'There will be more deaths at sea'

PM Julia Gillard has described the deaths of two asylum seekers near Christmas Island as distressing.

• Labor's immigration experts "certain" more will die at sea
• Paris Aristotle says all 22 recommendations need to be implemented
• Greens call for coronial inquest into latest tragedy
• Starving asylum seekers rescued at sea
• Two asylum seekers drown near Christmas Island

LABOR'S own immigration expert Paris Aristotle says it is ''absolutely certain'' there will be more asylum-seeker deaths at sea unless the government implements the full suite of measures recommended to it last year.

In the wake of the deaths of two asylum-seekers this week Mr Aristotle, who is currently visiting the Nauru detention centre, said the latest incident was not the first this year.

He said last week an asylum-seeker boat capsized mid-voyage and 60 people were left clinging to the hull.

Luckily a surveillance aircraft happened to be  flying over the scene at the time and was able to arrange for those at risk of drowning to be rescued, he said.

''We could have lost another 60 in that incident,'' Mr Aristotle told ABC radio.

''There are reports all the time of boats going missing and not knowing where they have ended up.''

A young boy and a woman are dead after an asylum-seeker boat capsized near Christmas Island.

Mr Aristotle along with former defence force chief Angus Houston and former DFAT secretary Michael L'Estrange handed down a report last August to the Gillard government with a full package of 22 recommendations -including the reopening of Nauru and Manus Island detention centres- on how to tackle the spate of asylum arrivals in Australian waters.

He said there would be more deaths at sea unless greater action was taken.

''I think it is absolutely certain that there will be more deaths to come if we don’t get on with a proper regional arrangement to deal with these issues,'' Mr Aristotle said.

“We know they (asylum-seekers) drown regularly. It is an absolute tragedy and we have to do better.”

He praised the immigration department for doing ''some extraordinary work'' in filling 20,000 humanitarian places, saying the results would be seen in coming months.

Labor has announced closer ties with Sri Lanka as part of a plan to halt the surge of asylum-seekers arriving at Cocos and Christmas Islands. Picture: Stephen Cooper

But he warned asylum seekers would keep coming by boat while some of the Houston review's recommendations remain to be implemented.

The Malaysia people-swap deal, which Parliament won't approve, was a critical component, Mr Aristotle said.

But he conceded more work was needed to resolve issues, such as arrangements for unattached minors.

''If we could make that arrangement work well, then you could negotiate with them (Malaysia) about expanding it and if that worked well you could negotiate with countries like Indonesia,'' he said.

A young boy and a woman drowned on Monday after a series of large waves smashed their overcrowded boat near Christmas Island.

Three others had narrow escapes.

The Greens and refugee advocates have called for a coronial inquest into the tragedy.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott today told reporters in Melbourne ''the only way to stop the deaths is to stop the boats''.

''The way to stop the boats is rigorous offshore processing, temporary protection visas, a preparedness to turn boats around, and a kind of relationship with Indonesia which the Howard government had and the current government jeopardised,'' he said.

Mr Abbott rejected any suggestion the Malaysia people-swap deal would help.

''Every time the PM talks about Malaysia . . . she is yet again signing something for doing nothing,'' he said.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie this morning said a whole new approach was needed on asylum-seeker management.

He said there needed to be a boost in foreign aid for countries such as Pakistan and Iran to prevent people taking the risky boat journey to Australia.

“Neither party has yet to come to realise that this is a really complex problem,” Mr Wilkie told ABC radio of both the government and the opposition.

“It’s not a simple border security problem.”

He said the government needed to “come down like a ton of bricks” on people smugglers.

- with AAP

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Brothers' deaths to heaters laws

Tyler and Chase Robinson who died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Source: The Daily Telegraph

A CORONIAL inquest has begun into the deaths of two young brothers following a carbon monoxide leak from a heater in their country Victorian home.

Six-year-old Tyler Robinson and eight-year-old Chase Robinson died in May 2010 after a leak from a gas heater in their Shepparton home.

The inquest in Shepparton yesterday heard extraction fans may have contributed to the problem at the home, which was "well sealed" and lacked ventilation.

The responsibilities of landlords, real estate agents and trades people will be examined as part of the inquest with maintenance and changes to the home being a key issue.

The owner of the property, Jeffrey Watt, lived in the house from 2000 to 2007 before leasing it to Vanessa Robinson and her two boys.

He told the inquest he had received three reminders that maintenance should be carried out on gas or electric heaters following routine inspections during Ms Robinson's tenancy, but he thought they were simply generic letters.

"Having lived there, I know the condition of the house. That swayed our decision there," Mr Watt told the Victorian Coroners Court.

He said two maintenance requests were made while Ms Robinson was in the home and both had been granted.

"Anything that was asked to be done, we had done," Mr Watt said.

He said in his statement that during the time he and his wife lived in the property there was no trouble with the heater.

"The heater never played up on us other than it was too hot," he said.

He said they had discussed the need to service the heater not long before the death of the two boys.

"Unfortunately we had discussed it not terribly prior to the incident happening," Mr Watt said.

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Husband charged 21 years after deaths

    Source: The Courier-Mail

FOR 21 years, Vicki Arnold's family has been told the mild-mannered chartered accountant bashed her best friend with a rock, slit her throat and shot her twice before turning the gun on herself - firing two shots through her own head in an apparent murder-suicide.

She did this, according to a police investigation and two coronial inquests, despite having no motive and no history of depression or any other mental health issues.

Yesterday, State Coroner Michael Barnes tore holes in the findings of police and the previous inquests - declaring it was more likely Ms Arnold, 27, and her best friend Julie-Anne Leahy, 26, were murdered.

In an extraordinary hearing before a packed courtroom, Mr Barnes ordered Mrs Leahy's husband Alan stand trial on two counts of murder.

A warrant was issued for his arrest and he is expected to be extradited from Western Australia to face court in Queensland.

Mr Leahy yesterday told The Courier-Mail he would maintain his innocence.

"Of course I will fight the charges," he said.

The bodies of the women were found inside the Leahy family 4WD in remote bushland near Cairns in August 1991 - two weeks after they failed to return from a late-night fishing trip.

ARREST ORDERED: Vicki Arnold's vehicle at the crime scene. Picture: Aaron Francis

"Those involved in the early stages of the investigation failed to gather, lost or corrupted evidence that may have established the truth of what happened at Cherry Tree Creek on the night of July 26, 1991," Mr Barnes said.

"They then set about squeezing what evidence was left into an explanation that required no further action."

He said two coronial inquests went along with the police opinion that the women's deaths were an open-shut murder-suicide.

The court heard Mrs Leahy's husband told police the women had left home after midnight to go fishing and never returned.

Mr Barnes said it was telling that Mr Leahy spent that night in bed with his wife's 16-year-old sister Vanessa.

"Alan Leahy spent considerable time in his wife's sister's bed on the night the two women disappeared," he said.

"A possible interpretation for what would seem cavalier behaviour is that he knew his wife would not be returning."

SLOW JUSTICE: Vicki Arnold's family at her graveside August 14, 1991. Picture: Aaron Francis

Mr Barnes also found:

• While Ms Arnold had bought the gun that was used to shoot the women, the most likely scenario was that she had done so for someone else. Mr Barnes said she knew nothing about guns, yet insisted on buying a .22 rifle while giving various explanations as to why she needed it.
• Ms Arnold had neither the equipment or the know-how to saw down a rifle. Mr Leahy did and lied about owning a vice, which would have been used to shorten the barrel.
• Ms Arnold had no motive, appeared content the night she disappeared and had apparently embarked on a midnight fishing trip despite having made work appointments for 6am the following day.
• It was unlikely Ms Arnold had shot herself in the back of the head after first shooting herself in the thigh and chin.
• Trajectory examinations found one bullet was likely fired from the back seat.
• The sawn-off barrel from the gun, a hacksaw and instruction manual were placed inside a pillow slip from the Leahy house and left in Ms Arnold's driveway two weeks after her body was found. Mr Barnes said "only someone who had themselves been involved in the deaths had a motive to do that".

He said while Ms Arnold did not appear to have a motive, Mr Leahy did.

The court heard Mr Leahy had been having an affair with his sister-in-law, had mounting debts and stood to gain $120,000 from his wife's life insurance. He also lied about owning true crime magazines - one depicting a murder made to look like a murder-suicide. The court heard the day before the women disappeared, Mrs Leahy had asked her younger sister to stay home from school - a request the teenager was convinced meant Mrs Leahy wanted to confront her about the affair.

Mr Barnes ordered Mr Leahy to stand trial at the next sittings of the Supreme Court in Cairns, giving him 14 days to surrender to police.

The women's relatives in court - and others viewing the hearing live in Cairns - cried and applauded as Mr Barnes delivered his finding.

Mrs Leahy's brother Peter Martin punched the air.

"I'm on top of the world," he said. "(The decision) takes Vicki straight out of the picture - as it should have been from word go. We can wake up tomorrow morning and have a smile on our face."

SHOT DEAD: Best friends Vicki Arnold and Julie-Anne Leahy

In Cairns, Ms Arnold's wheelchair-bound mother Vida sobbed as Mr Leahy was ordered to stand trial.

"I've waited nearly 22 years for this result," she said. "I've lost a lot of sleep over the years. Who knows if I'll get any sleep tonight." She thanked Mr Barnes, her lawyer Philip Bovey and State MP Curtis Pitt for correcting a "miscarriage of justice".

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THE EVIDENCE

The crime scene

Mrs Leahy's throat was slashed, her body held upright in the driver's seat by a seat belt wrapped around her neck. She had been bashed with a rock and shot twice in the head. Ms Arnold's body was slumped on the passenger-side floor with bullet wounds to her thigh, jaw and behind the right ear, her hand resting on the stock of a sawn-off rifle with a shell in the breech.

State Coroner Michael Barnes said he doubted the gun would have come to rest in such a manner.

The assumption

Within four hours, police declared the incident a murder-suicide. The crime scene was cleared and the 4WD towed to Yungaburra, where it was stored inappropriately and the elements tainted any forensic evidence.

The gun

LONG BLAMED: Vicki Arnold at work in her Hall Chadwick office. Picture: Aaron Francis

The gun's barrel and the hacksaw used to cut it down were discovered in Ms Arnold's garage two weeks after the women were found dead. Two police officers, Bill Hendrikse and Sgt Bernie Wilce, swore in the witness box the pillow case containing the parts was not there during an initial search of the unit. Ms Arnold's former neighbour, Pamela Fox, said she found the gun parts in the garage the day after she saw someone running from the home during the night.

The magazines

Mr Leahy gave police a series of murder-themed magazines after the women's deaths. He told officers Ms Arnold borrowed them from the Leahy household. But he told the inquest he did not remember the magazines belonging to the family - despite most of them having the name "Leahy" scrawled on the inside cover.

The sister

During the hearing Mrs Leahy's teenage sister, Vanessa, gave evidence that she was in a sexual relationship with Mr Leahy and was terrified her sister would find out.

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MURDER MYSTERY AT CHERRY TREE CREEK

How the events unfolded

July 26, 1991: Julie-Anne Leahy, 26, and Vicki Arnold, 27, are reported missing after Mrs Leahy's husband, Alan, says they failed to return from a fishing trip to Lake Tinaroo.

August 9, 1991: Trailbike riders find the women's bodies about 5pm in the the Leahy family's Nissan Patrol, about 15km out of Atherton on a bush track. Despite the bizarre scene, police rule their deaths a murder-suicide and the vehicle and bodies are hastily removed.

July 30, 1992: First inquest into the women's deaths begins at Atherton Coroner's Court. After hearing the evidence, Coroner Hamilton Spicer supports the murder-suicide theory.

July, 1997: Police Minister Russell Cooper announces a reopening of the controversial case, appointing former senior investigators Carl Mengler and Frank O'Gorman. A week later, convicted murderer Gregory De Jong tells detectives that notorious drug dealer Christopher Dunlea, whom De Jong confessed to shooting in 1994, admitted to him that he killed the pair.

May, 1998: The Mengler and O'Gorman report is highly critical of the original police investigation.

April 19, 1999: A second inquest into the women's deaths begins. The Coroner's Court hears of Ms Leahy's younger sister Vanessa's affair with her husband. A forensic expert tells the court it would be highly unlikely a person would shoot themself in the head twice.

February 21, 2000: Coroner Gary Casey rules again in favour of the murder-suicide theory. The Arnold and Leahy families are stunned.

September, 2005: Former Far North detective Bill Hendrikse, one of the first officers at the scene, claims a senior police officer refused to order an investigation into the suspected double murder because of overtime costs.

July, 2008: Homicide detectives investigate whether the women were killed because they knew too much about a bungled bank robbery after a witness comes forward with fresh evidence.

October 23, 2010: Attorney-general Cameron Dick announces a third inquest will be held after lobbying from Mulgrave MP Curtis Pitt - Bill Hendrikse's nephew.

November 14, 2011: Third inquest begins before State Coroner Michael Barnes and hears evidence shedding doubt on the adequacy of the initial police investigation, and some expert witnesses say they lean more towards a double-murder scenario.

March 1, 2013: Mr Barnes hands down his findings and commits Alan Leahy to stand trial for murder.

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Aussie troops accused of deaths

Australian troops on patrol in Char Chineh yesterday. Picture: ADF Source: Supplied

AUSTRALIAN troops did not fire a single shot during a botched attack in Afghanistan by an American helicopter that left two local boys dead.

At the weekend, a regional leader in Afghanistan said Diggers had killed the boys last Thursday in the Char Chineh area in the northwest of the Oruzgan province.

"The children were killed by Australian troops, it was a mistaken incident, not a deliberate one," the governor of Oruzgan province Amir Mohammad Akhundzada told Agence France Presse.

His comments were widely reported around the world yesterday, but The Daily Telegraph can reveal the statement is not true.

The Australian troops from the Special Operations Task Group were conducting a routine liaison mission to checkpoints around the district by Black Hawk helicopter and became aware of an imminent threat after they landed near compounds.

According to government sources, once they had established that the threat was real - using more than one source - the troops requested air support in the form of a US Apache attack helicopter. Targeting information was provided to the Apache crew who apparently engaged the wrong target and killed the boys.

When the dust settled, the Diggers confirmed the victims were two boys.

They then explained what had happened in detail to the local malik, or village headman, and other elders.

They could not confirm the ages of the boys.

"All the indications are that between the call for help and weapons release something went seriously wrong," a source said. Taliban fighters often use women and children as human shields.

The Diggers were in contact with Afghan National Security forces at the time of the attack, but did not have local troops or police with them. Afghan authorities and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have launched a joint investigation and a preliminary report is expected by later this week.

It is understood the investigation will focus on targeting and the weapon impact process and the video and voice tapes from the Apache will provide vital clues.

Defence chief General David Hurley sent his condolences to the families of the boys and said the Australian Defence Force took civilian casualties very seriously.

"It is premature to make any determination about how the incident occurred or who was responsible," he said.

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Bitter tears over Waterlow deaths

Schizophrenic rage ... Anthony Waterlow. Source: The Daily Telegraph

Gallery curator Nick Waterlow and daughter Chloe in undated image from the Waterlow Trust web site. Source: Supplied

AS letters revealed Nick Waterlow's terror about his son's dark moods, one doctor who treated Antony Waterlow fought back tears to tell an inquest "what else might have been done" to prevent the family killings.

Despite pleas to doctors from friends after threats of violence more than two years before Antony Waterlow killed his father and sister, he was never scheduled or forced to take medication.

Art curator Nick Waterlow and his daughter Chloe Heuston were stabbed to death by Antony at her home in November 2009 during an attempt at a family reconciliation.

The inquest into the deaths heard it "beggars belief" that doctors "didn't act" to hold the later-diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic as an involuntary patient before he killed two of the people who had most often urged him to get help.

In a letter to two of Antony's doctors in May 2007, his friend Gaye Bell said he had turned on her during a trip to the movies and also frightened his father. "After a pleasant trip together, Ant had inexplicably turned upon (Nick Waterlow) on the way home and ... simply glared at him," she wrote.

"His father spent the trip scared that at any moment Antony was going to pull the wheel out of his hands and crash the car."

Waterlow was found not guilty of the murders in the Supreme Court by reason of mental illness. The inquest is exploring whether the Mental Health Act should be changed after Antony was not detained in psychiatric care because he wasn't considered dangerous.

Dr Alistair Peter McGeorge, a psychiatrist from St Vincent's Hospital, said Waterlow had been reluctant to take anti-psychotic medication when he treated him in late 2006 and early 2007.

Dr McGeorge rejected comments made by another psychiatrist that the decision not to detain Antony "beggars belief".

But he fought back tears as he said: "Considering the awful tragedy that eventually occurred, you think about what else you might have done yourself."

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