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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.
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.
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.
A whistleblower from within the coronial system, who last year made a complaint to the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) 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.
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.
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.