Victorian police commissioned a psychological assessment of convicted child-killer Robert Farquharson three weeks before charging him with triple murder. The report, which concluded Farquharson likely attempted suicide by driving his sons into a dam, was kept secret until recently. The report, deemed unsuitable for court, was based solely on documents provided by police and did not involve interviews with Farquharson or any witnesses.
Victoria police commissioned a psychological assessment of convicted child-killer Robert Farquharson and received it three weeks before charging him with triple murder , but the report remained locked away in police files until it was released recently to the Trial By Water podcast.
Farquharson insisted the crash was an accident – that he’d coughed and passed out. At his trials, the prosecution argued he had been angry at the breakdown of his marriage to former wife Cindy Gambino, and her starting a new relationship. He had deliberately killed his sons Jai, Tyler and Bailey in revenge, they argued.
Dr Deb Bennett, a psychologist, criminal profiler and 40-year veteran of Victoria Police who had a hand in shaping Davis’ report, told the Trial By Water podcast that in her experience, police investigators often did not want to understand what had really happened. The seven-page paper is called an “indirect personality assessment” because Davis had not interviewed Farquharson. The documents he was supplied included several statements by witnesses, videos of Farquharson’s police interview and a lie detector test.
As evidence for the suicide-gone-wrong theory, Davis pointed to Farquharson’s prescription for anti-depressant medication, the fact that the crash had happened on Father’s Day, and the fact that he controlled his emotions. Criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Munro said of the report, “there’s some fairly strident statements” about Farquharson’s intent, “and I can say that, having given evidence in the Supreme Court and murder trials on hundreds of occasions over the decades, the one thing you never talk about is intent”.
Child-Killer Robert Farquharson Triple Murder Psychological Assessment Victoria Police
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