Matthew Holloway gave evidence in the coronial inquest into the drowning of a young boy by his mother in the Murray River at Moama.
The boy’s mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, drowned her son on March 2, 2017, and attempted to drown her older son.
She was found not guilty of murder on mental health grounds, after a Supreme Court judge found she suffered from a series of psychiatric conditions and held a delusional belief that she had to drown her sons in order to protect them.
An inquest is being held to investigate the circumstances leading up to the child's death.
Mr Holloway was then a senior constable with NSW Police Force and had spoken to the boy’s grandmother at a police station on the morning of March 2, 2017, after she came in to tell them she had heard from her daughter who was near Bendigo and had the boys with her.
During the night the woman had flagged down police on patrol and reported them missing.
Mr Holloway told the inquest he had seen an email sent to him by an officer who had been flagged down by the grandmother, and from the information in that he had felt there was “no concern” for the safety of the children.
When questioned about whether he should have checked the police system for any information about the mother, he agreed he should have, but said he felt they did not meet the definition of missing person because there was an “awareness” by the grandmother where they were.
“The email didn’t say ‘missing'. It said the mother had taken them,” he said.
He told the inquest he had asked the grandmother if the children were at risk and she had said she thought they were okay because she could hear them laughing.
Goornong police officer Leading Senior Constable Darren Scherger and Bendigo’s Sergeant Jason McDermott also gave evidence at the inquest on May 24.
Leading Sen Constable Scherger told how he received a call-out to a welfare check on two children with an ice-affected mother at 1.14 pm on March 2, 2017, while he was at Bendigo Police Station. While the callout was to Midland Hwy, Goornong, it also mentioned they “were out the front of the IGA supermarket” at the “shopping centre” in Goornong. Leading Sen Constable Scherger said he believed it was Huntly and not Goornong, as Goornong did not have a supermarket or a shopping centre.
He told how no-one fitting the description of the woman and her children or their car was at Huntly, so he had a ‘Keep a look out for’ notice broadcast to other police cars in the Bendigo and Campaspe policing areas.
Leading Sen Constable Scherger also told the inquest how he had contacted a NSW Family and Community Services worker who told him the mother was affected with ice and there were possible mental health issues, and he asked if any family court orders were in place — which there was not.
When asked by the counsel assisting the coroner about the grandmother saying her daughter had told her “you’ll never see me again” he said he did not take that as a threat of self-harm or harm to the children, rather a threat that she would not see them again after a dispute.
The inquest also heard about the woman’s car being spotted at the BP service station in Elmore about 4 pm, but even with police from Goornong, Rochester, Bendigo, Kyabram and Heathcote searching, they could not find her.
Sgt McDermott told the inquest he did not regard the children as missing as they “were with their mother”.
“It came in along the lines of a welfare check, not missing persons,” he said.
“A search had been done. It’s a fairly large area. I thought a ‘keep a look out’ was appropriate.”
Sgt McDermott said the woman’s phone could not be pinged because there had to be “an imminent threat to life” for that.
He told the inquest that doing welfare checks was a “frequent thing” at Bendigo that police would do daily. He also said the Department of Human Services would call police about safe custody orders frequently.
“On any given day at Bendigo we could have up to a dozen missing kids,” he said.
The inquest, being held at Deniliquin Coroner's Court, continues.
