A police officer has defended the decision not to charge Charmaine McLeod’s ex-partner with rape months before she died in a car crash with their four children.
The Coroners Court in Brisbane on Monday started its second week of hearings into the head-on collision that killed Ms McLeod, 35 and her children Aaleyn, 6, Matilda, 5, Wyatt, 4, and Zaidok, 2, on May 27, 2019, on the Bunya Highway at Kingaroy northwest of Brisbane.
Detective Senior Constable Morris Cottrell told the inquest that police “played a straight bat” when examining Ms McLeod’s allegations that her ex-partner James McLeod had raped her on at multiple occasions over five months.
Mr McLeod told police at the time that he had not raped Ms McLeod or any other person.
Det Sen Cons Cottrell said he had concerns about Ms McLeod’s inability to inability to remember details about a rape that she said could have occurred four days before she spoke to police at Hervey Bay in December 2017.
“In my experience, if someone had been raped in the past week, a person even with not very good memory would be able to remember that that occurred in the past week on a specific day … that troubled me, that was a big flag to me,” Det Sen Const Cottrell said.
The inquest will look at the adequacy of the police responses to the complaints of domestic and family violence within the McLeod family, the responses by the health system around Ms McLeod’s care for schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, and the actions of child protection agencies.
Det Sen Const Cottrell said he had no issue with believing someone with mental health issues had been raped.
But Ms McLeod’s history of mental illness was a “factor” when examining the credibility of her allegations and he found evidence to “highly doubt” her allegations.
Det Sen Const Cottrell said he had been summoned to the inquest but would have attended using his own time and money.
“I was working on the day of the crash … I believe what I have to say is really, really important for four reasons: Matilda, Aaleyn, Wyatt, and Zaidok,” Det Sen Const Cottrell said, his voice struggling with emotion.
A Queensland police civilian worker also gave evidence about a call from Ms McLeod to the Policelink number for incidents that do not require immediate officer attendance.
The worker spoke to Ms McLeod when she reported an alleged wilful damage incident at her home.
The worker said Ms McLeod had been speaking quickly and she did not hear her say the phrase “death threat”, but was unable to say if it would have directly affected how the call was handled.
“We’ve had three days of training since the call on a holistic approach to domestic violence with a deeper understanding of coercion and control and how to assess risks,” the worker said.
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Australian Associated Press