William Tyrrell’s foster mother has claimed she was under police investigation over the missing toddler’s disappearance, as police botched the investigation into his presumed death.
In a secretly recorded conversation on October 20, 2021, the foster mother says: ‘ They try to catch me doing things. They do that because they screwed up.’
William was three when he disappeared from his foster grandmother’s home in Kendall on the NSW North Coast on September 12, 2014.
Lawyers for William Tyrrell’s foster mother, known to the court as SD, also accused police of committing two child assault charges in order to pressure her to reveal the location of the missing toddler’s body.
During a cross-examination by the foster mother’s lawyer, John Stratton, SC in Parramatta local court, Detective Senior Constable Sean Ogilvy said on Wednesday that it was his concern for the 11-year-old girl that motivated him.
When Mr. Stratton accused Detective Ogilvy of ambushing the foster mother, he countered that the attacks had only come to light during the foster parents’ oversight of William’s disappearance.
When asked by Mr Stratton whether there was ‘part of a campaign to break SD’ about the location of William’s body, the detective said ‘absolutely not … I was concerned about the treatment of (the young girl). ‘
Detective Ogilvy agreed with Mr. Stratton when he asked, “You are well aware that (SD) has continually said she has no idea where William Tyrrell’s body is?”
Detective Senior Constable Ogilvy was questioned during the five-day trial of SD and JS – the foster father – on charges of assaulting, stalking and intimidating the 11-year-old girl.
While pleading guilty to two counts of assault, the foster mother insists she was not guilty of stalking the girl. The foster father has pleaded not guilty to one charge of common assault, stalking and harassment.
During the trial, disturbing recordings were played about confrontations between the foster parents and the young girl, but also about William’s disappearance.
The foster parents discussed the case of the missing William Tyrrell on secret recordings
Under cross-examination by the foster mother’s lawyer, OIC Detective Seniro Constable Sean Ogilvy (above) denied trying to ambush her over William’s missing and instead expressed concern for the well-being of an 11-year-old girl.
William Tyrrell disappeared from SD’s mother’s home in Kendall on the north coast of NSW in September 2014 and no trace of him has ever been found.
The foster mother, who denies any connection to William’s disappearance, has been described as a person of interest in the case. No charges were ever brought against anyone in connection with William’s disappearance.
In footage played on Wednesday, SD complained of police pressure on her over the missing toddler’s disappearance, saying she was trying to be tricked into revealing anything.
She also spoke disparagingly of William Tyrrell’s birth parents, referring to their drug use, and of her husband, saying that at one point he had acted “like a 16-year-old” at home.
The foster mother blames being in the spotlight for her behavior towards the 11-year-old girl, in conversations recorded on classified tapes, saying they are “trying to trip me up” on the case.
“They have to discredit Jubelin because Jubelin came out and said we were clear,” said the foster mother SD, referring to William Tyrrell’s former force commander Gary Jubelin, who was off the case by then.
The foster mom said police bungled the investigation of a suspect in her missing toddler son’s case, leading her to come under scrutiny
“They cleared a man on a phone call after William went missing,” she said in a taped recording on Oct. 20, 2021.
The foster mother was speaking at a time when she had already appeared before the NSW Crime Commission to be questioned at a clandestine hearing about what she and the foster father knew about William’s disappearance.
The conversation took place just weeks before she was publicly named by then NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fullerton as a person of interest to her foster son’s disappearance.
kicked an 11-year-old and hit her with a wooden spoon during clashes between the girl in two different homes on Sydney’s exclusive north shore.
The foster mother, 58, who pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting the 11-year-old, allegedly hit her the girl during one of several disciplinary sessions after the child called her a f***ing b***h ‘ had mentioned. ‘.
Police allege that the foster mother, referred to in court as ‘SD’, threatened the girl, while William’s 56-year-old foster father, known in court as ‘JS’, allegedly “grabbed” the girl by the neck and “physically restrained her from sitting down again” in the kitchen of a suburban home.
Details have emerged of what William Tyrrell’s foster mom (above, after pleading guilty on Monday) actually did to an 11-year-old girl
A judge has said police evidence that the schoolgirl feared threats of “physical violence, humiliation and intimidation” could well be convincing.
The child reportedly “begged” SD to stop, while the two defendants would subject her to a fifteen-minute “rant of verbal abuse.”
When the girl threatened to defecate on the kitchen floor, the foster mother then warned the girl that if she did, she would rub her face in it.
Police allege that when the child cried out in pain, SD forced her to sit on the floor for extended periods of time.
The foster mother then kicked the girl when she tried to get up, police say.
In a series of incidents that took place between January and August 2021, police allege that the foster parents stalked and intimidated the girl.
She later told a teacher she was afraid to go back home, police say.
Prosecutors said the child used a phone without permission and that she called the foster mother “af***ing b***h.”
The girl will testify via pre-recorded evidence at a week-long trial at Parramatta Local Court in western Sydney.
The court heard about heated verbal conversations between the child and allegedly about a recording of the then elementary school girl being beaten.
Attorney John Stratton, SC, argued the repeated incidents, including a threatening warning from the foster mother that if the child continued to misbehave, “hitting her” was only “lawful punishment, not criminal activity.”
He said that if a parent’s threat to slap a child is considered criminal, “that would criminalize any household in Australia.”
William Tyrrell’s parents are on trial for stalking and harassing an 11-year-old girl over an eight-month period in 2021 at two North Shore homes.
But Police Detective John Marsh said the ‘clap, clap, clap’ was evident on the recording, and that the many incidents and alleged threats were ‘definitely not what (happened in) every household in Australia’.
“The cumulative effect of all these incidents shows that[the foster mother]knew her behavior was likely to cause anxiety, but continued anyway.”
Present at the hearing was a large group of Detectives from Strike Force Rosann, who are investigating the disappearance of William Tyrrell, including the task force commander, Superintendent David Laidlaw.
The court was told that the foster mother ‘tried to intervene in the problematic behavior of the (alleged) victim’.
SD and her husband JS were charged with common assault against the girl in late 2021, when police launched a new search in the bushland near the NSW Mid North Coast town of Kendall for the remains of William Tyrrell.
The girl is expected to testify from a secure location in the closed court in Parramatta on Thursday morning.
They have also filed guilty pleas against charges of using a bogus bidder to raise the sale price of their former ‘forever home’ for missing William on Sydney’s North Shore at a 2020 auction.
William Tyrrell (above) disappeared in September 2014 aged three from the NSW Mid North Coast town of Kendall and no trace of the toddler has ever been found