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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 this, if he's done it, arrests the man.
Speaker 5This stuff has tortured me for a long time.
Speaker 4It drives me insane. It breaks my freaking heart.
Speaker 3Radio broadcaster Jessica Rouse summed it up for many people in her interview with Kylie shortly before this episode. This is The Night Driver podcast. This episode came out.
Speaker 6Hunter Valley Today with Jessica Rouse on 981 2NM. And now we've heard from all three main persons of interest in the disappearance and suspected murder of Janine Vaughan. And I've said a few times on air, every time an episode comes out, my brain goes, oh my goodness, it was them. It had to have been. But then the next week's episode comes out and your whole mind is changed about. There is just so much information, so many people coming forward.
Speaker 3We've got a guest from the town of Musselbrook, where Kylie lives.
Speaker 6Kylie Spelled is Janine's sister. She and her family have not stopped looking for answers ever since Janine disappeared in 2001. And it's definitely time we catch up with Kylie again. Kylie, how are you doing? I'm doing okay. Has your opinion on who you think may be responsible for Janine's disappearance changed? Is it continually changing?
Speaker 7It always has changed. It's always shifted from person of interest to person of interest. And as the world is now hearing how difficult it is to try and rule out one of those people, it's been very difficult because the more you hear, the more that's there, you kind of think, oh my gosh, like you said, is it this person?
Speaker 6Now, there are still a few more episodes of this podcast series to go. And Kylie, you're hearing them as I'm hearing them. Do you think that there is? Do you think there's going to be an answer at the end of this?
Speaker 3Kylie is a busy mom in the Hunter Valley community, trying to manage media requests, a day job, her own investigations into Janine's disappearance, her singing commitments, and her young family takes all her time.
Speaker 7Oh, look, I'm really hoping that, yeah, someone will come out. Okay, cool. Because it is this puzzle. And as you can all hear now that it's all unraveling and stuff like that, it's just something that has. Puzzled us for 19 years. Where does all these pieces fit?
Speaker 6Just fingers crossed that something comes out of this podcast series. I'm confident there'll be an answer in one way or another.
Speaker 7I've gotten myself to that point where, you know, I'm not just going to think it's this one person because we could be looking at someone that's not even been mentioned yet.
Speaker 3Kylie is right. It must be a very viable possibility that somebody, male or perhaps even female, are not yet named as a key person of interest. Not yet. Not named or questioned during an inquest 11 years ago has eluded scrutiny the whole time. With the release of this seventh episode in the podcast series, it's a good time to share a roadmap for where my friend, the retired judge, Peter Murphy, and I are heading. Our plan after the next episode, the one following this one, is to come back with what we expect will be a concluding episode. We're going to look closely at some new information, which we believe shows a lot of promise and may change the course of our lives. Some of this information relates to men who have flown under the public radar. Peter and I know that many people, particularly in the Bathurst region, remain firmly fastened to the idea that the town's former deputy mayor and detective sergeant, Brad Hosemans, killed Janine, and that he then enjoyed the help of police friends and others in high places to cover the crime up. Something he has always wanted to do. Always emphatically denied. There's a lot to say about these very damaging allegations and rumours over Hosemans, and a great deal of evidence to examine now. We're going to do it here in this episode. Some of it is detailed, and we've done our best to analyse it in context. We've also reconstructed evidence from actual hearings where witnesses have given evidence under oath. We're doing all of this for important reasons. We think it can. We think it can still make a significant difference, possibly help solve Janine's murder. First, we believe that one reason Janine's killer has not been caught is due in part to the ongoing community suspicion about the role of the former cop, Hosemans. The suspicion is still very strong and pervasive. We think Janine's murder can be solved if people in the Bathurst community with important information can finally get back to work. past these claims of a cop connection. Second, this is a remarkable case study of something that has gone very badly wrong and caused a lot of harm.
Speaker 8Why haven't you done anything about Hosemans here in Bathurst? Especially about that he did that woman in, who's still missing.
Speaker 3The opening sentence in an anonymous letter accusing the town's former deputy mayor, Brad Hosemans, of murder landed on the Sydney desk of the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force in early June.
Speaker 8He tried to fuck her and she knocked him back, even on the night she went missing. Everyone knows about it, and you do too, and you haven't done anything about him.
Speaker 3When this untraceable piece of paper arrived, an ominous cloud already hanging over the detective sergeant suddenly darkened and looked more menacing.
Speaker 8Put the bastard in jail where he belongs. Some nurses at the Bathurst hospital know that he did it, and they're too frightened to speak up, and they were there that night. As he'll get at them too. Like he has others before.
Speaker 3The letter with its misspellings and claims lit the fuse for a new and explosive campaign of vilification and investigation of Hosemans. For Homicide Squad detectives, the letter represented another time-wasting distraction. They were almost certain from all of their own prior investigations, coupled with their knowledge of Hosemans, that he was being unjustly connected to Janine's murder because of the unreliable local rumour mill. But in courtrooms, media newsrooms, and in tens of thousands of lounge rooms across the region, Brad Hosemans would become a caricature for wickedness, and the cops who ruled him out as a suspect would themselves be viewed with suspicion by people raising claims of a police cover-up.
Speaker 9Mr Thomas, do you have children? Yes. How would you feel if one of your children was. Accused of that? Well, that's exactly right. I was devastated too. For Brad's sake. I was shocked. Shocked when Bradley told me that he'd been accused.
Speaker 3Absolutely shocked. You heard from Anne Hosemans in episode three when she was scotching a widely believed rumour in the town that she herself had owned a small red car. According to the rumours. It was the car used by her son to pick up Janine. These claims went around the Bathurst community like wildfire. They were accepted by many as fact, but they were all lies. Anne Hosemans had never owned a red car, or any car that was ever found burnt out.
Speaker 9If you have a child being accused of doing something so terrible, naturally it makes you feel ill. Well, I just found. It's devastating for Bradley, what he's had to go through. It's a shocking thing for someone to accuse you of something so horrific to have occurred. Your reputation is questioned. Everything about you is questioned. I just felt ill.
Speaker 3In 35 years in journalism, I've been exposed to many crimes. And the reasonable expectations of most people that our communities, media, and criminal justice systems will usually get the balance right. We rely on persuasive evidence to identify, and sometimes vilify, those deemed likely to be getting away with a crime as heinous as the murder of a defenceless, vivacious young woman, someone like Janine Vaughan. But I have not before been involved in a case where information and so-called evidence has been as distorted as in the data. disappearance and murder of Janine in December 2001, where much of the town of Bathurst, Australia's oldest inland European settlement and the spark for the nation-building first gold rush 170 years ago, has joined in in what has seemed like a collective madness of baseless accusation of murder against one man, the cop, Bradley George Hosemans.
Speaker 9I don't know how any person gets through it, to be honest. It's affected all the family.
Speaker 3Anne Hosemans has been in poor health lately.
Speaker 9And I'm 81, which doesn't help. Old age is catching up with me, Mr Thomas.
Speaker 3Before she goes, she wants people to understand that the taint over her son has been unjustified. Why are you so sure that Bradley wouldn't have done this?
Speaker 9Because I know Bradley. That's. That is the difference. I know Bradley. I know what sort of person he is. How he feels about things. How he feels about the family. He's a very good person. It does make you feel ill. And I just don't know how Bradley has coped with it.
Speaker 3It's now time to comprehensively unpack how this extraordinary campaign unfolded. How and why it happened. We dealt with some of this in episode three of The Night Driver. But there's a lot more. And it is important at this point in the series to delve into and describe how a few unrelated events wrongly painted Hosemans as the killer, hobbling the murder investigation. In particular, in the first event, a drunken night at a golf club with allegations about the groping of a woman's breasts. That was in October. October 2001. Then some harmless chit-chat between Brad Hosemans and a female friend to the effect that Janine Vaughan was a good-looking woman as she served customers in the Ed Harry's menswear store. The friend suggested that Brad should ask her out. He said he never did. He said he never talked to her. And that was around the same time as the golf club incident. So late 2001. Then there's a prosecution over the events at the golf club. And Hosemans. Hosemans was acquitted. That verdict was delivered in mid-2002. And then a hammer blow. The public airing by an anti-corruption inquiry, the Police Integrity Commission, of extraordinary claims from an unnamed woman who was clearly deeply troubled. A short drive from the centre of town is one of Australia's oldest golf clubs founded in 1894. The Bathurst Golf Club's fairways, bars and locker rooms must have witnessed some remarkable quality. There were many memorable conversations and memorable events over the decades. But one infamous seafood night in October 2001 must go down in the club's history as a standout for all the wrong reasons. Brad Hosemans is a keen golfer and he used to play to a single-figure handicap. If he had gone fishing instead of hitting a ball down those tree-lined fairways and then eating in the restaurant and drinking at the bar through Saturday, October 20, 2001, Hosemans might be one of the most senior cops on the force today because it's possible to pinpoint the end of the police career of Hosemans and the catalyst for much of the finger-pointing over Janine's disappearance to a very big day and night here. The events of that Saturday night would trigger a serious investigation by police and then a criminal charge levelled against one of their own, Hosemans, and a court case months later in 2002 I'm going to deal with the court case later. Hosemans maintains adamantly that he did nothing wrong and he insists he was very unfairly treated in the process resulting in his reputation being ruined.
Speaker 10Up until that time last night I would describe my relationship with Brad Hosemans to be mutually friendly.
Speaker 3We know who she is and many in Bathurst do too. Her real name isn't Sharon. Magistrate Graham Henson, who would be the first to know and who would hear the case some eight months later ordered that her name should not be published. About 11pm when she was serving behind the bar and barman Mark Newman was washing glasses Sharon's former boyfriend Stephen walked up. He was with Brad Hosemans and Sharon knew Hosemans. They were friends. He had previously dated Sharon's sister.
Speaker 10By 11pm they were loud and boisterous and I would say that in my opinion they were moderately affected by alcoholism.
Speaker 3As the men stood near the bar with some other friends one of their group made a coarse comment to Sharon.
Speaker 11You had sex with the James Cook.
Speaker 3It was a reference to a local motel called the James Cook and her former boyfriend Stephen.
Speaker 10I stood in between the cash register and the bar and said to Stephen words similar to you've got a big mouth. I did not hit Stephen hard. It was merely a wrist motion.
Speaker 3It's an important detail because Hosemans says that far from being a playful tap it was a forceful slap to the face. He insisted that he only intervened because he saw what he believed was a physical assault by Sharon upon her former boyfriend. As a police officer he said he was duty bound to try to prevent it from escalating.
Speaker 10Brad Hosemans then immediately leant across the bar and grabbed hold of the upper chest area of the front of my shirt. With one of his hands. Stephen also was trying to grab my breast with both of his hands at the same time. At the same time I pulled back and Brad let go of me. Neither of them said anything. They were just laughing.
Speaker 3Sharon described to police how the group of men continued drinking and mixing it up. They had moved on to shots of butterscotch schnapps and then Irish liqueur.
Speaker 10As I was standing there watching Stephen filling up the glasses with pineapple juice Brad said to me Brad Hosemans also walked behind the bar towards me and he picked me up by facing me and putting both his arms around my waist and I pushed him hard off me.
Speaker 3When Sharon's boyfriend arrived they walked out and went to his car. He wanted to take her straight to the police station to make a formal report. Sharon went back to the golf club the next day and quit. She went to her sister's house to tell her what had happened. They went to the police station together. Nine days later Sharon was interviewed by a senior officer Police Inspector Gregory Newham. The claims have always been strenuously denied by the men who were accused, Hosemans and Stephen. Inspector Newham asked about the physical intervention of Detective Sergeant Hosemans.
Speaker 10I don't think he meant to hurt me or scare me but he did. I've known Brad for I guess a few years now and I only sort of see him when he's either up at the golf club or out and he's always usually quite friendly to me.
Speaker 3Two days after this interview Sharon was formally interviewed for the third time. It was Inspector Newham again. The police officer told Sharon that a number of witnesses had reported having seen her sitting on someone's lap.
Speaker 10They didn't grab at me or anything like that. I don't think they were trying to like cop a feel or anything like that. As I say, I mean, I've known Brad for years. I've known him for a fairly long time and I would have considered him like a mate. I didn't feel threatened really. I just thought that they were being, I guess, drunk and stupid.
Speaker 3Sharon disclosed something else in this her third interview. It would become the trigger for lurid headlines and stories ratcheting the antics at the Bathurst Golf Club Seafood Night to an infamous new level.
Speaker 10And I've turned around and Brad Hosemans actually had his penis out and had hold of it.
Speaker 3Hosemans and another witness said it was not his penis. They swore that as a bad joke he had used his thumb to pretend that he was exposing his penis. This is how the barman, Mark Newman, described one of the incidents to police. As with the others, these are his words, not his voice and we've changed the complainant's name to Sharon to protect her privacy.
Speaker 12I can remember that two of the men reached over the bar and attempted to grab Sharon on the breasts. Sharon seemed to leave the bar and let out a playful noise like a giggle and moved back. I asked her what they were trying to do, grab her on the tits or something. She replied, they tried, but they didn't succeed. I didn't really notice anything about her then, but she seemed pretty composed. She didn't raise any alarms with me.
Speaker 3Inspector Newham questioned Senior Constable Andrew Holland about the night too. He became known as the dancing detective after meeting Janine at the Ox, then joining her at the Metro Tavern. And dancing with her shortly before she disappeared. In his police interview about Seafood Night at the Golf Club, Holland wasn't much help.
Speaker 13What drinks did you have during the night, from your memory? Probably half a dozen beers, half a dozen glasses of wine and a couple of shots of some spirits. I couldn't tell you what. Brandy Schnapps, I know, was one of them. During that part of the evening, did you see any persons wrestling on the floor of the club? Think on monogamy. got knocked over but I can't remember. At my state of intoxication at that stage I might have fallen over as well.
Speaker 3By mid-July 2002 Magistrate Graham Henson who had come from Sydney to hear the case delivered his findings. I've asked someone to read sections of the magistrate's 44-page judgment. Magistrate Henson said he accepted that Sharon had a resilient nature. She had made formal complaints on two separate occasions about the behaviour of other golf club members resulting in them being disciplined. He also accepted that she had been pushed to the end of her tether in a pervading atmosphere of drunken rowdiness and sexual innuendo.
Speaker 14Beer, butterscotch schnapps, wild turkey bourbon, Bailey's liqueur, evidence of multiple trips to the bar, people being tacked in the bar and off-duty police officer drunk and wrestling on the front lawn. It requires no great understanding to appreciate that what occurred on this night insofar as the consumption of alcohol was concerned was a group indulgence in unrestrained excess.
Speaker 3As for the alleged attempts to fondle Sharon's breasts which was what she had disclosed to barman Mark Newman on the night, the magistrate had this to say.
Speaker 14She had been the topic of discussion about her prior sexual relationship nor do I have any illusion that as the night wore on and the level of intoxication and the level of intoxication and the level of intoxication and rose the inhibitions of sober and otherwise responsible men diminished. I have no difficulty in accepting that as Newman said they were trying to fill her tits. It is a close-run thing in the final analysis but I'm left with the view that I cannot proceed to record a finding of guilt.
Speaker 3Overall the magistrate believed that while Sharon might be prone to exaggerating some things she was truthful.
Speaker 14Certainly more so than either of the defendants members of their group and some others who gave evidence before me. Throughout these proceedings there has been the permeating odour or undercurrent of cover-up and deceit. I have had my say. It pleases me not to have to do so.
Speaker 3These criticisms from a senior visiting magistrate were devastating. At the end of a case in which the defendants were acquitted the attacks on them and some of the witnesses were also unusual and some people asked aloud. If cops and others could cover up what happened at the Bathurst Golf Club seafood night what else were they hiding? You heard from a fellow cop and long-time Hoseman's friends in episode three. Brad Taylor told me that he and other police were flabbergasted by the outcome of the case. Back in Sydney the heads of the New South Wales police force received the magistrate's findings and then organised for a rare off-the-record interview with the magistrate.
Speaker 15He's not guilty. I wasn't convicted of anything but it's that thing about throwing enough mud and it sticks and unfortunately in a smaller pond like Bathurst because it was here they've got to fill the local paper up with something and this sort of stuff makes good reading and I think that's why they pursued it and kept on with it. The police commissioner wrote to him saying I've lost confidence in you and effectively firing Brad Hoseman's as a copper. I thought he chatted it. It was all through the media here at the time. In my opinion there was a public perception that he got looked after or he was getting looked after. Someone wanted Brad's scalp it was as simple as that you know for the golf club thing then they got it unfortunately.
Speaker 16And do you see it as a chain reaction then that is if there had been no golf club incident then there would not have been this level of public scrutiny and accusation against Brad Hoseman's over Janine Vaughan.
Speaker 15You just sort of look at the ripple effect of what happened from the golf club.
Speaker 3December 2005 saw the fourth anniversary of Janine's disappearance come and go with police no closer to finding and charging her murderer. But the passing years hadn't dampened the rumours and gossip swirling around Bathurst. Many of those spreading these believed they already knew their murderer Brad Hoseman's. Written complaints had been made to the police commissioner asking why he hadn't been arrested. The complaints came to a head after the police commissioner received the crude and anonymous letter in early June 2005. You heard some of its contents at the start of this episode. Here's a brief sample. The letter would become a catalyst for more complaints from Bathurst locals. More innuendo. As a result of the seafood night Hoseman's was already fighting to keep his job as a cop. The union or association for police officers backed him with a legal challenge to the police commissioner's decision to fire him. In a bid to prove that he had not exposed himself in the golf club as alleged by Sharon, Hoseman's resorted to producing an unusual confidential exhibit for the judge hearing his legal bid to keep his job. This confidential exhibit included photographs of his flaccid penis. The strategy was to show in court with the photos, measurements and some delicately expressed oral evidence that it really was his thumb, not his penis, which he had revealed through the zipper of his trousers that night. Hoseman's had consistently sworn that he did not assault or attempt to assault Sharon and that he did not grab or attempt to grab her breasts and he did not expose his penis to her. In February 2005 he swore this evidence in an affidavit tendered as part of his case in the Industrial Relations Commission in Sydney. These are his words but not his voice.
Speaker 17I was taken to the police station and had to return my police identification and appointments. I found this experience very humiliating in that my police career had come to an end in such a fashion. The front page of the Western Advocate the following day had a story about my dismissal with a large headline of Hoseman's sacked. I understand that if I had done all the things that I was accused of in relation to the events at the Bathurst Golf Club on 20 October 2001 and if I had been untruthful in my evidence in the Bathurst local court then that would be a serious thing for someone in my position to have done. However, I did not misconduct myself on the night in question nor did I give false or misleading evidence. I have always been acutely aware of an accepted manner of behaviour and at no time in any state of intoxication has it been remotely suggested previously that I in any way indecently assaulted or assaulted any person, male or female.
Speaker 3Superintendent Frank Kyters had a high regard for Hoseman's, stating in the evidence, I believe
Speaker 18the sergeant to be a highly competent police officer. His work performance is exemplary. His attitude and demeanour, until this incident, have been outstanding.
Speaker 3Kyters noted that while Hoseman's was found not guilty, the magistrate may as well have convicted him. Such was the fierce reaction to the sharp criticisms in magistrate Henson's finding. Other witnesses, including women with whom he served on the council, spoke on his behalf. But all the litigation failed. Hoseman's lost. He appealed and lost again. Hoseman's did not win back his job as a cop. He started a fish and chip shop in Bathurst to try to make ends meet. But many locals did not want to buy his seafood. Now a new saga loomed with the anonymous letter sent to the police commissioner. As a result, police challenged other police. Independent watchdogs challenged each other. The opinions of two leading senior council in Sydney were obtained. Witnesses contradicted earlier statements. There were detailed reports followed by challenges to those reports followed by new reports and counter-challenges to those reports. You heard Detective Inspector Paul Jacob in an earlier episode. He's the cop who ran the investigation from the start into Janine Vaughan's presumed murder. The anonymous letter was treated by the New South Wales Police Force as a formal complaint under a section of the existing legislation and it was brought to the attention of the veteran detective Paul Jacob. Jacob duly prepared a report about it for his bosses. It needed to deal with how police, including Paul Jacob, had investigated the Vaughan case. Had there been corrupt or preferential handling of evidence relating to another cop, Brad Hoseman's? To an outsider and to those who love Janine, the investigation into her disappearance seemed to have itself disappeared into a hall of mirrors. The anonymous letter had found its way to the now disbanded Police Integrity Commission for Investigation and in September 2005 it started an inquiry. There was extensive electronic surveillance, phone taps. There were three central allegations against Hoseman's identified by the Commission. Two were very serious and suggested possible criminal conduct. First was the allegation that Hoseman's was actually involved in the disappearance of Janine. The second allegation was that he deliberately provided Detective Inspector Paul Jacob with a false statement in relation to his own whereabouts on December 6th. and 7, 2001. A third allegation was that he had involved himself in the investigation into Janine's disappearance, even though a workplace agreement after the allegations arising from the seafood night prevented him from having direct contact with members of the public. After an initial investigation spanning seven months, the Commission held its first public hearing in Orange in June 2006. Janine had been missing for four and a half years. The Commission hearings dropped two bombshells. Both exploded right around Brad Hoseman's. A statement prepared by a solicitor included shocking new purported evidence. It came from a woman identified in Commission hearings and in the Commission's Rani report as RA1. That's how she was referred to protect her identity. Even today, it is how we must refer to her. Her claims were as stark as they were disturbing. RA1 says that she had seen a distressed Janine Vaughan a day or two after Janine had disappeared. RA1 said that she saw Janine in a car being driven by Hoseman's, a red car. It took RA1 four and a half years to tell what she says she's on that December day of 2001. In the months before this podcast series started, the woman known as RA1 met Kylie and Adam in Bathurst. RA1 agreed to Kylie recording their conversation. I had tried to talk to RA1, but she declined. I wanted to ask her a number of important questions. RA1 read the statement that she had given all those years previously. These are RA1's words from back then, and it is RA1's voice as she sounds now.
Speaker 19The statement I made was, I'm age 47, an employee at Bathurst. Heading north, I saw a small red car hatchback, which I recognised as Mitsubishi Colt. I saw a very distressed woman sitting in the front passenger seat, trying to get my attention, and appearing to wave when I realised that her hands were tied together with what appeared to be baling twine. As she put her hands up, her hair was as though it was standing on end. It was very messy. The person that I recognised driving the vehicle had a clean cut, no beard, short, shortish dark haircut. He was wearing a light coloured shirt and looked shocked, his mouth dropped open. When the vehicles passed, I knew this person to be Brad Hoseman, as he was a policeman in Bathurst, and I knew his sister in Bathurst, having had business dealings with her regarding advertising over the radio. At this time, I was slowing down as I was approaching the street and about to turn into it, and I was able to see Brad Hoseman and Janine Vaughan quite clearly. I wondered what had happened, but as I knew Brad Hoseman as a policeman, who should be trustworthy and should be a pillar of society, I thought nothing of it and got on with my day as I had a busy life. I have lived in the area, for approximately 20 years, and driven my vehicle for approximately 16 years. It did not occur to me that there was a problem with the circumstances until I saw Janine Vaughan's picture on the Western Advocate on Friday the 7th of April 2006, and then saw my solicitor on Monday the 10th of April. I am prepared, if necessary, to give evidence at the current inquest in May in Bathurst, but would prefer my identity to be suppressed.
Speaker 3If this were true, it was damning. But more bad news was coming to Hoseman's in the Commission's hearings. A central focus of the hearings was what the Commission referred to as his alibi for the night Janine went missing. Hoseman's had told investigating police that he was visiting his home on the night Janine disappeared. He said he didn't return to Bathurst until Friday. By then, Janine's friends were worried, and they were looking for her. It was an account that he persisted with, including in statements under oath. Detective Inspector Paul Jacob had asked Hoseman's to produce financial records which would show where he was, credit card statements for example, indicating when and where there were purchases of petrol. Paul Jacob had also arranged to search the mobile telephone records for Hoseman's. Those records would show the phone towers which his mobile phone connected with to achieve its signal at relevant times. The upshot of all of this was that the statement from Hoseman's that he was not in Bathurst on the night Janine went to the Metro Tavern was wrong. So the Commission now wanted to work out, was he innocently mistaken, or was there something more to it had he been lying to hide the fact that he was in Bathurst on the night Janine disappeared? There was a lengthy cross-examination of Hoseman's at the Police Integrity Commission hearings. His evidence from those hearings is taken from the transcript, but we have used the voices of actors.
Speaker 17Look, I asked one question in relation to that person. I hadn't expressed an interest. I hadn't taken it any further.
Speaker 3Hoseman's again insisted that he did not know Janine Vaughan, that he had merely briefly mentioned her. Hoseman's again insisted that he did not know Janine Vaughan, that he had merely briefly mentioned her in passing to a woman he knew in the same shopping centre in which Janine worked.
Speaker 17It was in the course of a general conversation with a shop assistant who was a friend of mine, and that's as far as it went. I did no more. I have never met her. I have never spoken to her. I have never sent flowers. I have never been on a date. My only involvement with Miss Vaughan was in the investigation of her disappearance, sir. It was. was not in causing it.
Speaker 20On Monday, Mr Hoseman's, you told us that it may be that you were back in Bathurst on 6 December 2001. What is your position today? Were you back in Bathurst on 6 December 2001?
Speaker 17I don't have an independent recollection of my movements. I would concede that if the records indicate I was in the Bathurst area on 6 December, that could well be the case.
Speaker 20Can you account for your movements on the evening of 6 December 2001?
Speaker 17I can't tell you what I did, but I can certainly tell you what I didn't do.
Speaker 3Hoseman's had never said he had a recollection of what he was doing on that night. He said he needed his credit card statement to place himself on the relevant dates, and that's what he had used and relied upon. That also made sense. His credit card statement in fact supported what he said. Purchases in Bathurst were recorded for Friday, December 7, in that credit card statement. And purchases recorded before that date were not in Bathurst, they were near his mother's place. Not only that, but the purchases recorded on the credit card statement supported his account that he was at his mother's place on the Thursday and travelled home to Bathurst the following day. So on the basis of the credit card statement, Hoseman's was telling the truth. But there was a large problem. Credit card statements bear the date when a transaction is recorded by the bank, not necessarily when the transaction actually occurs. There can be a delay, sometimes just a day or so between the two. Hoseman's discovered the discrepancy for himself shortly before these hearings.
Speaker 17There was all this discussion and rumour and innuendo. I started to think, well hang on a sec, why am I being considered for this? Then I started to think, well this is wrong. Like, this is just totally wrong. So I thought, well I've got to start looking after my own interests here, because I'm being suggested as being involved in something that is not actually the case. I went through some documents that I had at home and found a petrol receipt which indicated that I had purchased petrol on the 6th, which I thought was unusual, because I was under the impression that I had done so on the 7th. And then that caused me to think, well, I've got to start looking after my own interests here. Well, perhaps what I had relied on to provide the information in my statement some 12 months after was not exactly written as it should have been.
Speaker 3When I spoke to his mother, Anne Hoseman's, about this discrepancy, she blamed herself.
Speaker 9That was my fault. That was exactly my fault. At the time, I said it's impossible. Bradley was staying here. But apparently Bradley had gone home the day before. So it was me who kept reminding Bradley, how can you you'd be blamed for something when you were staying here but I truly thought Bradley had stayed here the full week.
Speaker 3This podcast is made possible by subscribers to The Australian and 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 Australian's investigative podcasts, The Night Driver, 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. Paul Jacob agreed during his questioning at the commission that with the benefit of hindsight it was a mistake for Hosemans to be involved very early on in the investigation when the charges arising from the incident at the golf club were not resolved. It was neither a good look for the public as it sought confidence in police nor appropriate police procedure. But Paul Jacob insisted it wasn't sinister, it was an error of judgment. The senior cop was also asked by one of the lawyers for the commission why the discovery by police of the fact Hosemans was back in Bathurst when Janine disappeared did not elevate him back up to being a key person of interest in the police investigation. Simply in and
Speaker 21of itself it did nothing to help the police investigation. advance this man's involvement in the disappearance of Janine Vaughan. I mean there would be many people within Bathurst in this investigation that were in Bathurst on that night. Now I can't elevate this man back up to a person of interest simply because he has made a mistake for whatever reason or given a false account. I mean this particular man generated huge amounts of rumour and innuendo in the town and that developed during the course of our inquiries into it.
Speaker 3The third hit to Hosemans was friendly fire. It was evidence meant to help him but instead it backfired badly. It came from Stephanie Young, a woman who had been in an intimate relationship with Hosemans. This is what the commission's Rani report said about her evidence.
Speaker 22On the 21st of August 2006, Young gave evidence that she had known Hosemans since June 2001 and that their relationship had become intimate in late November or early December 2001. She described her relationship with him at the time as being a very casual relationship but an intimate relationship. From time to time she would visit Hosemans at his premises in Bathurst. Her evidence was that it was during the commission's hearing in Orange in June 2006 that she heard for the first time that Hosemans had said in a statement to the police that he had not been in Bathurst at the time of Vaughan's disappearance.
Speaker 3Stephanie Young's relationship with Hosemans continued for the next two years. She said that when she heard his June 2006 evidence to the Police Integrity Commission, she told a couple of friends that she thought Hosemans had been with her on the night in question. Stephanie Young was a diary keeper. She had kept a diary for university, reminders about when assignments were due and the like, and she had kept it up after uni to record things she was doing day to day. She had kept a diary for university, she had provided her diary to the commission before giving her evidence. It contained no entries for the two crucial December 2001 dates, the Thursday and the Friday. But after Young had finished giving evidence, she contacted staff at the Police Integrity Commission. She said she had discovered a page missing from the diary, a page noting something for that Friday in early December 2001. This is how the commission set it out.
Speaker 22Following the above-mentioned hearing, Young contacted the commission on the 30th of August 2006 and advised that she had located a loose-leaf page from her diary on which she had recorded the text of an SMS message she had received from Hosemans on the 7th of December 2001. She said that this message indicated that she must have been with him on the previous night, which was the night of Ms Vaughan's disappearance. Young produced this diary page. The commission was sceptical.
Speaker 3It asked a handwriting expert to examine the loose page. The key question they wanted answered was this. Had Stephanie Young inserted the words LAST NIGHT and the numerals 01 into the text on the diary page to try to put Hosemans with her on the night of December 6, 2001? Without those two words and two numbers, the diary entries provided no help to Hosemans, but with those entries they were a big help. The handwriting expert's evidence suggested that these were additions or afterthoughts. Young was then summoned to give further evidence at the commission and she was cross-examined about the missing page. The Rani report from the commission made its views clear.
Speaker 22The more likely scenario is that the handwritten document produced to the commission by Young, after she gave evidence on the first occasion, is a document that she created to support her claim that she was with Hosemans on the night of the 6th of December, 2001. Young's evidence that she believes she was with Hosemans at the time of Ms Vaughan's disappearance is difficult to accept in view of the strong doubts that attach to the document she produced to support her claim and, in particular, the circumstances of its creation. The commission places no weight on the evidence given by Young.
Speaker 3Three separate pieces of evidence tied to Hosemans had ratcheted up the tensions in the hearings of the Police Integrity Commission, but what might have briefly looked like a tightening noose unravelled quickly, exposing the rope as threadbare. First, there were the claims of the woman given the pseudonym RA1. Peter Murphy and I have looked at the evidence and have found that the evidence has long been deeply sceptical about her account. Regrettably, she did not agree to an interview with me. When Kylie met her in the lead-up to this podcast series, RA1 said that she was grilled during the hearings of the Police Integrity Commission, the PIC, or P-I-C.
Speaker 5How were you treated by the PIC when they come and took that statement?
Speaker 19First off, I was explained all of the. fines that I could incur if I didn't tell the truth. It was very daunting being in a big room with a lot of people, and they were just questioning about the car. How did I know? As the car got close to me, I realised it wasn't the car I first thought it was.
Speaker 3This is going to need a bit of explanation. The woman known as RA1 said that when she first saw the small red car. she believed it belonged to her son's friend. It's why she said she waved as it approached. She claimed that as it got closer, she could see it was a different car, with a different driver. And she said it was Brad Hoseman's. But with a frantic Janine supposedly in the front seat, her wrists bound. But documents obtained by the commission proved that her son's friend had not actually bought the car until a couple of months after the date on which RA1 claimed she had seen what she at first thought was her son's friend's car. How could RA1 have ever thought it was a car owned by her son's friend when he did not own it and could not have been driving it until a couple of months after the incident so vividly described by RA1? The Police Integrity Commission's concerns that their star witness was a fantasist were
Speaker 19escalating. I don't know whether that gave them the thought that I was unreliable. And there were other questions that I had to explain.
Speaker 3The documents we've obtained show that she at first gave evidence to the commission in a private or closed hearing, then returned at a later date to a witness box where her account was challenged. These are the words of RA1 and the lawyer questioning her as shown from the official transcript. It's not their voices.
Speaker 20On the last occasion that you were here, you told the commission about the circumstances in which you saw the newspaper with the photograph of the young woman in April of this year? Yes. Do you confirm that when you saw that photograph, you immediately recognised the person as the person you saw in the car all those years ago? Correct. The only other time you'd seen that person whose photograph was in the paper was on that day in the car that you saw driving? Yes. I did not know the person prior to it being reported. that she was missing. And you didn't read any part of what was written in the paper on that day in April this year? No, I didn't. I found it too distressing. I had to get my supervisor to turn the paper over. But you drew a link in your mind between that person and the name Janine Vaughan, the person who had disappeared many years ago.
Speaker 3Yes. We've interviewed many people from Bathurst for this podcast. Without exception, they have described the enormous public attention Janine's disappearance received locally. Headline after headline, story after story in the local newspaper, The Western Advocate. Regular TV and radio news reports, updates and public appeals for help, like this one on the second anniversary of Janine's disappearance.
Speaker 23It's been an agonising time for her parents, her younger sister and brothers, all seeking. In some form of closure. Every day we wonder, we ask questions, we just want answers as to what has happened. It's very hard. It's torn our family apart.
Speaker 17Please help us. God's sake, please help us. Madeline Venom, Win News.
Speaker 3But according to her evidence to the commission, none of the media attention and concern in her community had any influence on her in these months and years. After RA1 says she saw Janine in a red car.
Speaker 20You see, Janine Vaughan was someone you'd never met. That's right, isn't it? Correct. If I can summarise your evidence about your knowledge of her disappearance, it wasn't something that you paid great attention to. Is that a fair summary? That's a fair summary. Something that you were only relatively vaguely aware of from media reports around late 2001, early 2002. Yes. And from some posters that you didn't pay particular attention to. Is that fair? Yes, that's fair. Yet the photograph that you saw on the front page of the paper caused you to say to your husband, there's a photo of Janine in the paper. I think I need legal advice or words to that effect. What was it about seeing this photo that led you to have that reaction? It was just like seeing her face and knowing that I was so close. I was so close to that face when I saw her in the car.
Speaker 3RA1 couldn't say whether she had read anything in the newspapers about the disappearance. She had, she said, noticed a poster about Janine's disappearance at the time, but in her words, she didn't pay a lot of attention to it. However, RA1 told Kylie that she knew Brad Hoseman's.
Speaker 5Did they ask you more questions about the person that you allegedly thought you'd seen? What made you think it was him?
Speaker 19I was asked questions of how did I know who it was. He was the deputy mayor. He was the policeman. I had seen him on TV. He was quite distinctive looking. Yep. The typical short hair. When his mouth dropped open when I saw him, I just thought, holy shit. He's seen me. He's seen me. You've seen him. He's seen me. He's seen me. He's seen my car two and two. Like you. I'm gone. There's someone who must know more than what I do.
Speaker 3And like the taxi driver Barry Cranston and the amateur sleuth Dennis Mead, from whom you heard in the third episode of this series.
Speaker 22He thinks his phone's been bugged and he doesn't know if mine has or not, but. Is that Dennis?
Speaker 3Yeah. Two outspoken men who have spent years waging a damaging public campaign, accusing Hoseman's. Without a shred of evidence, the woman known as RA1 is also deeply paranoid.
Speaker 19My phone, I believe, is tapped. It makes a clicking sound that has been there for many, many years.
Speaker 3It took four and a half years for RA1 to give for the first time her account of seeing Janine and Brad Hoseman's in a red car. Why? What had happened in that four and a half years? RA1 raised with Kylie and Adam who diagnosed depression.
Speaker 19I think I was questioned on my mental state and I had depression, as I said. I think what really hurt me the most is why, when they asked, well, why didn't I tell my husband about it? And there were medical reasons around that. The old mother duck wanting to practice. So I tend to bottle everything. If it was the way that I could show you from the inside what I saw.
Speaker 3She also told Kylie and Adam she had felt scared.
Speaker 19I have felt threatened. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder, looking down at the ground. I don't want to make eye contact with anyone. One particular day, I can recall walking past a shop in Bathurst. And Brad Hoseman was looking out the window. This was the fish and chip shop in George Street. I ran for about a block. I absolutely near lost it. They had photos of my house from out the front. And I thought, how close are these people going to go?
Speaker 3RA1 knew that the question on everyone's lips was, why didn't you say anything to anyone?
Speaker 5I mean, I know there's a lot of people out there that have criticised Jill because of the time frame. I know they're just like, well, how the hell could she have kept this a secret for this long? To be honest, as a young, hot-headed 20-year-old, I probably was pissed off. I was probably cranky at that point. Well, what's this lady thinking, you know? How can she keep that from her husband? How can she keep that from her family?
Speaker 3For four and a half years, after allegedly seeing a bounty, a young woman in the passenger seat of a red car driven by Brad Hosemans within a day or two of Janine disappearing, she did not breathe a word of it to anyone. Not her husband, not the doctor treating her for depression, not a workmate. She said she still had not told her adult children, who have children of their own. It was unsurprising that her cross-examination in the hearings focused on why she hadn't spoken of the incident to even those closest to her. She said she had taken barely a passing interest in Janine's disappearance. To her, it was an unknown woman being driven in a car by Brad Hosemans. But why then the fear and the threats that she associated with reporting such an incident? On RA1's account, in her mind, there was no connection with what she saw and a woman who had disappeared and likely been murdered.
Speaker 20At the time you saw this red car on this morning, these years ago, you had no bad relations whatsoever with the police in Bathurst or anywhere else, did you? Personally, no, I hadn't. You were someone who would try to do the right thing as a citizen in any situation that you observed? Yes, I believe so. You observed at seven or eight in the morning a car driving towards you down the road near where you lived containing a young woman who appeared to be in distress. Correct. A young woman who you thought was trying to attract your attention? Yes. A young woman who, on closer observation, had her hands bound by what appeared to be bailing twine? That's what it appeared to be. The car was being driven by someone that you knew to be a police officer? That's correct. He appeared to be surprised that he observed you or your car? Correct. The woman appeared to have her hair messed up? Extremely. It was a red hatchback of some sort, as best you could tell, like a Mitsubishi Colt? Correct. You've agreed, I think, in the evidence that you gave earlier on the last occasion, that it was a quite extraordinary thing? Yes. And you've agreed that you mentioned it to no one? Correct. Until six or seven April this year?
Speaker 3That's correct. The Inquiries Commissioner held obvious concerns.
Speaker 22Would your husband have thought that you'd had a bad dream or a nightmare about it and just dismissed it? I mean, was there any part of you thinking, oh no, he won't believe me if I tell him anyway? No doubt, sir. He would have told me I was a. Get over it. Don't be offended by this either, but is there any history between you and he about him saying, oh look, you're dreaming, and get over it? Or do you have vivid nightmares or dreams? No, normally we talk about most things. You see, we are looking at something that is extraordinary. And most of the people in this room, if they had seen it, would have gone, as you did, goodness gracious. And they would have told somebody. And we would like to know why that didn't happen. I'm sorry. I'm just looking for the right words. Were you on anything or taking anything that might have provided you with some sort of hallucination? Not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 3Dan Murphy, who worked with Janine, was one of several staff from the menswear store to give evidence to the Inquiries Commissioner. evidence in the public hearings of the Police Integrity Commission. as it circled Hoseman's. There was strong interest in the commission in the disappearance of a store diary in which staff had jotted comings and goings. It still hasn't been found. You heard from Dan in an earlier episode. He's one of many Bathurst residents still suspicious about Hoseman's, even though they don't know of any evidence of actual wrongdoing by him. I asked Dan if he thought it was possible that notoriety from the seafood night at the golf club back in October 2001 had been part of a damning crescendo of bad press and then rumour mongering, which influenced people like Dan to form an irredeemably bad view of the former cop. You know where there's smoke,
Speaker 24there's fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And yeah, I don't know, maybe it would have, those sorts of things had given me a view that maybe, that if there was anybody suffering from Hoseman's, it would have been a bad press and then rumour mongering. And yeah, I don't know, maybe it would have, those sorts of things had given me a view
Speaker 3that maybe, that if
Speaker 24there was anybody suffering from Hoseman's,
Speaker 16it would have been
Speaker 24a bad press and then rumour mongering, where he walked past and she actually went and she ducked around and hid in the back storeroom so that he didn't see her.
Speaker 3And that was the diary that disappeared. The Police Integrity Commission's investigators went to a lot of trouble to try to find out whether this was sinister, whether the store's diary was in fact handed to police by the store's managers and promptly disappeared while in police custody or whether the diary disappeared by accident while still under the control of store staff. The public perception was that local cops were up to no good.
Speaker 24Oh, it's just extremely suspicious that she's wrote something about a police officer in there and it's gone into police custody and then it's disappeared. Bathurst being a small town, I'm sure the police are very tight-knit And they may know him in a different way and thought that it may not have been something as serious as everyone else was thinking.
Speaker 16But if they were going to protect him,
Speaker 3why would they have charged him over the sexual assault matters involving the woman at the golf club?
Speaker 24A bit too hard to brush that one under the carpet that there would have been too many people. Have you heard a bit about that one? Oh, yeah, it was on the front page of the paper, I think. Yeah, yeah, you'd definitely hear about that. He denied that he did anything wrong? Yeah, I'm sure he did. I don't think you can pick another person in Bathurst that'd be that infamous.
Speaker 3Dan talked about Janine hiding in the store so that she would not be visible to husbands when he was walking past.
Speaker 24She's then ducked around there and hid in the little storeroom.
Speaker 16Why do you reckon she would have had to hide?
Speaker 24I don't think she was hiding a fear or, at that point, embarrassment, just not wanting to talk to him. He was only interested in her for a short while before she disappeared.
Speaker 3I suggested to Dan a more likely scenario, that Hosemans was an innocent victim of circumstances and local prejudice. Yeah, he'd have to be one unlucky guy.
Speaker 16In the years since she disappeared in 2001, have you heard of any other suspects?
Speaker 24No. No, I've
Speaker 3only ever known
Speaker 24of Brad.
Speaker 3At the end of the hearings, the testimony and claims of RA1 were considered carefully. The firm view was that no weight should be placed on what she had said. It's a nice way of saying that her claims were simply too flimsy, too out there, and should be ignored forthwith. The objectives of the Police Integrity Commission were to expose and reveal corrupt conduct by police. This was its charter. Millions of dollars in public funds were spent on this. The Commission was always highly motivated to achieve these objectives, highly motivated to want RA1 to be telling a credible story. But after RA1's claims had triggered so much sensational and highly damaging publicity about Hosemans, the Commission ultimately decided that her story was far from credible. The Commission described the difficulties relating to her evidence as very substantial. Neither her evidence nor any other evidence could be relied upon by the commission to connect Hoseman's to Janine's disappearance in any way. Kylie and Adam have spent so many years trying to work things out for themselves. In such a confusing and mystifying case, I think they are sometimes inclined to believe most people they talk to. Here's something Kylie said at the start of this podcast series.
Speaker 25It was so vulnerable, I stayed and just believed everything. Like you said, you know, you're a clear-minded person and you've come in going, well, this is very far-fetched. Whereas I just believe everything and then go, well, it could happen because it does happen.
Speaker 16What do you know about RA1?
Speaker 26She's a lovely lady. She's very scared. How credible did you find her? Well, she took us right there and took us to her house where she grew up with her family. and showed us exactly where it was and she didn't speak for a long time. And then Kylie contacted her and got that trust there and, yeah, I believe she saw something.
Speaker 3Warrants were obtained by investigators to pay a surprise visit to the former deputy mayor's home in Bathurst and start excavating to see what lay beneath the flooring. This move was based on yet another rumour. The investigators found plumbing and pipes in need of repair, and when it seemed this case could not become more bizarre, two women who were lovers of Hoseman's found themselves at the centre of a covert investigation, and then charged with stalking offences. The women were not stalking Hoseman's, they were pursuing a third woman he was keen on, and it came to light due to telephone taps by the Police Integrity Commission of Hoseman's, and perhaps one of his former partners. The actions of the women who had all enjoyed the company of Hosemans was writ large when the matter got to court. I'm not going to name any of the women to spare their embarrassment all these years later but it made for more lurid publicity about Hosemans at the time although he wasn't being accused of anything except being popular. The target of the stalking though was deeply affected by the actions. Here's how one newspaper journalist wrote the story at the time. It's not the reporter's voice.
Speaker 11The two women tormented her for more than a year, terrorizing her with mysterious phone calls and drive-bys. She even claims her house was shot at and vandalized with eggs, and that cow manure was dumped in her yard. All three women had a relationship with the same local policeman, yet when he became a murder suspect and the target of a major police inquiry, the campaign of harassment was uncovered in a covert surveillance operation. The victim changed jobs to work in another town and still feels as if someone is constantly watching her. She said, it has left me fearful of my safety and emotionally and mentally
Speaker 3affected. After months of investigations and hearings and a 91-page report which traversed in detail all of the evidence, the Commission concluded that Hosemans should not be prosecuted for any criminal offence. The commission had delayed the planned inquest into Janine's presumed death for all of this and his head amounted to nothing. Meanwhile, the real murderer was still walking free. The commission could find no credible evidence that Hosemans deliberately provided a false statement as to when he had returned to Bathurst around the time of Janine's
Speaker 27disappearance. The Police Integrity Commission yesterday cleared Mr Hosemans of any involvement in the murder but he says it's too little too late. He claims other careers have also been
Speaker 28destroyed. The Integrity Commission released information which was not credible. At the time I believe they knew it not to be credible.
Speaker 27Even though investigators never considered him a suspect.
Speaker 28And they have no sensitivity at all to the people they're dealing with. This organisation has damaged many careers and many reputations of people and I believe it's about time they were made more accountable.
Speaker 27Lee Jelisek, Seven News.
Speaker 3But the commission did go after his former girlfriend Stephanie Young, recommending a prosecution of her for the offence of allegedly knowingly giving false or misleading evidence relating to the missing diary page. Stephanie Young was incensed by this and she would not let the finding rest. She said she had been denied justice and fairness by the commission. Detective Inspector Paul Jacob and Detective Richie Sim were similarly incensed after copying adverse findings about their roles in the investigation. Each complained to another taxpayer-funded body, this time the Inspector of the Police Integrity Commission, for making sure that the commission didn't do the wrong thing. thing in its investigations. And when the head of this watchdog, Peter Moss, methodically went through all of the material, he was staggered by the commission's antics. Moss believed that the commission had engaged in a ridiculous witch hunt using a witness whom Moss believed was deranged. Peter Moss began tearing strips off the commission and its investigations. And it's little wonder that Julie Cleave had this to say.
Speaker 4And every time someone comes near me, they're investigating the previous person that had been near me, if you know what I mean. I think I'm a gore.
Speaker 3There was another damaging consequence, the confusion and then the breakdown in public trust in police and in other investigations relating to Janine's disappearance.
Speaker 4Let's be realistic here. I mean, I was interviewed by quite a few of them. And every time that one had come, it had been. A different one because they'd been investigating the previous one that was there because they didn't do this and they didn't do that.
Speaker 3You heard from Julie Cleave in earlier episodes. She's the former partner of Dennis Briggs and he told her and several friends that he had raped and murdered Janine. Briggs later told me that he was lying when he made these claims. So you're talking about, I think, the Police Integrity Commission? Yeah. And they did an investigation into the police?
Speaker 4They did. Yeah.
Speaker 3Right. And did that cause you to lose confidence in the whole thing?
Speaker 4They did. Well, wouldn't it do?
Speaker 3The scathing criticisms of the Commission from the senior retired judge, Peter Moss, were remarkable in their ferocity and forensic detail. I have talked to Mr Moss, who is long retired, as the Inspector of the Commission. Prior to that role, he was a judge of the District Court in Sydney and later a judge of the Family Court of Australia. He stands by every word of his findings against the anti-corruption body. These are his words from several official reports he published as the official watchdog, but it's not his voice. In his reports, Mr Moss said that his close scrutiny
Speaker 29has uncovered a situation so serious and so far removed from what is expected of a law enforcement body invested with very considerable resources and the powers of a Royal Commission as to be well nigh incomprehensible. The existence of such a discreditable state of affairs calls for an explanation as to why the Commission abrogated its responsibilities to conduct a fair, objective and impartial investigation. What has been revealed is a systematic skewing of the evidence and a persistent pattern of omitting relevant evidence and failing to have regard to the whole of the evidence so as to present that evidence fairly and intelligibly.
Speaker 3Mr Moss describes systemic and substantive problems underlying the Commission's workings, resulting in unacceptable consequences and enormous damage to the reputations of Hosemans, Stephanie Young and the detectives Paul Jacob and Richie Sim. He said that the Commission
Speaker 29also gave credence to gossip and rumours concerning Mr Hosemans and the missing woman, apparently generated by animosity and resentment because of Mr Hosemans' high profile in that country town. The
Speaker 3retired judge said there had been a clear and significant failure of the Commission to be fair. Over his several reports, he said the Commission, when it finally produced its report, should have admitted it had achieved nothing.
Speaker 29A frank report would have acknowledged the investigation as a misconceived operation, with a public apology to Hosemans, perhaps, for having subjected him to such a public and unnecessary ordeal. Instead, what was produced was a lengthy report, at least half of which referred to evidence or comments relating to Hosemans, the effect of which was to continue to cast suspicion upon him, and to present him in such a negative and adverse mould as to be disparaging of his integrity and character, notwithstanding that the Commission had been unable to unearth a shred of evidence implicating him in the crime, or indeed any criminal behaviour.
Speaker 3Moss also made findings about the error over the date on which Hosemans had returned to Bathurst from his mother's home near Newcastle.
Speaker 29The fact that he had returned on that date did not, of course, implicate him in the case. But, as Moss found, the
Speaker 3Commission's report was filled with insinuations that this was a significant
Speaker 29matter. There is an inescapable appearance that early in its investigation, if not at the outset, the Commission became imbued with the notion that it had solved the mystery of the disappearance of the woman, and that Hosemans was the culprit.
Speaker 3He castigated the Commission for what he said was its gullibility, its entrenched and debilitating bias, and its.
Speaker 29Reprehensible course of conduct.
Speaker 3Mr Moss noted a strident animosity towards Hosemans, a ridiculous amount of time spent investigating baseless claims and false trails about the former Deputy Mayor, and an extraordinary amount of space in the final report, which cleared him, but still smeared him. He said that, eventually, the Commission did come to the view that Hosemans was not implicated in the crime, and that the anonymous allegations in the letter were based on the fact that they were baseless and malicious. And what about the anonymous note which started it all? We've been unable to find a shred of evidence that Hosemans, as the note claimed, tried to fuck Janine. There is no evidence that we've seen, among thousands of pages of documents and in all of our interviews, to suggest Hosemans saw Janine on the night she disappeared, or that he had contact with her at any time. We haven't found a shred of evidence to suggest Hosemans owned or had access to Hosemans' documents. We don't have access to or drove a red Mitsubishi Colt or small red car of any description at the relevant times. It will be obvious to listeners of this podcast series that Brad Hosemans isn't viewed with suspicion by me or by my friend, the retired Judge Peter Murphy, in the disappearance of
Speaker 9Janine Vaughan. We've been unable to find a shred of evidence to suggest Hosemans was involved in the murder of Janine Vaughan. That would be the end of it.
Speaker 3And yet it's dogged him for almost 20 years.
Speaker 9It has. It has. And that's a shocking thing to live with. Shocking. That we battle on and hope there's some resolution, not only for us, but the Vaughan family as
Speaker 30well. We've examined now thousands of documents. Thousands of pages of documents. We've had a look at every piece of evidence that's come in during the course of the podcast and all of the evidence we've seen. I just can't see any evidence at all that links Hosemans to Janine in any meaningful way, much less links him to her murder in any meaningful way. But I've said all along that it seems to me that this is a quintessential example of Chinese whispers. Where rumour builds upon rumour builds upon rumour. If rumours are swirling, then it's very difficult to disassociate what many people would have seen as bad behaviour from an entirely separate issue of what are the facts about his connection, if any, with Janine and what facts, and again underline the word facts, point to any association between Hosemans. And Janine's disappearance and murder. In our view, one
Speaker 3of the reasons for the failure of police to identify the murderer is directly due to the distracting focus on Hosemans.
Speaker 31This is 7 News. Stephanie Young was always an innocent woman. I can't put it in words. I'm disgusted. Disgusted because the Police Integrity Commission publicly suggested she helped cover up the murder despite lacking the evidence. I cried non-stop, non-stop, to have to get a telephone call from your parents to say, you're on the news, what's going on? The PIC accused Stephanie of doctoring her diary to provide an alibi for former detective Brad Hosemans, who himself had been unfairly portrayed as a murder suspect. In a scathing report to Parliament, PIC Inspector Peter Moss QC writes Stephanie's treatment could not be equated remotely with procedures of fairness. That the Commission's actions were incomprehensible and an unacceptable state of affairs. Robert Ovadia, 7 News.
Speaker 3Nick Caldas rose to the rank of Deputy Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force in his long career there. Along the way, he oversaw investigations into many shocking murders.
Speaker 322002 and 2003, I was the commander of the Homicide Squad.
Speaker 3And do you recall from your time as commander of the Homicide Squad, any of the investigation into Janine? I'll never forget it.
Speaker 32I recall it very, very well. It was just a tragedy. We didn't end up solving it, obviously.
Speaker 3And everybody felt that. It's tough. You don't have a crime scene and you don't have a body. Nick Caldas agreed these were significant handicaps. But there was another one which he described as crippling for the murder probe. The former top cop singled out the Police Integrity Commission for its very public pursuit of Brad Hosemans.
Speaker 32This was a beat up from the start. They basically derailed the whole thing. The unfortunate part and the tragic part is that through their actions. Holding hearings in a small town like Bathurst, saying things publicly and essentially insisting that homicide be removed from doing the investigation have, in my view, ruined, stalled and really put a hurdle in front of the investigation.
Speaker 3You're saying that the anti-corruption body was itself going off the rails with what effectively grandstanding on some of its own claimed evidence. Then this was one of the worst, because it effectively stalled that homicide investigation that was never solved.
Speaker 32Firstly, it completely distracted the investigators. Secondly, I think it robbed them of confidence from the community in Bathurst, who, because of these very high profile, highly publicised hearings and so on, it completely removed the community's confidence in police generally, but particularly in the investigation into the murder.
Speaker 3There's this quite sexy angle of a deputy mayor and senior police detective being connected to Janine Vaughan, that they're stuck on this idea that it's all been a cover-up from the start and that perhaps you are still covering up now.
Speaker 32Yep, I can understand why people would say that, but all I would urge anyone to do is to actually look at the facts. Don't run on sensational, deliberately planted media coverage at the time, which is still on the internet, I'd regret. This was juicy, as you suggested. This was a senior police officer who was involved in local politics, who was on the way up and they were baying for his blood almost, with no evidence. He was never a serious suspect. He simply did not do it. Ultimately, I mean, there is no doubt, he did not commit the murder. And yet, you look at the damage that's been done to his reputation, his career, his life, I'm not sure he will ever recover from it. And it's yet another tragedy, adding on to the original tragedy. And a lot of lives. And a lot of operations were ruined by their actions.
Speaker 25It's been a horrible, horrible impact. And I don't want to take away from the horrible impact it has been on the Vaughan family, because it's just devastating. But it's also been a really big impact on Brad's family, even on our marriage. I think Brad has struggled a lot with probably post-traumatic stress a bit, even though he probably doesn't realise it.
Speaker 3Jill lives in Sydney, but she comes from Bathurst. And she knew Hosemans for two decades before she married him, a year after. After the Police Integrity Commission's report came down.
Speaker 25And even now we're divorced, Brad's a really good friend. You know, not many people can say that about their ex-husband or wife. He's just somebody who does care about other people. I mean, sometimes I think a stronger person wouldn't have even been able to go on.
Speaker 3Jill said she had never harboured a single doubt about his innocence. She described the murder claims as ridiculous.
Speaker 25But in the future, it's going to have a massive impact on what our boys. think and know, and what they see in him, you know, online. And that's going to stay with him for the rest of his life.
Speaker 3In the next episode of The Night Driver, a professor and expert in photogrammetry describes how he analysed CCTV footage from the dirty tab. To identify the likely mystery car. And, lo and behold, out came an image of a motor vehicle. I guess no one was more surprised or happy than we were. 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 the Australian newspaper and digital site. Visit the Night Driver website at nightdriver.com. 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. 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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