A police officer determined a claim of child sex abuse was unfounded before the child, their siblings and mother died in a horror highway crash.
The inquest at Brisbane Coroners Court is examining the deaths of Charmaine McLeod, 35, and her children Aaleyn, 6, Matilda, 5, Wyatt, 4, and Zaidok, 2, who all perished when their car collided with a semi-trailer on the Bunya Highway near Kingaroy in May 2019.
The inquest has heard the deaths occurred against a backdrop Ms McLeod’s complex mental health issues – including borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia – a bitter custody dispute and unfounded allegations of sexual abuse.
In late 2017 Det Sen Const Meagan Johnson, then in the Maryborough Child Protection and Investigation Unit, began investigating a complaint from Ms McLeod that her former partner James McLeod had allegedly sexually abused their daughter Matilda.
Sen Const Johnson ultimately determined the allegation was unfounded and the evidence indicated the offence did not occur, the inquest heard
Counsel Assisting Kylie Hillard asked the officer what she understood the “evidence indicated the offence did not occur” meant.
“The way that I interpret that is that we actually need to have some form of evidence to indicate that the offence did not occur … and that’s what I believed I had at the time I requested to unfound my investigation,” she said.
“When you’re dealing with a four year old complainant child …there’s are a whole range of factors in this investigation that led me to my decision.”
The inquest heard she conducted separate interviews with Matilda and the parents and served a search warrant on Mr McLeod.
Sen Const Johnson told the inquest she had significant concerns about the “minimal disclosures” made by Matilda during an interview and was not willing to have her medically examined, given her young age and its invasive nature, due to the lack of external corroboration.
Charmaine McLeod with her four children
The inquest heard she arranged with Ms McLeod to conduct a pretext call with Mr McLeod to secure potential corroboration.
The pretext call – a telephone call to elicit information -was organised around the busy New Year period but never went ahead for a variety of reasons including Ms McLeod disclosing the allegation to M McLeod.
Sen Const Johnson said she also developed issues with the credibility of Ms McLeod who had made various allegations to different police around the time of the investigation.
“There was a common theme of Charmaine wanting to have custody of the children and the reason why I’ve noted that I felt like she had fabricated information is because I felt that Charmaine had taken information that I had given her … and said something different to James and potentially for her own benefit,” she said.
“I was concerned that she twisted the information that I’ve given her for our own benefit.”
Ms Hillard asked why the mother’s actions mattered given Matilda’s alleged disclosures.
Sen Const Johnson said Ms McLeod was the informant in the investigation.
“Charmaine’s credibility was relevant to her being allegedly a preliminary complainant, “ she said.
Under cross examination by Mr McLeod’s barrister Amelia Hughes, Sen Const Johnson said the custody dispute did not automatically undermine Ms McLeod’s credibility in her mind.
“A mother who’s reporting … concerns about a biological father, her partner committing an offence against a child, I can understand the mum wanting the children in her custody,” she said.
“It wasn’t until days later … where there were multiple factors at play that formed part of my decision making but that was not my sole decision making.”
The inquest heard Mr McLeod denied the allegation when interviewed by Sen Const Johnson and said he had been keeping a diary as he was concerned an allegation would be made.
“I knew something big was coming up,” he told Sen Const Johnson, the inquest heard.