New evidence uncovered by Guardian Australia reveals serious police failings in the lead-up to the murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children that were overlooked by the coronial inquest and never investigated by homicide detectives.
The previously unreported material includes evidence that Clarke made repeated disclosures to a Queensland police officer about her estranged husband, Rowan Baxter, that were not logged in police systems.
Clarke, 31, was leaving her parents’ Brisbane home on 19 February 2020 to take her children to school when Baxter, 42, jumped into the car. He splashed fuel and set it alight before stabbing himself and dying nearby. The bodies of Aaliyah, six, Laianah, four, and Trey, three, were found in the vehicle; Clarke died in hospital.
The coroner presiding at the inquest found that it was unlikely anything more could have been done to prevent Baxter from killing his family.
Hannah Clarke with her children Aaliyah, Trey and Laianah
But a whistleblower has alleged that the homicide investigation into the deaths – some of Australia’s most high-profile domestic violence killings – did not investigate the prior police response and failed to address potentially critical mistakes in the final months of Clarke’s life.
These omissions mean police conduct before Clarke’s death has never been effectively scrutinised, the whistleblower alleges.
The Guardian can reveal that after Clarke and her children were killed, detectives turned the spotlight on the victim – investigating the “veracity and motive” of her allegations of domestic violence and coercive control.
‘Missed opportunities’
Baxter controlled, abused, stalked and killed his estranged wife and their children, and spent days planning the act. An inquest found that he was a “master of manipulation” and that – while there had been “missed opportunities” to hold him accountable and failures by all agencies to recognise the extreme risk he posed to Clarke and her children – overall police had handled the case appropriately.
But the new evidence raises serious questions about the police response to Clarke’s pleas for help, the subsequent coronial investigation and the inquest findings.
Flowers placed during a vigil to remember Clarke and the children. Photograph: Jono Searle/Getty Images
Hundreds of pages of text messages between Clarke and a senior constable, Kirsten Kent, submitted to the inquest and released to the Guardian by the coroner, show that the Brisbane mother had disclosed non-lethal strangulation, stalking and suspected child grooming in the months before her death.
Non-lethal strangulation and stalking are known risk factors for intimate-partner homicide. But these allegations were not recorded in police systems by Kent, who had been assigned to handle Clarke’s case and formed a friendship with her, and nor were they investigated as potential crimes.
Kent told the inquest she had considered treating the stalking allegations as a criminal complaint but “did not push Hannah into making one for several reasons”, including that she did not believe there was enough evidence and Clarke had not wanted to do so.
Police sources say Kent’s failure to log the allegations could have prevented an accurate assessment of the level of risk Clarke faced. They say that if she had been identified as being at extreme risk of violence it would have triggered additional protections and referrals.
Clarke also disclosed in text messages to Kent that she believed Baxter was capable of killing her, himself and the children.
The deputy state coroner Jane Bentley said at the inquest that Kent was “to be commended” for her dealings with Clarke, because she “identified that Hannah was a victim of DV when Hannah had not recognised that herself” and “did everything she reasonably could to protect and assist [her]”.
A whistleblower from within the coronial system, who last year made a complaint to the Crime and Corruption Commission about the handling of the case, accused the coroner of failing to identify the fact that Kent had not logged these messages and of failing to consider the consequences of that failure.
One of the inquest’s terms of reference was to review the Queensland police service response before Clarke’s death.
Broken trust: how police failed Hannah Clarke and other women they were supposed to protect – video
A spokesperson for the coroner’s court said Bentley would not comment further on the findings.
A police spokesperson said the QPS “acknowledges the Coroner’s findings in the Hannah Clarke case, which commended Constable Kent and noted that the organisation acted appropriately in its response. It is recognised that officers responded based on the information and understanding available to them at the time, in alignment with the organisation’s values of integrity, respect, and courage.
“Since the murders of Hannah, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey, the Service has continued to evolve and learn; strengthening its response to domestic and family violence but recognising there is still more to achieve.”
Police at the scene of the car fire that claimed the family’s lives. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP
‘Say you are a good dad’
On Boxing Day in 2019, Baxter grabbed his middle child, Laianah, at an access visit and took her interstate. Police initially treated the matter as a custody dispute because no formal parenting orders were in place.
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When Kent found out about the abduction, she sought a police protection order against Baxter that prohibited him from approaching the children or Clarke’s residence.
Body-worn camera footage released to Guardian Australia by the coroner shows two male police officers who served Baxter with the order telling him how to challenge it in court.
“Talk to your friends about, you know, someone who might be willing to provide a reference,” one officer says.
The other adds: “To say you are a good dad and … don’t need any conditions.”
The footage also shows one of the officers agreeing with a comment from Baxter that women can make domestic violence allegations “for anything”. The camera is then turned off while officers are still speaking to Baxter, in an apparent breach of protocol. There is no suggestion Kent was aware of these comments.
A former senior detective, Kate Pausina, who helped to investigate hundreds of domestic violence-linked deaths in Queensland, tells the Guardian the footage is shocking.
“In all my time of policing I’ve never seen an officer coach somebody in what to say when they’ve been charged with a stealing offence,” she says. “Why would you do it in [these] circumstances of a domestic violence matter?”
The footage was played at inquest but the coronial findings make no mention of the officers’ comments.
Former police sergeant Kate Pausina. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian
The coroner found there had been “a failure by all agencies to recognise [the] extreme risk of lethality” Clarke faced and “a failure to recognise the risk of intimate-partner homicide which results from separation in a coercive controlling relationship”.
She recommended that the Queensland government provide funding for urgent training for all specialist domestic violence officers and for men’s behaviour change programs in prisons and the community.
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The findings also identify “missed opportunities” to hold Baxter accountable for his actions, including a police decision to downgrade an assault charge from January 2020 when he aggressively grabbed Clarke’s wrist.
Police doubt Clarke’s claims
Police are required under their own policies to conduct a mandated “contact audit” after every domestic and family violence homicide – but the QPS has never reviewed its handling of Clarke’s case.
The coroner noted in her findings that the police officer who had conducted the homicide investigation, Sr Sgt Derek Harris, “did not review the QPS response to the events prior to the death and was unaware of any such review”.
Evidence about Clarke’s final weeks, including credible claims that Baxter had hacked into Clarke’s phone, and which might have led to more scrutiny of police actions, was not part of the police investigation report that Harris handed to the coroner.
Pausina believes the most startling revelation in the new evidence is that a number of police officers involved in investigating the killings had doubts about Clarke’s allegations that she had been a victim of domestic violence and coercive control – even after she was murdered.
A document prepared by detectives for a meeting with the state coroner on 10 March 2020 summarises early investigations and the proposed direction of the case. A number of issues are listed for investigation – the first of which is the “veracity and motive” of Clarke’s domestic violence allegations.
“Witness statements provide different accounts of the nature and severity of the domestic violence committed by Rowan,” the briefing document says.
It says those witnesses – whose evidence was later criticised by the coroner – “question the veracity of some of the allegations made by Hannah … in the affidavit she completed and the motive for her making a DVO application”.
Clarke’s affidavit had stated that she believed Baxter was “totally capable of killing himself and killing our children to get back at me. This scares me beyond words.”
A makeshift shrine to Clarke and the children the day after the murders. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP
The report Harris ultimately handed to the coroner did not address this early line of questioning.
The Guardian asked police at what point the focus of the investigation changed. “Responding to a domestic and family violence incident is challenging and complex and in the wake of the horrific DFV homicides of Hannah Clarke and her three children, the dangers and risks of coercive control became evident,” a spokesperson said.
“As a result, the QPS committed to the development of additional training, specifically focussing on the nuances of coercive control and the fundamental need for domestic and family violence investigations to be holistic (rather than single-incident based), victim-centric and trauma informed.”
‘Victim blaming’
Harris was appointed to lead the investigation into Clarke’s death after the QPS stood aside the original investigator, Det Insp Mark Thompson, for “victim blaming” comments. “Is this an issue of a woman suffering significant domestic violence and her and her children perishing at the hands of the husband?,” Thompson told a press conference in the wake of the murders. “Or is it an instance of a husband being driven too far?”
Harris had previously been involved in the police response to Clarke’s allegations – he was responsible for assessing the “child harm referral” after Baxter abducted Laianah. He told the inquest he had ultimately declined to investigate the matter, finding there was no imminent harm to the children on the basis that there was no child protection history and no formal parenting orders in place.
He deemed it a “custody dispute” not a criminal matter. The findings say Harris forwarded a copy of the referral to the Department of Child Safety, in line with procedure.
The whistleblower’s complaint to the CCC raises concerns about Harris’s involvement in the homicide investigation, accusing him of having a “conflict of interest” that was not addressed by the QPS or the coroner.
The complaint says Laianah’s abduction “should have resulted in immediate actions being taken by police (and other services) to protect Ms Clarke and the children”, such as an urgent referral to high-risk teams.
It argues that because the QPS response to Clarke was a matter for consideration by the inquest, Harris had been effectively ordered to “investigate himself”.
“Given Detective Sergeant Harris was involved in the service delivery, there is no reason he should have been tasked to investigate this case,” it says.
The whistleblower argues that police failed to scrutinise evidence of “errors, incompetence and/or otherwise embarrassing failures in response to Ms Clarke’s reports of domestic and family violence and child abuse and Mr Baxter’s identifiable pattern of escalating violence and risk”.
An independent review of investigations into police-related and DFV deaths in Queensland was told the brief of evidence prepared by the police in the Clarke investigation was poor quality and missing relevant documents and reports.
Queensland police deputy commissioner Cameron Harsley. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian
Guardian Australia asked the police officer with oversight of domestic and family violence, the deputy commissioner Cameron Harsley, whether he believed “victim blaming” attitudes had continued in the investigation after Thompson stepped down. He said he believed police “always” believed the victim.
The CCC assessed the whistleblower’s allegations and found that allegations that Harris had a conflict of interest, if proven, “would not meet the standard of the conduct the community reasonably expects of a police officer”.
It declined to investigate further on the basis the allegations were considered to amount to “police misconduct” rather than “corrupt conduct” because they were not serious enough to result in criminal charges or sacking.
Cameron Harsley retired from the role of deputy commissioner of the Queensland Police Service in September.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
Do you know more? Contact ben.smee@theguardian.com
