Excerpts from the book

Three books have been written about the Farquharson tragedy. The authors of two of those books, Megan Norris (On Father’s Day 2013) and Helen Garner (This House of Grief 2014) accepted the narrative that was put to the jury by the prosecution and accepted the jury findings. Neither author has the qualifications nor the professional background to critically analyse the forensic and other evidence placed before the jury. The author of the third book, The Road to Damnation (2020), Dr Chris Brook, has these qualifications as he has degrees in both science and law. His book is an informed, thoroughly researched, and authoritative analysis of the tragedy and the two court cases.

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The key issues identified in The Road to Damnation

In effect, The Road to Damnation consists of two books in one as the author combines a critical analysis of the forensic and other evidence put to the juries at the two Farquharson trials with a masterly summary of many of the causes of wrongful convictions that have been documented in Australia and elsewhere. The selected themes and excerpts below focus primarily on the shortcomings of the evidence put to the juries in the Farquharson case. It is strongly recommended that the entire book be read.

Please note that the following direct excerpts from the book are shown in italics.

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1.Robert Farquharson’s narrative has never changed

The first people who stopped at the roadside to offer assistance that night were given this account by a distressed Farquharson.

‘I blacked out’. Robert, on the side of the highway with two confused young men, remembered. He was coughing. He had been for days. He was coughing and then they were in the dam. ‘I was havin’ a coughing fit, next thing I remember we were in the dam. I must’a blacked out’. ‘I tried to get the kids out. I need to tell their mother. I tried. I couldn’t get ‘em out he says to the men. ‘Cindy is waiting for us. I need to tell her’.

In an interview with the police that night Farquharson said ‘I think I just went over the overpass and I started coughing and um, I don’t remember anything, and then all of a sudden I was in the water’.

Farquharson was ‘asked to recount what happened on many, many occasions. On that night alone to 11 people. ‘He told all of them that he had a coughing fit and blacked out’.

Cindy Gambino said ‘he was rambling; he was incoherent, he was soaking wet and he was rambling, yes hysterically. He was saturated and delirious. He was very hysterical.’

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2.The accident reconstruction evidence

‘What drew me into looking at the evidence in this case…was the accident reconstruction evidence that was central to the prosecution case. I am a physicist, and the descriptions I had read of the evidence seemed hopelessly wrong’. 

‘… I do encourage you to read the appendix for yourself if you want to understand why I am so confident that the reconstruction evidence presented by the prosecution was fatally flawed. In summary, my analysis indicates that an un-steered car that followed the slope of the terrain could have left all the physical evidence that was found’.

‘All this makes any link between the mark and Farquharson’s car uncertain. Highly uncertain.’

‘Urquhart then went further. Not only did he assert that the right mark was made by Farquharson’s car: he asserted that it was made by the right wheels of Farquharson’s car.’

In seeking a reconstruction that was consistent with the car being steered by a conscious driver, numerous other assertions were made regarding such issues as any effect on the path of the car from hitting fence posts and breaking through a wire fence.

‘In the case of Robert Farquharson, it was opinions and assertions, rather than science, that formed the basis of the prosecution claims that three steering inputs were required for the car to get from the road to the dam’.

‘When they met over coffee, Urquhart told Luke that he had not slept the night before, such were the ongoing effects of the stress he had suffered from the Farquharson case.” 

The book’s Appendix A provides a more detailed analysis of the problems with Urquhart’s reconstruction evidence.

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3.Confirmation bias (tunnel vision)

Confirmation bias in the context of an alleged crime refers to an investigator focusing too early and too strongly on evidence that points to guilt and thereafter is unable to see or appreciate evidence pointing in other directions. It is an influence on thinking that is predominantly subconscious and hence difficult to counter. Early presumptions of guilt by one investigator can influence the findings and thinking of other investigators who are theoretically meant to be working independently. Brook found many signs of such bias in Farquharson’s case.

‘We always thought the hardest thing about convicting him would be getting people to believe that anyone could be that evil’.

‘This feeling among police officers that Farquharson was guilty created a serious issue with respect to the reconstruction evidence’.

‘Cross-contaminated evidence can be (mis)-represented at trial as being separate lines of evidence that independently corroborate one another’.

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4.The video re-enactment of the car sinking

A video re-enactment of a car sinking in a farm dam was shown to both juries. Helen Garner in her book describes this as a very distressing video to watch. Brook’s work indicates that this video was highly misleading, as the dam used was shallow and bore no resemblance to the 7.4 metre deep water-filled quarry.

‘The car in the police reconstruction video had taken more than eight minutes to sink’.

‘Between 30 seconds and two minutes. That is how long it takes for a car to sink once it is driven into water, according to the research of Dr Gordon Giesbrecht of the University of Manitoba’.

‘The reason it took so long was that the dam used in the police ‘reconstruction’ was only 2.8 metres deep, while the car was 4.8 metres long. “If a 4.8 metre long car is placed in 2.4 metre deep water, the front end will hit the bottom when the car is still more horizontal and it will take longer for it to fill up with water” says Giesbrecht. The dam where Farquharson’s car sank was 7.4 metres deep.’

Brook provides multiple examples from around the world of fatal accidents similar to that experienced by Robert Farquharson. He quotes an international authority, Dr Giesbrecht “Bottom line, if you open a door, water rushes in, the car sinks quickly slamming the door”.

To emphasise the depth of the dam, and the impossibility of Farqharson saving his sons, on the night of the accident ‘People entered from both sides of the dam. None could reach the car.’ It took a police scuba diver connected to a safety rope 23 minutes to locate the car at the bottom of the deep dam.

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5.The cough syncope evidence

A key witness for the prosecution was academic respiratory physician, Dr M Naughton, whose expertise was in sleep apnoea. His written report prepared for the police declared that ‘cough syncope is an incredibly rare condition’. His meagre report is reproduced in the book.

‘Naughton had never had a patient with cough syncope, nor published any papers on the subject’.

‘Rather than access to the patient, Naughton was given a summarized version of the Farquharson file by the head of the investigation, Detective Sergeant Clanchy. This file contained all the incriminating evidence that the police had gathered, including the (flawed and misleading) reconstruction evidence, and witness evidence by Greg King that I will explore later in the book’.

It seems highly likely that this ‘domain irrelevant information’ biased (perhaps subconsciously) the views expressed by the prosecution expert witness, Dr Naughton.

Naughton’s report stated that it was ‘extremely unlikely that Robert Farquharson suffered from cough syncope.’

Brook did his own research for his book. ‘If around 2.5% of the 80,000 syncope cases at Australian Emergency departments are cough syncope, as the research suggests, that would mean 2000 people were treated for cough syncope in Emergency departments each year. That is around 40 per week’.

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6.Greg King’s evidence

A crucial witness in the two trials was a Greg King who gave evidence that Robert Farquharson had told him of his plans to hurt his ex-wife by harming their three boys. Brook explains why King’s evidence should have been given little weight.

‘Memories can be corrupted during encoding, storage and retrieval. Memory is full of gaps, it is malleable, it can be contaminated, it is susceptible to suggestion, and it is influenced by our expectations and beliefs about how the world works,’

‘The lead investigator, Detective Clanchy, encouraged King to continue trying to recall the details of the conversation and to jot down notes etc’

‘King’s final statement was completed in early December, three months after his first statement and 5-6 months after the conversation.’

‘Memory for what was said during conversations is astonishingly poor’ … ‘people remember the gist of what was said but do not remember the actual sentences used. This understanding of memory is old’’

‘It came back to him during the following months. Yet evidence shows that we tend to remember fewer and fewer details of an event as time passes, not more ...’

King gave evidence that he told his wife about this conversation on the day that it took place. King’s wife said that she could not remember being told.

 

7. Dawn Waite’s evidence

This evidence was only put before the second jury as Dawn Waite came forward to the police after reading that Farquharson had won his first appeal, i.e., 4 years after the accident. She claimed to have passed Farquharson’s car on the night of the accident. Brook outlines why her evidence should not have been given any credence.