47

The Murder Of Ebony Simpson

The tiny rural town of Bargo, in the New South Wales Southern Highlands, has a population of around 3000. On Wednesday, 19 August 1992, nine-year-old Ebony Simpson got off the bus on the corner of Bargo and Arina Roads at 4.05pm, after attending the local primary school. Though she was only a 400-metre walk away, she wouldn’t make it home. Andrew Peter Garforth was waiting.

Garforth, a short, thin 29-year-old with dirty shoulder-length hair and pale-blue eyes, was an unemployed labourer who lived at nearby Pheasants Nest. As Ebony walked towards her house, she came across him standing beside his car. The bonnet was up and the boot was open. When Ebony reached the car, Garforth bundled her into the boot and drove to a dam seven kilometres away.

Parked near the water’s edge, Garforth removed the terrified young girl from the boot and sat her on the front seat with him. Ebony pleaded to be released. Garforth took her to the edge of the dam, where he bound her feet together and her hands behind her back with speaker wire. He then sexually abused her. Afterwards, Garforth threw the still-bound child into the dam, along with her schoolbag, which he weighed down with rocks. He then walked away, ignoring her pleas for help, and drove home.

The next day, at the instigation of his de facto wife and mother of his two young sons, Garforth joined the search for the missing girl. The only clue police had to go on was the description of a man in his late 20s who was seen working on an early-model light-coloured Mazda near the bus stop where Ebony disappeared. Police described the car as being in poor condition, with smoke stains from the exhaust covering the rear end. The car had been seen in the vicinity of primary and high schools in the district several times in the previous months. It had also been sighted following school buses. The man driving it was described as being 177 centimetres tall, with straight brown shoulder-length hair, of thin build and wearing a long-sleeved black top and black jeans. Garforth was soon picked up by police. Admitting his guilt, he took police divers to where he had left Ebony Simpson to drown. Her body was recovered at 12.45am on 21 August.

Garforth was charged with murder and made a full confession. Authorities were horrified at his lack of remorse.

He appeared in a packed Picton Courthouse on 21 August 1992. As he was led from the police cells next door, an outraged crowd of around 200 yelled abuse. In the dock, Garforth hung his head as the police prosecutor outlined the allegations. Garforth pleaded guilty to murdering Ebony Simpson. At his sentencing, on 9 July 1993, the crowded courtroom erupted as Justice Newman handed down the maximum – life imprisonment – under the New South Wales truth-in-sentencing legislation. Garforth would never be released.

In his summing up, Justice Newman did little to hold back his contempt, saying he believed Garforth’s attitude to the crime was best reflected by his ‘almost casual’ answers in the interviews and that his lack of remorse after arrest was ‘a matter of gravity’. The judge said that drowning ‘is a terrifying and slow manner of death’ and the little girl’s ‘last moments must have been spent in abject fear’.

Responding to a defence submission that Garforth was en-titled to leniency because he had been cooperative with police by taking them to the murder scene and then pleading guilty, Justice Newman said, ‘This is a case where the prisoner literally had no defence and no chance of finding one. I consider the sexual assault and the girl’s fear as aggravating features in the highest degree.’

Justice Newman took into account the fact that if Garforth lived to the average age of males of the time, he could expect to spend 42 years behind bars. As a child murderer, he could expect his time to be ‘more arduous’ than most other prisoners’. Justice Newman also said that the case ‘does fall squarely into the category of the worst type of case’, and that the ‘objective features of this dreadful crime’ outweighed other considerations.

After the sentencing, Ebony’s father, Peter Simpson, applauded the sentence. He told the press:

 

I’d like to say I’m happy with the decision. It’s taken nearly 11 long months to see justice served and this is the best outcome we could possibly hope for under the present legal system in this state of New South Wales in 1993. The fact remains that Ebony Simpson got the death sentence, the Simpson family got the life sentence and Garforth got bed and breakfast. The murderer’s been given the very minimum that he deserves, a life sentence. He has shown no remorse, no shame and no feeling. This man has no soul. He abducted, tortured, sexually abused, murdered and discarded our beautiful Ebony in such a cruel and malicious way. How could anyone be sure he would not murder again? Garforth’s selfish, barbaric, murderous act has had such a profound effect on so many people’s lives, the ramifications of which may never really be known. Ebony’s murder need never be forgotten. Ebony’s death was untimely, unnecessary and senseless. It has thrown my family, myself into a nightmare existence. This man has done the ultimate robbery. He has robbed our dear Ebony of 70 years of her life.

 

Shortly after he was charged with murder in August 1992, Garforth was attacked at the Long Bay Remand Centre. In October 1993, he was bashed a second time, in Goulburn Gaol. On 30 March 1994 he appealed to the New South Wales Supreme Court against the severity of his life sentence, claiming the murder of Ebony Simpson was not in the ‘worst case’ category. On 23 May 1994, the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the case against Garforth was so extreme that community interest in retribution and punishment called for the maximum term.

In November 1994, Garforth gave notice that he would again be appealing against his sentence, this time to the High Court. ‘How many judges do you need to say someone’s guilty?’ Ebony’s mother, Christine Simpson, asked reporters. ‘We’ve had four judges already saying it and now there will be another three. It makes a nonsense of the truth-in-sentencing legislation. If truth in sentencing was in place when we came out of court in July 1993, that should be the end of it. Garforth says his life sentence should be reduced because he cooperated with police and told them where Ebony’s body was. But police said they were going to drag the dam anyway. They would have found her because her lunch box was floating on top. My family is shattered at the news of the appeal.’

On 7 December 1994, Garforth’s application for special leave to appeal against his life sentence was rejected by the High Court. All his avenues of appeal are now exhausted – Andrew Peter Garforth will never be released from jail.