Chapter 7

When Pain Isn’t Enough

Some people chose to remain victims forever … others find a place for their grief and move on. The grief is still with them through every second of their lives, but it doesn’t destroy them. Christine Simpson is one such person.

In the years after Ebony’s death, Christine, along with others touched by homicide, has fought for a better system. Ebony House is one such dream. On the day that she and some other families were about to appear with Derryn Hinch on the Midday Show, she first talked about such a place to Martha Jabour from HVSG.

‘I would love,’ she said, ‘there to be a place where families could go when they have lost someone, somewhere they could be looked after by other people, not to have to be around their home and their possessions. Just to get away.’

‘You find the place and I’ll sew the curtains,’ Martha replied.

Christine did.

Ebony House is on the grounds of Garrawarra at Waterfall, New South Wales. It began as a single house, and then when the families of the backpacker murders assembled in Australia, it was extended to accommodate greater numbers. It took New South Wales Premier Bob Carr’s purchase of a second house, another $90 000 in donations and plenty of hard work to bring the extensions up to scratch.

Today, Ebony House consists of two cottages with 24 beds. Its main purpose is to provide a safe haven for people reeling from the homicide of a loved one. There are clothes, linen and food, so if the police want to remove someone from a crime scene, or if relatives need to stay for an extended period during a trial, they need not provide a thing. Support groups for the loved ones of victims of homicide are also run there.

When HVSG first found its feet in 1993, it began purely as a relief organisation. Then, as victims’ families began to talk, common needs became apparent. One need was for sections of the community, including the media, funeral directors and the police, to be informed of better ways to address loved ones following murder. Christine and Peter were among those invited to lecture. Their words, following a speech to the Goulburn Police Academy, would later influence the way in which some of the police in Bega perceived the viewing of the remains of Nichole Collins and Lauren Barry by their fathers. No parent wants to hear the graphic details of what has happened to their child, but knowing what happened to their daughter put a thousand other thoughts to rest for the Simpsons.

The void that still haunts Christine and Peter is that neither of them was able to identify Ebony’s body, her father because of time constraints, her mother because the police decided it inappropriate at the time. It is something they will not be able to redress. HVSG encourages families, if they feel unable to view their loved one’s body, to have a funeral director photograph them so that there is a film that may be developed later if they so wish. Such measures provide people with a choice outside a limited time frame clouded by grief.

Education and grief support are not the only areas in which HVSG now focuses. Within two years of the first meeting between the Simpsons and the Lynches in Bargo, the need for law reform was apparent. The first time Peter and Christine embarked on a mission to force legislative change with other families, they were a tiny select group within the organisation. Their success in abolishing dock statements led to greater involvement by other members.

Since 1993, hundreds of amendments have been made to our laws. Perhaps one of the most important in which the Simpsons have been involved concerned compensation. Criminal injuries compensation was first recognised in the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). Victims could apply for compensation only where there was a convicted offender and the amount was recoverable from the offender’s possessions. Under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1967 (NSW), who could claim for compensation was extended to cover all victims, including cases where the offender was unknown. In January 1968, a government-funded scheme was set up to cover the costs.

In 1988, the benefits provided for victims of violent crime were increased and a tribunal was set up to oversee the award of compensation. Evidence of psychological injury, usually through medical reports, had to be proven before monetary amounts were arbitrarily awarded on the basis of the degree of injury. In other words, loved ones had to highlight the extent of their grief following a murder and have it ‘measured’. On 19 August 1992, when Ebony Simpson was abducted, raped and murdered, that system was still in operation. However, it was totally inadequate.

When Christine was asked by a bureaucrat from the Victims Compensation Tribunal in 1996 to prove the degree of her loss or risk forfeiting her compensation, her response was to take him through the last hours of her daughter’s life. The paper process, which Christine refused to complete so that her family could receive what she considered ‘blood money’, and the psychological evaluation of her family’s suffering she eventually conceded to undergo, had re-victimised her. The Simpsons were among a group who led the fight for change and in 1996 the Victims Rights Act was passed in New South Wales. This Act removes the need for relatives to prove their grief and places them in the ‘protective category’ of victim. They are automatically recognised, each family sharing a maximum of $50 000. Applications are easier and administration more expediently processed by the Tribunal. In addition, a charter of rights for victims of crime has been established, as was the Victims of Crime Bureau, the Victims Advisory Board and a provision for victim impact statements.

There was no a legal basis in 1993 for the written submissions Ebony’s parents had made about their loss to be read in court or accepted as evidence. Gordon Fenney’s daughter, Cheryl Lee Ide, became the first person to make a victim impact statement at a murder trial, Virginia Morse’s husband, Brian, the first at the Court of Criminal Appeal.

The amendments Peter and Christine Simpson have fought for were among the first steps in better catering for the financial and emotional needs of families touched by murder. The ordeal endured by the families of Lauren Barry and Nichole Collins, presented later in this book, highlights the shortfalls that still existed in 1997 and the changes that occurred to redress them. First, however, let us take a step back in time to 1974, when police procedures were more rudimentary and victim support almost nonexistent, to look at the lives of a family shaken by their five-year-old’s murder. These lives are now coloured forever by the pointed fingers of some members of the police and community, interminable criminal procedures and legislative change that re-determined the sentence of their daughter’s killer and eventually set him free.