Father of murdered family wants release of a psychologist’s report revealing his relationship with his children and former partner … Channel 7 applies for access … WA Family Court denies permission … At pains to point out that there’s no cover-up, but proposed TV broadcast is not appropriate … Nick Bonyhady reports from courtside
Chief Justice Stephen Thackray has decided that a psychologist’s report commissioned during a custody dispute between the mother and father of the four children who were killed at a shooting in Margaret River last month will remain confidential.
In his reasons, Thackray was careful to rebut the assertion in a hitherto unreleased Seven Network broadcast that the documents had been “hidden away” by the court.
Seven and the West Australian had sought to publish snippets from the consent orders that governed unsupervised visits Aaron Cockman had with his children before they were killed, and parts of a child psychologist’s report supporting those orders.
The police have not finished their investigation, but it appears likely they will find that the four children, their mother and their grandmother were killed by their grandfather Peter Miles, who then committed suicide.
The material first came to public attention when a journalist asked Cockman at a press conference shortly after the murders, about “vile rumours that you had anything to do with this”.
Cockman responded that he had been “cut off from my kids” and had “supervised visits”.
“What came out and was the only way I ended up winning [the right to visit my children] in the end, was an independent psychologist’s report … I want everyone to see [the report] … and I will get it out there somehow. The correct way to do it? I’m not sure. I will be informed, I suppose. But I would love to have 10 or 20 copies here now and give them all out to you.”
After Cockman’s claims, Thackray CJ decided it was necessary to release a statement clarifying that there had not been a formal legal dispute as to the Cockman’s visitation rights, and that the matter had been settled by consent.
However, Cockman seems to have remained interested in telling his side of the story. He granted an interview to Channel Seven and signed a letter indicating his consent for Seven to access the documents, which a Seven journalist witnessed.
In support of its application to access the documents, Seven provided a “heavily redacted” transcript of its planned broadcast. Thackray wrote that it was “immediately apparent that important context was missing by reason of the redactions”, and Seven subsequently provided a full transcript.
Aware of the public interest in the case, the WA Family Court chief justice began his reasons by noting:
“I approach these applications with a desire to allow the public an insight into the workings of their family law system and with nothing to hide from viewers/readers who rely upon the applicants to keep them informed.”
His Honour then provided 15 reasons as to why the report should not be made public. Among them were:
Balanced against the general value of open justice, HH decided that the documents ought not to be released.
However, in order to allow the community an understanding of some aspects of the case, Justice Thackray made only relatively minor redactions to his judgment.
The decision was not a complete blow to Cockman’s efforts to present his view of his relationship with his former partner and children. Thackray noted that he considered “it appropriate to record in this public document that the expert painted a generally favourable opinion of [Cockman]”.