there's a dead body in there, like, should we ring the cops right now? And say, can you come down here? But then we didn't want to look stupid, desperate, because that's, that's what you feel, like, here you are, down on your hands and knees, lifting pieces of tin, just, just, I mean, this was, we're talking early days when there possibly would have been a, a body.
Speaker 3On a recent search around a bridge near Bathurst, Kylie's brother Adam found a burnt-out train carriage.
Speaker 20Anyway, he found some bones there. You do panic straight away, because you think, my God, you know, am I holding on to a piece of Janine? So, instead of going to Bathurst Police Station, I brought those bones home, and I took them into Musselbrook Police Station, and, I mean, it just sounds stupid, I know. It sounds desperate, doesn't it? But at the time, it's, you know, when you're out there, and you're digging, and you're, you're looking for her. I didn't think that they'd take me serious if I walked in with a bag of bones. Yeah, they'd come back as animals. Yeah, they'd come back as animal bones. You think, oh, my gosh, you know, is this it? Okay, well, if it's not Janine, then it's somebody else, and somebody else's case will be solved. So, that's, that's the thought process that you go through.
Speaker 3There is a particularly cruel punishment inflicted on people when a loved one disappears and is presumed dead. The finality that comes with burial and cremation rituals and the normal grieving process, these things just don't happen when there's no body. The not knowing, the hope for a miracle, the searchers, and the gut punch with every news bulletin about the discovery of a body add up to pain. It stays with people like Janine's loved ones.
Speaker 20I feel like half my life has been not knowing what happened to Janine. How do I grieve because, you know, you can't grieve because you haven't got a body. I've been to grieving counsellors before, and they sort of, you know, you go there for six months, and they say, well, that's it. I can't take you any further because we don't have a body. But, you know, I can't go back either because that's just not life.
Speaker 3And for you, do you feel that being involved and doing your own work is healthy?
Speaker 20Yeah. I mean, I have thrown myself into this, yes. You know, there's been times where it's been three or four months of going to bed at three or four in the morning. I'd be sitting there looking up people on Facebook. You know, just to find different things. I've had clairvoyants telling me that she's a sex slave in Thailand, that she's been taken over there. And, you know, then I'm on there looking at every photo in Thailand just to see if I can see her in the background of photos. And it's there every day. Like, you close your eyes at night, which is all you think about. And I feel like because I talk about it every day and that she's still here anyway, like,
Speaker 3it's very hard. Dennis recalled going to a meeting between investigating detectives and the Vaughan family at their home in the town of Musselbrook. Dennis had become a family confidante by then. One of the reasons he went to that meeting was because he believed he had found something important for the police to follow up. A female detective there told him to back off and leave investigations to police. Peter and I believe it is unsurprising that detectives don't always follow up. Detectives would want someone who is outside their investigation to stay right out of it. And she said, "They don't need any more help now. You can leave it. We'll handle it from here." Janine's mother, Jenny, was unwell and resting that day in earshot of the conversation.
Speaker 24And she was listening. And the voice says, "Don't let the bastards get away with it." That's what Jenny said in her statement. "Don't let the bastards get away with it." She was very emotional about it.
Speaker 3She said, "You stay with it all the way." Dennis Mead's initial involvement in this case and then his ongoing obsession can be traced back to two people. His friend, Les, and then Janine's mother, Jenny. Both were terminally ill at the time. Dennis believes that he is righteously carrying out the dying wishes of Les and Jenny, who have been deceased for some years. You heard from Janine's good friend in Bathurst, Rebecca Harris. Rebecca's pregnancy cemented their friendship. It also gave Rebecca an objective insight into the unsubstantiated gossip about Janine and the detective, Brad Hosemans, who would sometimes walk past her menswear store.
Speaker 9And Janine was your birthing partner. What did that involve?
Speaker 21That involved going to antenatal classes. It was quite funny, actually, because everyone used to think that we. We were a couple because Janine was such a prankster and a funny. So she'd be playing along with it and she'd be rubbing me and whispering in my ear and doing all this stuff. And we'd be giggling and stuff. And I'd say, "Stop it! Stop it!" And we'd have to watch videos and she'd be whispering in my ear the whole time watching these birthing videos. And she'd say, "Oh, my God! Do I have to look at that? Do I have to watch that?" I'd say, "No, you don't. You can stay up at the head." And she'd say, "Oh, I'm not going down there. It's disgusting." You know, we'd be. I'd say, "Stop it!" Because everyone else was there with their husbands or their boyfriends. And here us two were. But, yeah, no, we had lots of fun.
Speaker 7Sounds like she had a pretty good sense of humour.
Speaker 21She was very, very funny. She was beautiful.
Speaker 3When Janine disappeared, Rebecca's daughter, Paris, was just days old. Rebecca spent a lot of time with detectives in Bathurst in those early days as they tried to work out who, among all the people Janine knew, might have rolled up in a red car, abducted her and ensured that she wouldn't come back to say what had happened. Rebecca recalls the cops being patient with her need to postpone interviews to look after the tiny bundle Janine had cuddled shortly before she went missing. Janine had confided to her how keen she was to have her own babies. At 31, with most of her friends of the same age being married or having children, she decided to have her own babies. When she saw the children of their own, she thought the opportunity was slipping past her.
Speaker 9And over the years, you must have done a lot of thinking about what happened and why it happened and how it happened.
Speaker 21I run into people down the street that I may have not seen for many years. And people will say, oh, you know, have you heard anything about Janine or that type of thing? And I think, oh, God, I haven't seen you for years. And it's always ticking over in the back of my head. Do you know something? Or are you someone that had something to do with it and are you just sussing me out on what we know? It's always in the back of my mind thinking what people's motives are. And I keep telling the police this every time we go through this. It's someone that she knows, not necessarily someone that she knows well enough. Janine was a very friendly person. So it may have been someone that she had met through the shop or maybe a friend of a friend, but I definitely don't think that it was some random stranger that just pulled up and said, do you want to live somewhere?
Speaker 9And do you have any someone in mind?
Speaker 21Many people ask me about the whole Brad Hoseman's thing. To my knowledge, Janine never went out on a date with him or never had any phone contact with him or any lunch dates with him or anything like that. We had had a conversation about him. And she had disclosed to me that he was interested in her and that she was quite flattered and that he was quite good looking and well to do in town. And I had told her that he was a no goer and that he had a bad reputation in town as a womaniser and that she shouldn't go there. And she said, oh yeah, that'd be right. Just my luck. I finally got one that's older and more my age interested in me. And he's got a bad reputation. Because a lot of younger blokes always chased after Janine, like in their 20s. But to my knowledge, I was never aware that she went out on a date with him, that he sent her flowers at the shop or any of that. There was never anything in that apart from a wave and a wink past the shop. I would have known something. Bathurst is too small of a town. So if she had gone out on a date with him or if she'd gone for lunch with him or something, someone would have seen her and someone would have said something to me. Look, I feel sorry for him. I do. If he has had nothing to do with this, I feel really sorry for him because he's basically been forced out of town. He's lost his career. He's been hassled and I guess condemned. A bit of flirtation and a bit of, oh, I really like your girlfriend, to another friend. You know, I really like your friend Janine. She's a bit cute. Oh, is she single? She's single. Has gone and got him into this whirlwind of, I guess, 18 years of him being a murderer. I asked Rebecca
Speaker 3to summarise the general community view of what happened to Janine.
Speaker 21I believe that most of the town thinks that Brad Hoseman's had something to do with Janine's disappearance. I think that there's a lot of people in town that have got it in for this bloke. He was a local cop. And I think that there's a lot of people that are just jumping around. I think that there's a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon about wanting him to be found guilty of this. And I think, too, the way that everything was handled, there was missing evidence, statements that weren't submitted in properly. So I think people will start to think they were all covering for him, that he had something to do with it. Being such a small, close-knit town, people will get on the bandwagon, which only hinders and makes it harder, I guess, for us to get to the bottom of this. Rumours and innuendo, that's not helping. That's just leading us off the garden path somewhere. But I think because everyone had it in that it was Brad, that it was Brad, that it was Brad, whoever the real person is, has gotten away scot-free with this because there are probably other avenues that should have been more probably followed up and leads that should have been followed that weren't because everyone was hell-bent on that it was Brad Hoseman's. And he will probably be hounded and hounded till the day that we find out what happened to Janine.
Speaker 3As Peter Murphy and I investigate events in Bathurst in 2001, we've been repeatedly struck by the relentless focus of locals on Brad Hoseman's. It continues still to this day for some in the community. A major reason must be due to something I mentioned earlier in this episode, an infamous seafood night. at the local golf club, weeks before Janine's disappearance. Hoseman's was accused by a bar attendant, the sister of his former girlfriend, of trying to grab at her breasts as she was serving beers. He emphatically denied the allegation and insisted he was innocently trying to prevent an altercation between her and her former lover. But Hoseman's was charged with indecent assault. Instead of being sidelined by his police commander, he was told to continue working. And as a senior detective and investigations manager, he helped at an early stage in what became the murder probe over Janine Vaughan. Then the unsubstantiated rumours that he was somehow connected to her started to circulate. After a trial in front of a visiting Sydney magistrate months after the golf club incidents, Hoseman's and another club patron were acquitted. Their acquittals came after the local Western Advocate newspaper had gorged on a buffet of colourful evidence. Their headlines were brutal. Public opinion against police and Hoseman's hardened. And although he was found not guilty, the magistrate spoke of an undercurrent of cover-up. It was a powerful rebuke. Ultimately, it cost Hoseman's his police career. Worse than that, the spectacular fall from grace fuelled, and then turbocharged for some in the community, an evidence-free theory of a role in Janine's disappearance. It's a theory which other police, his family and friends regard as unthinkable. You're listening to Janine Hoseman's on 2BS 95.1 FM.
Speaker 27Well, I think most of us a couple of months ago, when we thought of corona, we were looking for the limes. But of course, times have certainly changed. Joining us in the studio, Dr. Ross Wilson, good afternoon to you.
Speaker 28Good afternoon, Janine.
Speaker 3Earlier in this episode, I mentioned Janine Hoseman's, Brad's sister. She's a prominent voice in Bathurst as a respected journalist, and she's often broadcasting on the local radio station, which she manages.
Speaker 28Last time a major impact like this was probably during the 1918-19 Spanish flu. Janine Hoseman's did not know Janine Vaughan.
Speaker 3When word of my investigations reached her early in the piece, she called, introduced herself and spoke openly, about the toll of the case.
Speaker 27It's an opportunity for him, maybe to get some peace and to get some closure, and maybe even for the Vaughan family as well, which would just be amazing. You said it so well when you said the other day, when we were sitting there, that talking about your legacy, you know, what is your legacy going to be? Do you go to your grave still with the shroud of suspicion that you're a murderer? I mean, what a horrible, horrible mark to leave on your life. I think Brad and I, and it comes from generations of where we come from, is that the only thing that's really important is your word and your actions and your own integrity. I mean, I've got a saying, Brad agrees, that, you know, it doesn't matter what you do when someone's looking, it's what you do when no one's looking. That's really the measure of the human being. And I think it was one of the things that made him so good at the job was that people trusted him, people liked him, people were happy to speak to him. It's been many years since he's left Bathurst, but I would still, on a regular basis, have people come up to me and ask me how he is and to pass on their regards. So he touched a lot of people in a really personal way. He really honestly had that ability to not put himself above people. And yet they gave him hell when the rumours and innuendo began. But I think many of those people are probably the ones that come to the fore whenever there's an issue that's going to polarise a community, or perhaps people had their own axe to grind with him, or it was a case of tall poppy syndrome, jealousy. I mean, he was an intelligent, articulate, good-looking man who was a successful police officer, who was a deputy mayor, who women were very attracted to. He always presented himself very well. He spoke well, a very measured kind of person. He wasn't given to being vitriolic towards people or yelling at people or losing his temper.
Speaker 3It's an unavoidable fact that many people in Bathurst believe Brad Hosemans is a murderer. I asked his sister if she understood this. Janine Hosemans doesn't pretend otherwise.
Speaker 27Yes, I'm absolutely aware. It was extremely difficult. A, because it was happening to somebody that I love and care about, but I also, so it was wrong. It was simply wrong. I mean, gosh, in terms of people who enjoy that type of news story, it really crippled me. couldn't get any better, could it? I mean, a deputy mayor, a high-profile policeman, and all of a sudden his life is starting to crumble around him in a really major and public way. It was and is such a complex situation that it couldn't really be done in a 30-second news story on the nightly news or a couple of paragraphs in a paper. And people are going to read from that and take from that what they will, depending on how they felt about Brad Hoseman's.
Speaker 3I asked her if she had held concerns about the effect it was having on her brother and his own mental health.
Speaker 27Absolutely I had concerns about him, how he managed to work through it. I don't know that I'll ever know. I really don't. I mean, 17-odd front pages, gosh, so much national coverage. It had a devastating effect. It had a great effect on everybody around him, but in particular him. I mean, he was a man who prided himself on the way he carried himself and his integrity and his word. And all of a sudden every aspect of his life was suddenly under scrutiny and was public fodder. In these days of social media, of course, everybody's suddenly turned into a journalist or an editor or a keyboard warrior or a troll. And small people with small minds have an opportunity to put forward a big opinion, and they can do that via social media. And many of those views were that former detective Brad Hoseman's was the person who was guilty.
Speaker 3I asked whether she wanted to get on her own keyboard and hammer out similar powerful responses about her view that he has been scapegoated.
Speaker 27Oh, no. I can't see the point in doing that. I think what I feel or what I have felt or what all of us have felt that know and love Brad throughout this situation pales into insignificance compared to what Janine Vaughan's family have been through and potentially what Janine Vaughan has been through. So to get worked up over people who really should take a good look at themselves about their comments when there is still a woman who is missing, presumed dead, and her family have no answers, who am I to put forward my view that how dare you assassinate the character of my brother? Their daughter, their sister, is missing.
Speaker 3From local news to what the nation is talking about, Hunter Valley Today with Jessica Rouse on 981 2NM. Jessica broadcasts from the town of Musselbrook where Janine Vaughan grew up and where her sister Kylie lives.
Speaker 29The Night Driver. It's about the mystery of Janine Vaughan who was last seen getting into a car outside of a Bathurst nightclub in 2001. Last week we caught up with Kylie Spelled who's Janine's sister who has not stopped looking for answers on what happened to Janine ever since she disappeared. There's still a $1 million reward out for information on anything to do with Janine and still there's been nobody found. There's still no real answer.
Speaker 3Three hours south in Bathurst, Brad's sister Janine Hosemans runs a different radio station. Janine in Bathurst and Jessica in Musselbrook have been getting behind this investigation, urging listeners to come forward if they know anything about what happened to Kylie's sister.
Speaker 29Now I am absolutely hooked on this podcast. I mean not only because it relates to us here in Musselbrook but it's quite a story. Hedley, have you had, you know, anyone come forward with more information since Friday or, you know, do you think you're going to get more information?
Speaker 30Yes and yes. The two answers to that, yes. Two very promising leads that have been produced over the weekend from people who I believe are very credible.
Speaker 3Among thousands of documents we've read in relation to Janine is a newspaper snippet. A snippet published in mid-December 2001. This article briefly described a series of sexual assaults on women in Bathurst shortly before Janine Vaughan disappeared and another assault a week after. There seemed to be a connection. All of the incidents except for the last one occurred at night. A car similar to the one that Janine was seen getting into was involved in the incident a week later. I've asked a friend to read the 19-year-old. A 19-year-old newspaper snippet.
Speaker 31Woman who disappeared from a Bathurst street may have been the target of a serial attacker, police said yesterday. Just over a week after the 31-year-old disappeared, police fear the man who may have abducted Janine Vaughan struck again. On Sunday, a woman was indecently assaulted at Kelso in Bathurst. The man was sighted in a car similar to the one which Miss Vaughan was last seen entering on December 7 at 4am. He has also been linked to four incidents in the surrounding area. Apart from the latest attack, all have occurred at night.
Speaker 3Nineteen years later, I've talked to a woman who has described in consistent detail her experience of leaving the Metro Tavern after midnight with a female friend and walking to a taxi rank near the old courthouse. The woman had long blonde hair then. I've met her and talked to her at length. She and her friend were in their 20s. A man got out of a small red car. He asked them to get in his car and he repeatedly offered to drive them home. He told them he had drinks in the back seat. She said he was unusually persistent, creepy, and they bluntly refused to get in his car. Our investigations into this incident are continuing and you'll hear more about it in a future episode. Because the woman told me it happened in early December 2001, about six days before Janine disappeared. As a Bathurst local at the time, this woman knew Brad Hoseman's. And she said it wasn't him. In the next episode of The Night Driver, a Bathurst businessman talks about the disappearances a few years apart of Janine. Jessica Small, and then Janine Vaughan, after they had visited venues that he owned. And it did happen again. What is this happening to me again? Both times, I was an innocent victim in it as well, you know. The Night Driver is a podcast series investigated and written by me, Hedley Thomas, with assistance from Peter Murphy. Music and audio production is by Blacksmith & Co, with additional audio support from Chris Bosley. This podcast series is brought to you by. and digital site. Visit thenightdriver.com.au for additional documentary material, as well as credits for the full team behind this multi-part production. Anyone with information about the disappearance of Janine Vaughan can contact me confidentially by email by going to thenightdriver.com.au. You can search for the Night Driver podcast official discussion group on Facebook and join in with the exchange of ideas and information. This podcast is made possible by subscribers to The Australian and our principal sponsor Harvey Norman. Harvey Norman has provided unwavering support for my investigative podcast since 2018. For more information on this podcast and on our entire investigative catalogue, go to theaustralian.com.au.
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