R v So (No 4)

Case •

[2023] NSWSC 1292

•

10 November 2023

No judgment structure available for this case.

Supreme Court


New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v So (No 4) [2023] NSWSC 1292
Hearing dates: 14 August – 6 October 2023
Decision date: 10 November 2023
Jurisdiction:Common Law
Before: Ierace J
Decision:

The accused is found not guilty.

Catchwords:

CRIME – Murder – Trial by judge alone – Verdict – Where circumstantial Crown case – Accused invited to property of alleged deceased in 2016 – Alleged deceased disappeared four days later – Whether evidence establishes elements of murder beyond reasonable doubt – Whether reasonable possibility accused’s exculpatory account true – Whether reasonable possibility other persons involved in disappearance of alleged deceased

Legislation Cited:

Court Suppression and Non-Publication Orders Act 2010 (NSW), ss 7, 8

Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW), ss 133, 161A

Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), ss 53, 65, 165B

Cases Cited:

R v So (No 2) [2023] NSWSC 1052

R v So (No 3) [2023] NSWSC 1113

Texts Cited:

T W Adair and A C Gallardo, “Considering the Target Surface in Bloodstain Pattern Analysis: An Unusual Case of Blood Pooling” (1999) 49(5) Journal of Forensic Identification 485

Chengcheng C. Feng, “Impact of Carpet Construction on Fluid Penetration: The Case of Blood” (2016) Master of Science (Textile Manufacturing) Degree, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina

Category:Principal judgment
Parties: Rex
Kylie So (Accused)
Representation:

Counsel:
L Shaw (Crown)
I Nash (Accused)

Solicitors:
Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) (Crown)
Legal Aid NSW (Accused)
File Number(s): 2017/279513
Publication restriction: Some witnesses have been assigned pseudonyms in this judgment and an order has been made pursuant to ss 7 and 8(1)(e) of the Court Suppression and Non-Publication Orders Act 2010 (NSW) prohibiting the disclosure of information that tends to reveal their identity.

JUDGMENT

  1. HIS HONOUR: The accused, Kylie So, was arraigned in the Supreme Court on 2 September 2022 on a charge that she murdered Robert Dickie at Elong Elong between 14 and 15 June 2016, to which she entered a plea of not guilty. The trial commenced at Dubbo on Monday 14 August 2023, to be determined by Judge alone. Closing addresses concluded on Friday 6 October 2023.

  2. The accused was born in Cambodia and initially raised in Vietnam. Her family migrated to New Zealand while she was a child. Her first language is Vietnamese. Her grasp of English is imperfect, warranting the translation of the trial proceedings to her by two interpreters who took turns in that task. The Court is indebted to them for their diligence over such an extended period.

  3. At the commencement of the trial, the parties sought rulings as to the admissibility of certain evidence proposed to be led by the Crown that is the subject of interlocutory judgments, as to hearsay statements and tendency evidence (R v So (No 2) [2023] NSWSC 1052) and expert opinion evidence (R v So (No 3) [2023] NSWSC 1113).

  4. Some witnesses, and persons whose statements or police interviews were tendered or who were otherwise referred to during the trial, had vulnerabilities that warrant their identity being protected in the interests of their mental health. They have been assigned pseudonyms in this judgment and I make an order pursuant to ss 7 and 8(1)(e) of the Court Suppression and Non-Publication Orders Act 2010 (NSW) prohibiting the disclosure of information that tends to reveal their identity.

The background to the charge of murder

  1. The Crown case is circumstantial in nature. Almost all of the evidence in the trial was not in dispute, which facilitates, for the most part, a narrative form in this review of the evidence. Not all of the evidence in the trial is summarised in the judgment. I have summarised the evidence that the parties have identified to be of some significance and, as well, any additional evidence that I consider to be significant. References to material being tendered are to be understood as tenders into evidence, that were made without objection, unless otherwise stated.

  2. At the time of the alleged offence, Mr Dickie was aged 71. He resided on an 88 acre rural property that is about 4km from the hamlet of Elong Elong and 45km north-east of Dubbo, alongside the Newell Highway, that section of which is known as the Golden Highway. The address is 76 Wattle Road, Elong Elong (Mr Dickie’s property). He had purchased the property in about 2005. In 2011, he placed a transportable house on the property and thereafter resided there, alone, apart from occasional guests.

  3. The accused stayed with Mr Dickie at his property from 11 June 2016, which was the Saturday of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. Mr Dickie was last seen alive by someone other than the accused on the morning of Tuesday 14 June 2016, when he and the accused paid a brief visit to a neighbour, Sandra Weavers. Following the discovery of Mr Dickie’s disappearance, the accused informed police that she last saw Mr Dickie on the evening of 14 June 2016, when he left the property in a vehicle that had called by after telling her he was going to a party and would return by 10pm that night. He did not return and his mobile phone was last detected by a mobile phone cell tower that was located in the Elong Elong vicinity, at 2.54pm on Wednesday 15 June 2016. His remains and his phone have not been located.

  4. The Crown case is that Mr Dickie died on either 14 or 15 June 2016 at the hands of the accused, who disposed of his body by means unknown.

Mr Dickie’s property

  1. Wattle Road is a dirt road approximately 2.6km long, initially running in an easterly direction off the Golden Highway, which at that point is a straight section of highway lying approximately south-west towards Dubbo and north-east towards Dunedoo. After about 250m, Wattle Road bends to the south and lies almost due south for slightly over a kilometre, then turns to the east and finishes in a dead end.

  2. A view of Mr Dickie’s property pursuant to s 53 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) took place on 23 August 2023. According to the evidence of the officer in charge of the police investigation from about August 2016 onwards, Detective Sergeant Adrian Tighe, the property and its improvements, including the house, are in the same layout as they were at the time of Mr Dickie’s disappearance.

  3. The property is the second along from the intersection with the Golden Highway on the Western side of Wattle Road. It is pentangular, bordered by Wattle Road to the east, the Golden Highway to the north-west, and private properties to the north, south and west. Approximately half the property is, and was at the relevant time, clear grazing land, and the other half native timber and scrub. The property was fenced and gated. The fences were about waist-height, constructed of wire and mesh and supported by metal pickets and wooden strainer posts. At the time of the alleged offence, they were in good order. There were two gates on the perimeter, one on the eastern side of the property that gave access to the house from Wattle Road (the front gate) and the other on the western side of the property, leading onto the Golden Highway. Mr Dickie was particularly security-conscious and both gates were kept locked; the one on the fence line with the Golden Highway had a padlock and the one that fronted onto Wattle Road had a substantial combination lock.

  4. The improvements on Mr Dickie’s property comprised the transportable three-bedroom house, four water tanks, two sheds that were 40 to 50m from the western side of the house, animal enclosures, an open hay shed some distance from the house and a dam that settled into two distinct ponds when the water level was low, as it was at the relevant time. As well, there were fenced paddocks, a rough pigpen and a shipping container for storing food for the pigs.

  5. At the time of his disappearance, Mr Dickie had about 25 head of cattle, some pigs, ducks and six pit bull terriers that he used to breed puppies for sale. According to some witnesses he also had chickens, a few sheep, geese and goats.

  6. One of the sheds comprised seven bays that faced the house (the machinery shed). Five were open and two had roller doors that were locked shut. At the time of Mr Dickie’s disappearance, in the open bays, he had garaged a flat-topped utility (the Mahindra), a Kubota tractor, a small all-terrain farm vehicle (the ATV) and various other items of machinery. In one of the locked bays was a high-performance version of a Mustang sports car (the Shelby). Behind the machinery shed was a closed shed that essentially contained tools (the tool shed). Adjoining it was a large roofed area with no walls. The space between the tool shed and the back of the machinery shed was utilised with six dog kennels and a small yard used for ducks.

  7. The property was off the grid. The only sources of electrical power were a solar powered battery bank with a backup diesel generator. Multiple witnesses said that the quality of the electric light in the house was poor. Mr Dickie had an internet connection via a satellite dish on the roof.

  8. The house was positioned off a dirt driveway about 100m from the front gate, with a grassed yard within a perimeter fence of wire mesh that had pedestrian gates on three sides. The house had three bedrooms. The bedroom that was used by Mr Dickie (the main bedroom) had a walk-in wardrobe that led to an ensuite, another was for guests (the second bedroom) and the third was set up with a desk and apparently used as an office (the office). The house was rectangular in shape, lying in an approximately north-south position.

  9. The main bedroom comprised the southern end of the house, with a window on the eastern wall facing towards the front gate and Wattle Road. The second bedroom was at the north-eastern end and the office alongside it, at the north-western end. The main bathroom was also at the northern end of the house. In the middle was an open kitchen-dining-living area, the lounge on the eastern side, an adjoining dining area on the western side and alongside it the kitchen. To the south of the open living area was a well-stocked bar and a glass door. The front door was at the end of a short hallway between the main bedroom and the bar. Sliding doors opened from the dining area onto a full-length flyscreen-enclosed verandah with a wooden floor. Opposite the sliding door was a lockable door leading down a few steps into the house yard and towards the machinery shed.

Mr Dickie’s disappearance

  1. Mr Dickie retired shortly after he moved into 76 Wattle Road, having worked in the mining industry at various locations in New South Wales, finishing as a mine shift supervisor. He received regular payments from an investment portfolio and a part-pension from Centrelink. He had been married twice, having seven adult children from his first marriage. His second marriage, which ended in 2003, was followed by two further long-term relationships, the last ending in about 2011. Thereafter, his relationships were brief, ranging from overnight sexual encounters to short-term stays.

  2. The accused is a transgender person who was aged 43 at the time of Mr Dickie’s disappearance. She was a citizen of New Zealand. She had met Mr Dickie during an earlier trip, or trips, to Australia as a customer of her occasional employment as a sex worker. At Mr Dickie’s invitation, she had arrived in Dubbo from New Zealand on Friday 10 June 2016, with an expectation cultivated by Mr Dickie that he was committing to a long-term relationship with her. Mr Dickie picked her up in Dubbo the following day and drove her to his property, where she remained with him until his disappearance.

  3. One of Mr Dickie’s three siblings, Annette O’Reilly, who resided on the coast, spoke with him regularly by phone. Mr Dickie had a mobile phone and did not have a landline phone. Ms O’Reilly rang him at 9.45am on Wednesday 15 June 2016. There was no response and, contrary to his usual practice, he did not return her call. She continued to call his mobile throughout the day without success. That evening, she reported her concern as to Mr Dickie’s welfare to police.

  4. Police attended Mr Dickie’s residence at about 10.15pm that night and spoke to the accused, who informed them that Mr Dickie had gone to a party the previous night with a friend, saying he would be back by 10pm, but had not returned; she did not know where he was. The following day (Thursday 16 June 2016) at around noon, one of Mr Dickie’s children, a son named Damien, attended the property with his then partner, Allison Haley, looking for Mr Dickie. Four of Mr Dickie’s sons gave evidence in the trial. I will refer to them by their first names and mean no disrespect in so doing.

  5. The accused was absent from the property when Damien and Ms Haley first attended. The accused arrived back shortly after nightfall. On her return, she was confronted by Damien and Ms Haley. Police returned to the property later that night and conveyed the accused to Dubbo. She did not return to the property thereafter, other than in the company of police on 21 June 2016. She left Dubbo the following day and returned to New Zealand on 23 June 2016. On multiple occasions in the following days, weeks and months, police searched the property and its surrounds and followed up leads without success in determining the whereabouts of Mr Dickie or, if he is deceased, his remains.

  6. Fourteen months later, during a forensic examination of the main bedroom, police located areas of dried blood, later confirmed to be that of Mr Dickie, on the underneath of the carpet in the vicinity of his bed. The corresponding areas on the top carpet surface were paler than the surrounding carpet and, on forensic examination, were determined to contain particles which, in the opinion of the analyst, were “like those found in some laundry powders, and residues of other chemicals that could have originated from bleaching products”. A nail brush seized from the laundry at the same time had carpet fibres in its bristles which, upon analysis, were considered more probably than not to have come from the bedroom carpet. Droplets of blood were detected on three walls of the bedroom, the bed frame and the mattress. The lighter patches of carpet were visible on photographs of the bedroom taken on Sunday 19 June 2016, suggesting that the blood underneath the carpet was present on that date, and not visible on photographs of the bedroom that were taken by police on 24 April 2012, in the course of an investigation of an unrelated incident. Photographs of the laundry taken on 19 June 2016 in which the nailbrush can be seen appear to show the carpet fibres present in it at that time.

  7. The accused was arrested in New Zealand in April 2020. She was extradited to Australia on 25 June 2020, and subsequently charged with Mr Dickie’s murder.

The case for the Crown

  1. According to Ms Weavers, the visit by Mr Dickie and the accused on 14 June 2016 ended abruptly when the accused told her that she was “staying” with Mr Dickie. Mr Dickie lowered his gaze and then terminated the visit.

  2. The case for the Crown is that when the accused informed Ms Weavers that she was “staying”, she was implying that she regarded her stay as permanent. It is alleged that at some point following the visit to Ms Weavers, Mr Dickie told the accused that she could not stay with him on an ongoing basis, which so enraged her that she fatally assaulted him in his bedroom, either that day or the next, intending to at least cause him grievous bodily harm. Following his death, she disposed of Mr Dickie’s body by unknown means, most likely by feeding his body to the pigs and Pitbull terriers that he bred on his property. She cleaned up the patches of blood on the upper surface of the bedroom carpet and either washed or disposed of any clothing or bed linen that was bloodied in the assault.

  3. In order to establish that Mr Dickie would have told the accused that she could not stay, the Crown relies upon a body of evidence to establish tendencies on the part of Mr Dickie at that time to disavow long term, live-in domestic relationships and engage in short term sexual encounters in lieu, including having short-term sexual partners attend his home for a number of days, and endeavour to facilitate short term (days rather than weeks) sexual encounters with women by falsely promising long-term relationships with them.

  4. The Crown submitted that Mr Dickie had invited the accused to travel to Australia to live with him in a long-term relationship and then, after a few days and prompted by what the accused had said to Ms Weavers, informed her that she would not be staying, in accordance with these tendencies.

The case for the defence

  1. The accused did not give evidence in the trial. The essence of the defence case is in accordance with what the accused told the police when they attended Mr Dickie’s property on the evening of 15 June 2016 and in subsequent interviews by police; that Mr Dickie left her there on the evening of Tuesday 14 June, saying he was going to a party and would return at 10pm, and that she did not see or hear from him thereafter. The accused’s account to police did not include any suggestion that Mr Dickie had told her that he wanted her to leave, or that her stay was to be short-term. The only witnesses called by the defence were two forensic experts.

  2. In its opening and during the course of the trial, the defence did not concede that Mr Dickie is in fact deceased, although in its closing address the defence accepted that it was open to the Court to find beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Dickie is deceased.

  3. I have concluded from the evidence that Mr Dickie is deceased. I convey the Court’s condolences to his family. The trial has been a difficult experience for his family, former partners and long-term close friends, not least because there have been revelations of Mr Dickie’s lifestyle that many were doubtless unaware of and would regard as not reflecting well on his character. That evidence was heard because of its relevance to the issues in this trial and not to tarnish his reputation. In his lifetime, with the exception of one incident I will come to in due course where he was spoken to by police in 2012, Mr Dickie did not have an opportunity to put on the record his view in relation to his alleged behaviour with vulnerable women.

The structure of the verdict judgment

  1. I will identify certain directions of law at the outset, by which I will be bound.

  2. The first part of this judgment is a recital of the evidence of Mr Dickie’s long-term relationships, his transactional short-term sexual relationships and his online dating history (Mr Dickie’s relationship history). The relevance of this aspect of the evidence in the prosecution case is to provide a foundation for Mr Dickie’s alleged tendencies by the time of his disappearance to favour short-term relationships and to entice women to stay with him by holding himself out as being committed to a long-term relationship, then after a few days requiring them to leave. Parts of the same body of evidence are relevant to the defence case, to the extent that it suggests that others may have had a motive to do harm to Mr Dickie.

  3. The second part of the judgment is a recital of the evidence concerning the association between Mr Dickie and the accused until her decision to travel to Dubbo in June 2016 (Mr Dickie’s association with the accused).

  4. The third part of the judgment is a recital of the evidence as to what occurred from the time of the accused’s arrival in Dubbo on 10 June 2016 to the attendance of police at Mr Dickie’s property on the evening of Thursday 16 June 2016, including the accused’s initial account to police on the evening of Wednesday 15 June 2016 (Mr Dickie’s disappearance).

  5. The fourth part of the judgment concerns the accounts that the accused provided to police as to Mr Dickie’s disappearance from Thursday 16 June 2016 onwards (The accused’s further accounts to police).

  1. The fifth part relates the investigations undertaken by police following Mr Dickie’s disappearance, in particular, the discovery of dried blood in his bedroom and on his iPad (Police investigations).

  2. The sixth part is concerned with police investigations of certain other persons (Investigations of persons other than the accused).

  3. The seventh part concerns observations of the blood stains that were discovered in the main bedroom of Mr Dickie’s house in August 2017 and the opinions of expert witnesses concerning them (Blood stains in the main bedroom).

  4. The eighth part of the judgment concerns the respective cases of the parties (Counsel’s closing addresses).

  5. The ninth part comprises the directions of law to be followed in the course of my deliberations (Directions of law)

  6. The tenth part of the judgment is my consideration of the evidence and determination of my verdict (Consideration).

Initial Directions of law

  1. At the outset, I direct myself as follows.

The presumption of innocence

  1. The accused is presumed to be innocent, unless and until the Court is persuaded by the evidence that she is guilty of the offence charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Those words have their ordinary, everyday meaning.

The burden and standard of proof

  1. The Crown bears the onus of proving the charge of murder and doing so beyond reasonable doubt. The accused is presumed to be innocent and has no obligation to prove anything.

Assessing the reliability of witnesses

  1. In assessing the evidence of each witness, the Court must decide if their evidence was both honest and accurate. A witness may be honest, but mistaken in the evidence they give, and not realise they are mistaken. That is, they believe the evidence they give to be true, but they are wrong. If the Court concludes that in some part or parts of their evidence a witness was not doing their best to tell the truth, then the Court needs to determine to what extent, if at all, that conclusion should affect the ultimate assessment of that witness’s evidence.

  2. Accordingly, in relation to a witness’s reliability, an honest witness may be inaccurate, either wholly or partly, and to that extent, their evidence will be wholly or partly unreliable. A witness who is honestly telling the truth might have a tendency, even unconsciously, to exaggerate, or to distort, or to simply mistake the truth. In making its assessment, the Court brings to bear its real life experience.

  3. There are two particular issues in the context of this trial that may affect a witness’s reliability. The events in question occurred seven years ago, so that a witness’s memory may be affected by the passage of time. This is particularly so when they were not called upon to recall the relevant events for the first time until some considerable time later. Another issue is that some of the witnesses who gave evidence admitted that they were using prohibited drugs at the time of the events in question, or that their capacity to recollect events had been impaired by their long-term use of prohibited drugs.

Part 1: Mr Dickie’s relationship history

His wives and long-term partners

  1. Suzanne Dickie gave evidence that she was married to Mr Dickie for about 21 years, from 1965. They had seven children. She said that following their separation, Mr Dickie showed little interest in his children, other than Darren, who was his eldest child, and Damien, who was his fourth eldest.

  2. A statement by Mr Dickie’s second wife, Ellen Fay Dickie (née Heycox), was tendered. She stated that they were married in 1988. At the time, he was working shifts as a “Deputy” in a mine at Tahmoor and they lived nearby in Yanderra, which I note is on the border of the Southern Highlands. They later moved to Branxton, which is in the Hunter Valley. While living there, Damien resided with them for a while. Ellen Dickie noted that Mr Dickie “did not have a great relationship with his children”, but was close to one of her children, Kerryn.

  3. At a later point, Mr Dickie worked in a mine at Ulan and they lived at Laheys Creek, in the mid-west of the state. They separated in February 2003, when Ellen Dickie moved into the town of Gulgong, about 40km away, with Kerryn. She did not maintain contact with Mr Dickie after their separation and subsequent divorce, although Kerryn did.

  4. Ellen Dickie stated that when Mr Dickie was living at Elong Elong, she drove near his property with her grandson, Cooper, who was Kerryn’s child:

“… we actually went past the house there near Wattle Road one night driving past, but I never saw the house. This was only because Cooper had asked me where Pop lived and we were near Dunedoo there, so I knew the general direction and pointed [out] that area near Wattle Road at Elong … Courtney [1] and Cooper used to go out to Robert’s farm when they were little.”

1. Ellen Dickie did not explain who Courtney was.

  1. From the 1990’s until his disappearance, Mr Dickie had a significant friendship with Susan Carter, who he met through Ellen Dickie shortly before they were married and who also lived in Yanderra at that time. In her evidence, Ms Carter stated that she and Mr Dickie were only ever friends, although during the 1990s they spoke to each other by phone nightly, without Ellen Dickie knowing; he would call her “every evening … while he was at work”. Ms Carter was aware that Mr Dickie was interested in a relationship with her, but said that “that would never have happened”, because she did not want it.

  2. In August 2003, following the break-up of Ellen Dickie’s marriage to Mr Dickie, Ms Carter moved to Narromine. She maintained a friendship and regular contact with Mr Dickie thereafter:

“Q. Ever since that time, you’ve kept in regular contact with him?

A. Yes. I wouldn’t say it was weekly all the time. There was periods, you know, where a year would go by where we wouldn’t talk, perhaps because he was in a relationship, but - with someone. I don’t know, but there was long periods where we weren’t in contact, but as - when he moved to Elong, because we lived maybe a bit closer, we sort of, you know, got a little more - had a little more contact.

  1. In 2005, Mr Dickie purchased the property at 76 Wattle Road, but remained living at Laheys Creek.

  2. Donna Lovejoy gave evidence that she met Mr Dickie online in 2006 and moved in with him at Laheys Creek in about 2008. Their relationship lasted for about two years, although she maintained contact with him after he moved to 76 Wattle Road. She last had contact with him when she visited him at his property in December 2015 to collect a puppy that he had bred.

  3. Jeanie Batty gave evidence that she lived on the same road at Laheys Creek as Mr Dickie and was in a relationship with him after his relationship with Donna Lovejoy ended, until about 2010 or 2011. She maintained a friendship with him afterwards and visited him at 76 Wattle Road. She last saw him about two years before he disappeared, at his property.

Relationships with other women during his long-term relationships

  1. Suzanne Dickie gave evidence that prior to the end of their relationship, Mr Dickie had multiple relationships with other women.

  2. Ellen Dickie stated that Mr Dickie would “flirt and carry on with women when I was actually with him”. They travelled to America in 2000 and 2002, and he became infatuated with a woman by the name of Sherry, who they met there.

  3. Mr Dickie’s son Adam said that while his father was in the relationship with Ellen, he received a phone call in which his father asked him for assistance. Mr Dickie was worried that Ellen Dickie would discover an entry on his credit card statement for flowers. He wanted Adam to phone her and tell her that the entry related to Adam purchasing flowers for his girlfriend. Adam refused, and thereafter his father had little contact with him.

  4. Mr Dickie’s son Brett said that about the same time, when he was employed in the banking industry, he received a phone call from his father requesting that he “change some transactions on a credit card”. Brett told his father it was not possible for him to do that, and Mr Dickie responded: “Well, I will tell Ellen that I sent flowers to your girlfriend for you”. Brett replied: “I don’t have a girlfriend, you’re not doing that. I do not want to get involved in your rubbish”. The last time Brett saw his father was at a family funeral around January 2005. Brett was asked:

“Q. Did you just have a very limited conversation with your father, in relation to your father asking which son you were?

A. Yes.”

  1. Ms Lovejoy agreed in her evidence that Mr Dickie lied to her about relationships that he had with other women “a lot”. On one occasion after they had broken up, he implored her to resume living with him. She said:

“I think one time he rang … and said, ‘My life’s going to change after Monday,’ and this is another time I thought we were going to be back together, and … he said he was picking a lady up from the airport.

I thought we were getting back together. He gave me the impression we were going to get back together, and then out of the blue, I got home from work, and he rang and said that, so I was a bit ahh (as said). Yeah, so I’d say, you know, I was a bit angry, but we still made up, still started talking. We were still ‑ we just ‑ and then I sort of got it.  We were just going to be ever friends.  We were only going to ever be friends.”

  1. Ms Lovejoy said that when she was living at Gulgong, Mr Dickie told her what he would do to remove women from his residence:

“… when he was finished with … them, just disposes of them. … he would just say, ‘I want you out. Get out. … I want you gone,’ and if you sort of stood and argued about it and put up a fight about it, he would just ring the police and have the police put you out. And he used to just throw their bag over the fence, over the gate. That’s what he told me about them. He told me about all that.”

  1. Ms Batty said that she ended her relationship with Mr Dickie when she became aware that he was seeing other women.

Transactional sexual relationships

  1. The Crown led uncontradicted evidence that for some years prior to his disappearance, Mr Dickie obtained sexual services from vulnerable young women by paying them cash or by facilitating their access to prohibited drugs.

“Bronwyn”

  1. Evidence was led to the effect that on 24 April 2012, Bronwyn, who was then aged 31 and is now deceased, reported to police that in the early hours of that day she had been sexually assaulted by Mr Dickie. About four or five months beforehand, Mr Dickie had picked her up when she was hitch-hiking with a friend. She was subsequently incarcerated in Wellington Correctional Centre, serving a sentence of imprisonment. Mr Dickie visited her and proposed that she could reside with him at his property, as a condition of her parole.

  2. A Community Corrections officer at the time, Jennifer Phillips, gave evidence that she was advised of the proposal and had the responsibility for assessing its suitability. She visited Mr Dickie on 19 April 2012 at 76 Wattle Drive to assess his suitability for that arrangement. She agreed with the content of her statement to police, made on 10 July 2017, that:

“During discussions, [Mr Dickie] advised he had known [Bronwyn] for a long period of time. However, when discussing her background, he had limited knowledge … It was explained to him that she had a history of drug use, in which he advised he would not tolerate any such behaviours at his home … He was happy to have her reside with him permanently and denied having any intimate relationship with her, they were only friends.”

  1. Ms Phillips explained that Bronwyn would be subject to a methadone program requiring daily doses being obtained in Dubbo. Mr Dickie told her that he would be happy to transport Bronwyn to Dubbo every day. Mr Dickie picked up Bronwyn from Wellington Correctional Centre the following day, or the day after. Ms Phillips continued:

“On the 24 April 2012, [Bronwyn] telephoned this service in a distressed state claiming Robert Dickie sexually assaulted her. [Bronwyn] advised she packed her belongings, and he was transporting her to Dubbo. However, on the way, he decided to leave her on the side of the road in the dark. A truck driver stopped to stay with her until the police arrived and transported her to Dubbo Base Hospital.”

  1. Detective Senior Constable Simon Thorsteinsson, who gave evidence, and Detective Senior Constable Joshua Higgs investigated the incident and jointly produced a contemporaneous police report, which was tendered. Bronwyn reported to them that Mr Dickie picked her up from the Wellington Correctional Centre on Friday 20 April 2012 and took her to a hotel in Dubbo, where he left her until Monday 23 April. He then drove her to his property, arriving about 4pm. During the afternoon, he drove her to Dubbo three times to allow her to purchase methamphetamine (ice). After she had purchased the ice and injected it, they returned to Mr Dickie’s property. The report continued:

“Once at the address, DICKIE and [Bronwyn] had sexual intercourse, before [Bronwyn] requested to be returned to DUBBO. DICKIE drove [Bronwyn] part of the way to Dubbo before experiencing vehicle troubles. At this time [Bronwyn] left the vehicle and hailed a passing truck, and contacted 000, stating she had been sexually assaulted. DICKIE left [Bronwyn] at the location and returned to his home.”

  1. The report noted that police conveyed Bronwyn to Dubbo Base Hospital where she was referred to a sexual assault counsellor. Detectives spoke to Bronwyn, who was described as “visibly upset and drug affected”. She disclosed to the police that she had intercourse with Mr Dickie, but “did not disclose that the intercourse was non consensual”. Police arranged to take a statement from her at a later time.

  2. Police visited Mr Dickie at his property at 5.57am the same morning. The report continued:

“DICKIE stated that [Bronwyn] obtained the ‘ice’ to help her to have sexual intercourse with him. DICKIE stated he had intercourse with [her]. DICKIE stated that shortly after starting [consensual] intercourse with [Bronwyn], [she] removed consent and the intercourse stopped. DICKIE stated that [Bronwyn] started to act erratically and wanted to be taken to Dubbo. DICKIE then took [Bronwyn] to Dubbo.

An examination of the premises was conducted by attending Police and only one bedroom was found to have been used. Both [Bronwyn] and DICKIE stated that the intercourse [occurred] on the bed, and as such this bedding was seized by Police. Photographs of the scene were taken and no signs of struggle were observed. A small stain of what appeared to be blood was observed on the seized bedding near the pillows.”

  1. DSC Thorsteinsson confirmed that Mr Dickie was the source of the information in the first sentence of that passage. The report noted that police contacted Bronwyn later that day, who stated that “she did not wish to proceed with her allegation at this time as she does not feel capable of fronting the courts”.

  2. Ms Phillips said that approximately six months later, on 25 October 2012, a Community Corrections officer who was attempting to locate Bronwyn phoned Mr Dickie, who advised that she had hitchhiked from Warren to Dubbo on 23 October 2012 and had spent the night at his home. Mr Dickie said that he had taken her to Dubbo to pick something up, which he suspected was drugs, and left her in Dubbo.

“Diana”

  1. At the time of Mr Dickie’s disappearance in 2016, Diana was aged 24. She was a self-admitted regular user of prohibited drugs, including fentanyl, OxyContin and cannabis (marijuana). She was not called as a witness in the trial, consequent to a medical certificate by her treating doctor to the effect that she had diagnoses of schizophrenia and “a high level of anxiety” which, in the doctor’s opinion, made her unsuitable as a witness. The parties agreed that she would not be called.

  2. A videoed and transcribed interview of Diana by police officers on 28 June 2016 was tendered. She told police that Mr Dickie had been a client of her sexual services for the previous “two or three years”, over which period she had provided him with sexual services “over a hundred … times”. Typically, they would arrange a meeting by phone. He would pick her up in Dubbo and drive her to his property for a night or weekend and drive her back to Dubbo where he would withdraw cash from an ATM to pay her.

  3. Diana said that she took fentanyl and OxyContin intravenously while on Mr Dickie’s property, but not in his presence. I note the evidence of Detective Senior Constable Thomas Magann, that on the evening of 16 June 2016, he located and seized a syringe from the ground in the area just outside Mr Dickie’s front gate which, according to the opinion of an analyst, tested positive for having traces of DNA with a very high probability of being that of Diana. I also note the evidence of Adam Dickie that when he arrived at the property on 23 June 2016, he saw “needles” in the vicinity of the front gate, which he included in his statement to police the following day. There is no evidence that those syringes were seized.

  4. Diana said that she would drink alcohol and they would have sexual intercourse in the main bedroom. They would both be naked, and initially he would put on music and require her to “dance around”. Police showed Diana a photograph they had found in Mr Dickie’s house of a young woman dancing naked in his lounge room. She identified herself as being the woman in the image, saying she was drunk and dancing around a CD player, and had been unaware that he was photographing her. The photograph was grainy, suggesting it was a screenshot from a video.

  5. Diana said that on one occasion while she was at Mr Dickie’s property, about four or five months prior to her police interview, he gave her eight 40mg tablets of OxyContin, which she injected. He did not tell her where he got them from.

“Tracey”

  1. Tracey was aged 27 at the time of Mr Dickie’s disappearance. She said she met Mr Dickie at a Dubbo hotel in 2015 and gave him “head jobs” in his vehicle. During her evidence in chief, it became apparent that she had significant difficulties with her memory. Her evidence was adjourned and DS Tighe gave evidence as to Tracey’s state of mental and physical health. DS Tighe had spoken to Tracey, her partner and her father over the previous few days and formed a view that she was under the influence of ice, which was confirmed by her partner. Tracey’s father informed DS Tighe that she had short term memory loss from drug use and suffered from epilepsy. DS Tighe said that he was personally aware of Tracey’s struggles related to her use of ice over many years.

  2. On the basis of DS Tighe’s evidence, the Crown made an application pursuant to s 65(2)(a) of the Evidence Act to tender a video of an interview of Tracey that was conducted on 5 July 2016. The application was not opposed and I granted the application.

  3. In the interview, Tracey said had she first met Mr Dickie about nine months earlier at a Dubbo pub. He approached her and asked her for sexual intercourse. She agreed to accompany him in his car, intending to rob him. Instead, he drove her to her father’s place. Tracey recalled that on that occasion: “I never got no money off him or nothing”. [Q38]

  4. A week after that meeting, Mr Dickie went to Tracey’s father’s home. Tracey said that she “went for the drive with him, played the game”. She explained that “the game” was that she would agree to fellate Mr Dickie for money, but would insist on being paid first and then not perform her part of the bargain, offering various excuses. She said that over the time she knew him, she “played the game” about six or eight times and did fellate him twice. Her encounters with him were always in his vehicle.

  5. Tracey said that on some occasions, Mr Dickie would give her cash and then drive her to “the dealer’s house” so she could purchase drugs, and then she would pretend that she was so affected that she could not fellate him, so he would drop her off. She and Mr Dickie had exchanged phone numbers. Sometimes she had phoned him, asking for a lift.

  1. Tracey said she was a friend of Diana. There had been occasions when they were together in the street and Mr Dickie would drive by and wave, and Tracey would get in his vehicle and they would drive off.

  2. Tracey said that she had never been to Mr Dickie’s residence. She offered to go there with him, and he declined, because she had “robbed” him. She said that the most she had managed to entice out of Mr Dickie was “about six fifties in one night … and still keep coming, playing the game”.

“Bella”

  1. On 3 February 2016, Mr Dickie contacted police to report an incident. He said that on 1 February 2016, he received a phone call from a female friend, who he named as “Ashleigh”, who asked if she could stay with him while she was “travelling through”. He agreed, and they arranged to meet at the BP service station in Erskine Street Dubbo on the evening of 2 February 2016. When he arrived, the female friend walked towards him. As she did so, Bella emerged, pushed the woman aside and got into Mr Dickie’s vehicle. She demanded $2,000 cash. A COPS (Computer Operated Policing System) copy of the report of the complaint made by Mr Dickie to police continued:

“[Mr Dickie] stated that the [person named] asked for the amount in exchange for something, but [Mr Dickie] declined to elaborate.  [Mr Dickie] informed the [person named] that he was unable to withdraw that amount from the ATM but agreed to give her $1,000.  [Mr Dickie] travelled to the NAB on Macquarie Street Dubbo and withdrew $1,000 from his account. 

[Mr Dickie] gave the [person named] the cash and then conveyed her to her mother's address at …

[Mr Dickie] attended Dubbo Police Station and spoke with police regarding the incident.  [Mr Dickie] does not wish for any action to be taken against the [person named], but just wants her to leave him [alone].  [Mr Dickie] informed police that he just wished for a record to be made in relation to the incident.  Police questioned [Mr Dickie] about his relationship with the [person named].  He informed police that he and the [person named] has previously been involved in a sexual relationship and that he has, in the past, assisted the [person named] financially.  When questioned how [Mr Dickie] assisted the [person named] financially, [Mr Dickie] declined to elaborate. 

[Mr Dickie] again requested the police simply make a record of the incident for his benefit, and for no action to be taken in relation to the incident.”

  1. Police inquiries established that Bella was in prison between 21 January 2016 and 23 July 2016. However, Mr Dickie’s bank statement does record a withdrawal of $1,000 in cash from the Dubbo National Australia Bank (NAB) ATM at 11.31pm on 2 February 2016.

Statements made by Mr Dickie to others concerning transactional relationships

Sandra Weavers

  1. Ms Weavers said that about eight weeks before her statement to police, which was dated 19 June 2016, she received a phone call from Mr Dickie, during which he asked her for OxyContin or any other pain medications she had. At the time, she was taking 40mg of OxyContin twice a day. Mr Dickie was aware that she was prescribed that medication. She continued:

“He had a young girl down at his premises, and apparently he’d been driving around Dubbo trying to find some that he could buy. Was unable to get hold of any, and then promptly rang me to see if I would grant him some, which I was a bit shocked. No, more hurt probably, so I promptly said, ‘No’, and told Bob to put the young girl on the phone, so he did. She was very strung out, very stressed. I asked her, you know, what was she on. She told me that she was on a methadone program, she was on, about 250 milligrams, and she was trying to go cold turkey, and at that time I told her to put Bob back on, which Bob did. I told him to take her back to Dubbo so she could get her methadone, and Bob said, ‘I’m not taking it back’.”

  1. Ms Weavers said she refused to give Mr Dickie the OxyContin. She was asked:

“Q. That reference to the young girl as ‘it’, in terms of other conversations you’d had with Robert Dickie, about friends who'd visited him was that out of the ordinary, the same or something else?

A. No, he treated all the girls like pieces of meat, it was, yeah, he had no respect for any of them that came. They were there to do a job, and that's all.”

  1. Ms Weavers was asked about what Mr Dickie had told her, after she and her husband had moved into their property on Wattle Road in December 2015 and she came to know him, about his attitude to relationships:

“Q. Had Robert Dickie, in the time that you knew him at Elong, told you about any particular relationships that he was having at that time?

A. He didn’t have any particular relationship, but he used to bring girls over for the weekend.

Q. Is that something that Robert Dickie would tell you?

A. Yes.

Q. Would he tell you before the friends would come or after that weekend when they had come?

A. He would say that he’d be away for a couple of hours while he went and got a girl, and then we’d know he’d be back because the dogs would be barking, and we knew he’d returned.

Q. Did Robert Dickie ever talk to you about whether he was interested in longer term relationships with women?

A. Yeah, Bob often talked about that he would never have another relationship with a woman at all. He said he’d only ever have them for sex, and then he’d just get rid of them. I was trying to say it nicely, and then he said he would never have a relationship with a woman ever again because all they were interested in was his money.

…

… He said he’d rather buy sex and then he could just piss them off when he was finished.”

Gary Weavers

  1. Ms Weavers’ husband, Gary Weavers, gave evidence that Mr Dickie had talked to him “about women”, one or twice. He said that: “[Mr Dickie] used to go to Forbes or further, pick up girls from down there, bring them back for the weekend”, and described the sexual prowess of one such woman he brought back to his property.

Susan Carter

  1. Ms Carter was asked:

“Q. He did speak to you of women that he took out to his property?

A. Yes, he did.

Q. And did he tell you ever that he paid any of those women to go to his property to be with him?

A. I can’t say for absolute certainty, but the figure that sticks in my mind was around $200 that we discussed just briefly. We never talked much about that side of his life.

…

Q. Do you remember what $200 was for?

A. I just assumed it was for their services, but that’s an assumption.”

Dating online

  1. Damien said that his father told him he would “meet ladies online”, both overseas and locally. Mr Dickie would have short term relationships, telling Damien: “‘I’ve had a friend over for two or three days’, or ‘this weekend I’m having a friend over’. It was never names”. Damien recalled that according to Mr Dickie, the women: “were quite often a lot younger, but apart from that … he didn’t go into detail with me about what used to happen”.

  2. Mr Weavers said that Mr Dickie told him he would meet women from “all over the world” through the internet. Ms Lovejoy said that in the months prior to his disappearance, Mr Dickie told her he was using Facebook and dating apps. A computer and iPad were seized from Mr Dickie’s residence.

  3. The Crown tendered two bundles of selected screenshots taken by a police officer of emails on the iPad. They were not downloaded. The content that was tendered was confined to the captured screenshots. It was incomplete and not in a temporal sequence. One bundle, exhibit YYYY, is 106 pages, from the period 8 March 2008 to 11 June 2015, and the other, exhibit ZZZZ, is 86 pages, for the period 12 May 2009 to 10 March 2016.

  4. It appears from the content of some emails in March 2016 that Mr Dickie had recently purchased the iPad and downloaded old emails onto it. In two emails dated 9 March 2016, one to “Sherry” and another to “Michelle”, that pick up on email chains from 2013, Mr Dickie stated that he had been using his iPhone for emails since stopping his “satellite computer connection some time ago”. He had “just purchased an IPad, & Lo & behold, about 6000 old emails!” He had “lost all of these emails almost 3 years ago”.

  5. Mr Dickie’s bank records from 8 December 2015 include one entry that could relate to the iPad, being a purchase or purchases from “Harvey Norman” on 24 December 2015 for $618.

  6. Both bundles of email screenshots contain emails addressed to women with a romantic and/or sexual content. Some of them are as follows.

  7. In September and October 2012, Mr Dickie had email exchanges with a woman in Cambodia who he invited to come to Australia and “live with me on my farm, where you will be loved & cared for forever”. Subsequent emails suggest that Mr Dickie either purchased a ticket for her to travel to Sydney and on to Dubbo, or forwarded money to her for that purpose. The last email in the series is from Mr Dickie to her, stating: “I am not happy … I fell in love with you & you ripped me off for a lot of money”.

  8. In November and December 2012, Mr Dickie had multiple exchanges with a woman, apparently located in Russia, “Elena”, urging her to come to Australia because “I want you here forever” and “I do want to marry you Elena Honey”. It is not clear from the emails if she did in fact travel to Australia.

  9. In 2013, there were email exchanges between Mr Dickie and a Thai woman, apparently residing in Thailand. He invited her to travel to Australia to live with him. On 9 April 2013, he wrote: “When you are here you won’t have to work ever again”. On 25 April 2013, he wrote “We can marry as soon as you get here”. On 19 July 2013, he forwarded an email to a woman in Russia, proposing that “You must come to me my Baby & let the 2 of us have a life together”. On 12 August 2013, he wrote: “I thought we would marry when you arrive here but you tell me you can only come for 3 months”.

  10. In May 2015, Mr Dickie exchanged multiple erotic emails with a “Ladyboy” in Thailand, offering to buy her a ticket to travel to Australia and stay with him. In June 2015, he exchanged erotic emails with “Natalya” in Russia, saying “It will be a couple of weeks before we have everything worked out to get you here with me”.

  11. On 31 December 2015, Mr Dickie sent an email to a “Therese”, who had a Swiss email domain:

“Hi Therese, I only met you briefly in Dubbo today but I really like you. Maybe one of those guys is your partner, I don’t know. My farm is at Elong Elong about 46 Kms from Dubbo or a 30 mins drive. I have beef cattle & pigs & also breed American Staffy dogs. I have a nice house on my farm with a well stocked bar. I live alone. Therese, you are welcome to come & stay here as long as you like. I will look after you. I hope to talk to you soon Sweetheart, Bob xxx”

  1. There were multiple email chains of a similar content involving various other women in foreign states and in Australia between 2009 and 2015.

  2. On 9 March 2016, Mr Dickie wrote to “Sherry”, picking up on an email from 2014, saying he hoped to hear from her. The earliest email from Mr Dickie to “Sherry” is dated 22 June 2008. On 9 March 2016, he also wrote to “Michelle”, apparently a friend of Sherry, that picked up on previous emails to her from 2013, that were romantic in tone.

Evidence of a past visitor

  1. On Sunday 19 June 2016, during the execution of a crime scene warrant, police located a locked suitcase in the second bedroom. Although the relevant police officer could not recall where he found the suitcase, it is apparent from evidence that I will recount later in this judgment that it was inside a built-in wardrobe that is visible in images of the room that were taken at about that time. Police used bolt cutters to open the suitcase. A video of the execution of the search warrant, which included the examination of the contents of the suitcase, was tendered. Police can be seen locating a laptop computer (the Acer laptop), handcuffs and two pipes which, according to the evidence of DS (at the relevant time, DSC) Scott Heckendorf, were of a type that is used for smoking ice and cannabis. The suitcase also contained clothing, notebooks, documents, bags and sundry items, including what appeared to be a package wrapped in green cellophane that police did not unwrap. Police seized the Acer laptop but left the suitcase and the remainder of its contents in the room, in the wardrobe.

  2. On 23 June 2016, Allison Haley took images with her smart phone of the suitcase and its contents. The cellophane package was unwrapped and found to contain a smooth-edged kitchen or table knife.

  3. An examination of the Acer laptop disclosed activity in 2013. DS Tighe gave evidence that the content of the Acer laptop was consistent with it being the property of a person by the name of “Frank”. His name appeared on documentation in the suitcase, including a bank statement. DS Tighe said he was unable to make contact with Frank. His last known whereabouts were South Australia, in the first half of 2016. His whereabouts since Mr Dickie’s disappearance are unknown.

  4. The images taken by Ms Haley of documents in the suitcase include a bank statement dated September 2013 in the name of Frank, with a trading name of a spa and massage business and a residential address in Sydney, and a certificate of completion of a training program in Thai massage in the name of Frank.

  5. The documents photographed by Ms Haley also include an email chain between Mr Dickie and “Heng Srat”, the most recent being dated 13 December 2012, apparently attaching a certificate of adoption by Mr Dickie of “Miss Heng S[name obscured]”. An email in the chain includes the passage:

“Here is the certificate and the marriage form as i attached them. I am so happy this is over and i am now your adopted child and we will have our life to our-self. We need to pay dowry fee love i have my ticket reserved for Friday as there is no seat tomorrow.”

  1. I note that emails captured in screenshots by police from Mr Dickie’s iPad include emails between Mr Dickie and the same email address, dated 22 and 24 December 2022, which suggest that Mr Dickie paid a sum of money to Heng Srat and she did not come to Australia, prompting Mr Dickie to write to her that she had ripped him off.

  2. Ms Haley said that the printed copy of the email was one of a series of documents that were brought to her for photographing by one of Mr Dickie’s sons while they were at Mr Dickie’s property on 24 June 2016. She recalled that it was brought to her from either the office room or second bedroom. In view of the absence of connection between the contents of the suitcase involving Frank and the email, I consider it more likely that it came from Mr Dickie’s office.

Mr Dickie’s known encounters with women in the weeks before his disappearance

The “Russian lady”

  1. Ms O’Reilly was asked whether in the “month, or six weeks before he disappeared” Mr Dickie spoke to her about women with whom he had contact. Ms O’Reilly referred to two women. As to the first, she said:

“He said he had a Russian lady staying with him; she wasn’t there long, maybe five to seven days, I’m not sure …

Apparently he met her on the internet, and she, she came for a few, for I don’t know how many days, but she ‑ he said she wanted to stay, but he didn’t want her to, and he took her to the airport I presume.  I don’t know where he took her, for her to leave.”

  1. Darren Dickie gave evidence of his father having made a similar representation to that alleged by Ms O’Reilly.

“Q. In terms of friends, other than from Dubbo, do you recall him speaking of anyone?

A. He did speak of a lady - a Russian lady. He didn’t say whether she come out from Russia to see him, or whether she was on holidays here, and Russian, or whether she’d in fact lived here.

Q. Do you recall when that was, or how long before he disappeared that he mentioned that?

…

A. Yeah, it wasn’t long before. I know that we had a conversation on my birthday, which is 20 April, and the conversation was in between then and, yeah, when he disappeared.”

  1. Darren was cross-examined about this recollection and maintained it:

“I can’t recall whether he said that she came over from Russia to see him or whether she was already here.  I wasn’t sure about that part, but he did speak of a Russian lady that had been out to visit him.”

  1. The emails captured from Mr Dickie’s iPad included exchanges between him and two women in the period between 14 April and 9 May 2016. One line of communication was with “Tatjana”, who said she was 29 years old. The other was with “Ekaterina”, who said she was 32 years old. Both women wrote that they lived in Russia. In separate emails, both dated 15 April 2016, Mr Dickie wrote to each woman declaring his love for the recipient. He invited Tatjana to travel to Elong Elong where he could “look after” her and invited Ekaterina to “come here whenever you … want Honey & stay for as long as you want & let me look after you”.

  2. Tatjana purported to accept his offer and requested €200 to facilitate her travel. On 6 May 2016, she wrote that she was at an airport and coming to Australia for ten days. However, she was still waiting on the €200 from Mr Dickie which she needed to demonstrate to the “Customs Committee” that she had sufficient funds for the ten-day trip. In his responses, Mr Dickie related difficulties in sending her the money; he did not confirm that he had done so. The tone of Mr Dickie’s emails to Tatjana deteriorated, with an accusation by him in an email dated 3 May 2016 that she was a “scammer” and, in a brief email dated 6 May 2016, he made a derogatory sexual insult. There is no tendered email extract that confirms that Tatjana either did, or did not, travel to Australia.

“Diana”

  1. Ms O’Reilly said that, as well as “the Russian lady”, Mr Dickie told her he had contact with another woman in the month or so before he disappeared:

“And then he said he had another girl from Dubbo that was a drug girl; she was staying there. I don't know how long she was there either …

He said she was … drug addicted.”

  1. As to the sequence of the two stays, she said:

“I think from memory; I’m not completely 100%, but I think it was the Russian lady first. Then the drug girl, but that could be around the wrong way, I really don’t remember that specifically.”

  1. Darren Dickie gave evidence of a similar conversation with his father. He was taken to an aspect of his statement to police made on 24 June 2016 in which he stated: “about a week before all of this happened, dad told me about some 24 year old that was on methadone had stayed with him for a couple of days”. He confirmed that that part of his statement was correct.

  2. During her police interview on 28 June 2016, Diana was asked when she last stayed at Mr Dickie’s property. She thought in the previous month she had phone contact with him “probably twenty times” and the last time she had been to his property was “probably about a month ago” and “might have been just before the weekend”. She arranged a lift with an acquaintance, Robert Kilby, because Mr Dickie told her that his car needed repairs, which Mr Dickie did overnight. She said that she probably rang Mr Dickie from Mr Kilby’s phone on that day. Mr Dickie agreed in advance to provide petrol to Mr Kilby for his return trip, which he did. Diana stayed one night with Mr Dickie, for which she received $150. Mr Dickie drove her back to town the next day and withdrew her payment from “the ATM at the BP”.

  3. Mr Kilby died in January 2023. A statement made by him on 28 June 2016 was tendered. Mr Kilby stated that he once drove Diana to a property at Elong Elong, driving to the front gate and sounding his horn. A person he subsequently recognised from a photograph as Mr Dickie came up on a tractor and gave him a hose and a gallon drum of petrol for his car. As to when that trip occurred, Mr Kilby said that he did not know, but thought it was “the last week of pay week, so it could have been two weeks ago”. Mr Kilby stated that he was in receipt of the old age pension. It is apparent from the dates of fortnightly Centrelink payments in Mr Dickie’s bank statement that the June 2016 dates for Centrelink payments were Wednesdays 1, 15 and 29 June. Mr Kilby said when he arrived it was raining; Mr Dickie was wearing wet-weather gear. As to the time of day, he said it was “the evening part of the day. It was still daytime, though, and it was just getting dark by the time I got back to Dubbo”.

  1. Mr Kilby also stated:

“I can’t remember if [Diana] used my phone the day we went to Elong. I think she used my phone that day to ring the bloke, just before we left to drive out there.”

  1. An agreed fact was that Mr Kilby’s phone number contacted Mr Dickie’s service three times on 2 June 2016; at 2.17pm from Dubbo in a call that lasted three minutes and 32 seconds, at 3.08pm from Dubbo in a call that lasted 28 seconds and at 3.35pm in Elong Elong in a call that lasted eight seconds. In all three calls, Mr Dickie’s phone was connecting to the tower at Elong Elong.

  2. There was also a call from Mr Kilby’s phone to Mr Dickie’s mobile phone on 5 June 2016 at 2.32pm that lasted for one minute and 22 seconds. Mr Kilby’s phone was connecting to a cell tower in Dubbo and Mr Dickie’s was in Elong Elong.

  3. I note that, according to a tendered document that records the times of sunrise and sunset at Elong Elong in 2016, sunset on 2 June 2016 was at 5.07pm and on 5 June at 5.06pm. Rainfall records for Elong Elong record no rain on 2 June 2016 and 5.8mls on 5 June 2016.

  4. Considered in isolation, the calls made from Mr Kilby’s phone number to Mr Dickie’s phone number on both 2 and 5 June 2016 are consistent with Mr Kilby lending his phone to Diana and driving her to Elong Elong on each of those dates. There were transactions on Mr Dickie’s account in Dubbo on 3 and 6 June, which would be consistent with him returning Diana to Dubbo the day after her arrival at his property, although a cash withdrawal is only recorded on 3 June, from an ATM at “BP Reliance” in the sum of $200, at 9.22pm. However, only the date of 5 June is consistent with Mr Kilby’s recollection that it was raining when he drove Diana to Mr Dickie’s property and the rainfall records for Elong Elong for those dates.

  5. I note the most recent cash withdrawal from Mr Dickie’s account prior to the accused’s arrival in Dubbo on 10 June 2016 was in the sum of $200 on Thursday 9 June 2016 at 12.36pm, from “BP Reliance”. There is also an entry for “BP Dubbo” at 12.35pm for $24.05, which suggests that two different BP service stations are identified, indicating that either Mr Dickie attended only one or his card details were used simultaneously at both locations.

  6. Diana said that another acquaintance, known to her as “Mal”, drove her out to Mr Dickie’s property “ages and ages ago”. She said that “Mal” did not know Mr Dickie and stayed for about an hour. Mr Dickie gave him petrol. A police statement by Malcom Ralph dated 2 July 2016 was tendered. Mr Ralph died in April 2023. In his statement, Mr Ralph stated that he met Diana in early May 2016 when they were both staying in a homeless persons shelter in Dubbo. On the day of the Dunedoo markets, he drove her to the markets and then dropped her off at Mr Dickie’s property. He was no more specific as to when it was that he drove Diana to Mr Dickie’s property. He had met Mr Dickie about five years beforehand when they were both living in the Gulgong area. Mr Dickie showed him around the property. He saw “sheep, cows and a couple of dogs”. After dropping Diana off, he did not see either her or Mr Dickie again.

  7. Diana said that on an occasion after her last encounter with Mr Dickie, “two or three weeks ago”, while she was in the company of Tracey, Tracey received a call on her mobile from Mr Dickie. Diana said she saw Tracey’s phone screen and recognised the last three digits of Mr Dickie’s phone number. Tracey walked off, saying that she was going to meet up with Mr Dickie at McDonald’s.

  8. Diana was asked if she had spent any more than a night at Mr Dickie’s property, to which she replied: “Um oh, not for a long time, no”.

  9. Diana’s case manager with Community Corrections in June 2016, Nicola Eggleton, gave evidence that Diana was a known drug user who may have been subject to pharmacotherapy such as methadone. Diana phoned Ms Eggleton on 3 June 2016, saying that she wanted to leave Dubbo to remove herself from drug use and drug users, and that had moved to 187 Elong Road (Ms Eggleton accepted that Diana may have said “Elong Elong Road”), near Elong Elong, where she was staying with a person she referred to as “Dickey”, who she said was a friend of her father’s. Ms Eggleton said she expressed concern to Diana that she was potentially vulnerable living in a residency out of town with an older man who may want to take advantage of her, and Diana responded that she had no concerns for her wellbeing or safety.

  10. Ms Eggleton said that on 17 June 2016, that is, the Friday of the week in which Mr Dickie disappeared, Diana rang her and said that she had moved back into Dubbo because she had trouble accessing drug treatment from Elong Elong and was now residing with a person named Jeremy Barber. I note that in his statement dated 24 June 2016, Mr Kilby said that Diana was staying with a person named “Jeremy”.

  11. On Sunday 19 June 2016, during the execution of the crime scene warrant on Mr Dickie’s property, Detective Senior Constable Shanahan located a mobile phone and a “phone cord” in the laundry, together with two documents. One was a letter from the Federal Department of Human Services addressed to a “Megan” at a Post Office address in Dubbo that was used by a women’s refuge and which had affixed to it a Health Care card, with an expiry date of 28 February 2013. The other document was a partly filled out Centrelink form concerning Megan at the same postal address.

  12. The phone was turned on and found to have a screensaver image of a male person who, according to police inquiries, was in a relationship with Diana in 2012. A phone record for “Mum” was the phone number for Diana’s mother. A Cellebrite download of the phone’s contents disclosed text messages for the period 21 October to 17 November 2012, data files from 2009 and video files from 2012. I note that the phone number associated with this phone does not appear in the call charge records for Mr Dickie’s mobile for the period 1 May 2016 to 15 June 2016.

  13. The phone that Diana possessed at the time of her interview by police was seized and, about a year later, on 22 June 2017, was examined. A Cellebrite examination of the phone was partially successful, downloading some incoming and outgoing calls for the period 25 May 2016 to 22 June 2016 and missed calls from 12 May 2016 to 21 June 2016. SMS text messages were downloaded for the period 13 May 2016 to 21 June 2016, and another 24 that were undated.

  14. According to call charge records for Mr Dickie’s mobile, on 12 June 2016 at 1.34pm, a call that lasted 34 seconds was made from a public phone booth in Dubbo to his mobile, which was connecting to the Elong Elong cell tower. Detective Tighe noted that in the course of her interview, Diana said that she would phone Mr Dickie from public phone booths in Dubbo, although she had not nominated that particular phone booth.

“Mandy”

  1. Mandy was a Dubbo resident who was approached by Mr Dickie, who she recognised from a photograph later shown to her by police, as she walked back to work from her lunch break. She had been sitting on her porch when she noticed a man drive by twice, looking at her. As she walked back to work on the footpath of a residential street, he drew alongside her in his utility and pulled up. He said his name was “Robert”, and asked what her name was. Mandy said he asked:

“How was my day, what was I doing, and would I like to spend a bit of time with him?... he’d said he’d take me back out to his place, and have a few drinks, and yeah, just have a chat. Just mainly wanted company. … I also told him I’d given up drinking, and I don’t drink, so he was like, well, we can stay in town ….”

  1. Mandy agreed that he then asked her if she had “a preference for anything else”. She explained that she did not want to use drugs or alcohol. She said:

“… when I said I don’t drink and I don’t – I’m not into drugs at this point in time.  And yeah, he said, well, we can always work it out and then a couple of dollars here and there.  And I said yeah, I can use a couple of dollars, it’s just in general.”

  1. Mr Dickie and Mandy exchanged phone numbers by him phoning her number. Mandy invited him to call her that Saturday, and said she would “come and spend a couple of hours out there” with him. He did call her that weekend; she recognised his number. She had changed her mind and did not pick up. Initially, Mandy denied that she received any text messages from him. In cross-examination, she agreed that she did receive some text messages, but said she did not read them. She maintained that she never had a telephone conversation with him.

  2. Mandy continued:

“… about a week or two later, I think when I made sure that my partner was comfortable in rehab, I think I’d given him a call, but I got no answer either”.

  1. Mandy agreed that her partner went into a rehabilitation facility on about 17 July 2016. She agreed that she rang Mr Dickie twice on 21 July 2016 and left a message.

  2. The call charge records for Mr Dickie’s phone do not correspond to Mandy’s evidence that she only received calls from Mr Dickie the following Saturday and that she did not answer any of his calls. In the following summary, unless otherwise indicated, the phone calls were recorded as 4 seconds or less, from which I infer that they may not have connected, Mr Dickie’s phone number connected to the Elong Elong tower and Mandy’s phone connected to a tower in Dubbo.

  3. The first record of Mandy’s phone number in those records, which cover the period 1 May 2016 to 15 June 2016, is on Thursday 26 May 2016 at 1.43pm. Mr Dickie phoned her while his phone was connecting to a cell tower at Boomley Road near Dunedoo (Dunedoo is on the Golden Highway east of Elong Elong) in a call that lasted 10 seconds. He called her again the same day at 2.39pm, 2.59pm (in a call lasting 28 seconds), 3.08pm, 3.29pm (his phone again connecting to the cell tower at Boomley Road near Dunedoo), 7.05pm (four minutes and 52 seconds) and 7.11pm. He sent her texts at 1.44pm, 1.46pm. 2.39pm, 3.00pm, 3.08pm, 7.05pm and 7.12pm.

  4. Mr Dickie called Mandy the following day, Friday 27 May 2016, at 8.39am, 9.34am, 11.57am, 12.00pm, 2.14pm (9 seconds) and 7.29pm. He sent texts at 12.00pm and 2.14pm.

  5. On Saturday 28 May 2016, Mr Dickie called Mandy at 11.09am, 12.52pm and 5.17pm. He sent her a text at 11.09am. On Sunday 29 May 2016, he rang her at 11.25am (24 seconds), his phone connecting to a cell tower that was identified in the phone records as “Buninyong”, which is accepted by the parties as a location in the city of Dubbo, and at 1.30pm. He sent her a text at 11.26am and at 1.30pm. On Tuesday 31 May 2016, Mr Dickie rang Mandy at 7.49pm.

“Eva”

  1. Eva met Mr Dickie in Dubbo in 2016 through her friend, Tracey. She said that in about February 2016, Mr Dickie drove her to his property, in his Shelby. She said: “I went there because I nowhere else to go”. While she was there, she and Mr Dickie “had joints”. She could hear “dogs barking all the time”. She had a shower. He walked in on her in the bathroom. She was scared and screamed. She said: “I got out … of the house and took off”, returning to Dubbo. She said: “I walked halfway and he drove the rest”. She did not return to his property.

  2. In evidence in chief, Eva was asked if she went into Mr Dickie’s bedroom:

“Q. Did you ever see his bedroom?

A. No.

Q. In your interview with the police, you mentioned that there was a fake drawer under his bed?

A. Yeah, but that was because that’s what he was saying.

Q. You say you don't know anything about that room, the bedroom?

A. No, I don’t know nothing about the bedroom, and I don’t go into it because it’s not my room to go into it.”

  1. During a break in her evidence, Eva read a copy of the transcript of a videoed interview of her by police in September 2016. On resumption of her evidence in chief, she said it assisted her recollection. She was again asked:

“Q. Did you ever go into Mr Dickie’s bedroom?

A. Well, apparently I did once. I went in there and grabbed a jacket because he was going to go show me around the farm. But that’s as far as I’ve gone.

Q. Did you see anything under his bed?

A. Yeah … he showed me the drawer … .

Q. Could you describe this drawer?

A. This drawer is really big, it’s like you can slide it from under his bed and it comes out a long way.

Q. Is it part of the bedframe?

A. Yeah, it is.

Q. Was anything in that big drawer?

A. There was a lot of money, weapons. And there was other bags there, but you couldn’t see what was in it.

Q. How is the money kept there?

A. It was all in bundles. There was a lot of money there. More than I’ve ever seen.

Q. You’ve mentioned some weapons as well, what was there?

A. Yeah, there was some guns and knives. The knives looked old school knives.

Q. When you say old school knives, did they have a particular type of handle or something?

A. Yeah, they were like you know when you go to war and they use them knives, them - I don’t know what you call them. They're not machetes, they’re like the pirates had.

Q. A pirate’s cutlass?

A. Yeah. They looked like they were very expensive.”

  1. I note that, according to photographs of Mr Dickie’s property that were taken on Sunday 19 June 2016, there were two beds in his house; one in the main bedroom and the other in the second bedroom. Both beds were photographed then and, in more detail, in August 2017. The mattress of the bed in the main bedroom was on a wooden slat frame that rested on a metal frame. There was no drawer underneath the bed. The bed base in the second bedroom was resting on another mattress.

Part 2: Mr Dickie’s association with the accused

The accused’s background

  1. The accused was born in December 1972. A brother of the accused, Jason Bui, gave evidence for the Crown. There were five children in their family, all born in Cambodia. The family moved to Vietnam prior to 1975 to escape the Pol Pot regime. In the 1990’s, the family migrated to New Zealand. Mr Bui moved to Sydney in 1995 and was residing in Cabramatta in 2016, when the accused was in Australia.

  2. Mr Bui said that when the accused was a child, she would dress up in women’s or girl’s clothes and play with girl’s toys. He agreed that by 2016, she had an operation “to change from a boy to a girl” and was taking medication to assist with her transition to a female. Before the operation, she used the name “Angelina”.

  3. A table of the accused’s movements to and from Australia was tendered. Her first trip was in May 2010, for a period of about three weeks. Her second trip was in August 2010, for about four months. In January 2011, she returned to Australia for about four and a half months. On 25 July 2011, she returned to Australia and remained until 24 November 2012; that is, for a period of about 16 months (the 2011/2012 trip). She visited Australia once in 2014, for a period of nine days, and three times in 2016; in January 2016 for five days, between 18 and 27 March 2016 and finally on 10 June 2016.

The accused’s good character

  1. In cross-examining relevant witnesses, the defence adduced evidence of the accused’s good character. Mr Bui agreed that he had not known the accused to be violent before 2016 and he had not known her to “take drugs”.

  2. Inquiries made by NSW police of New Zealand authorities established that the accused’s only prior record was for operating a vehicle carelessly in 2002 and in 2013 for driving with a prescribed concentration of alcohol. She was fined for both offences.

The accused’s prior contact with Mr Dickie

  1. It is an agreed fact that, during the 2011/2012 trip, the accused travelled to Dubbo. She caused an advertisement of her sexual services as a “transexual” to be published on 10 October 2011 in a local newspaper which provided a mobile phone number containing an error. Call charge records for Mr Dickie’s phone indicate that on the date of publication, he rang the advertised number and variations of it, and ultimately connected to the accused’s correct phone number, four times between 3.11pm and 3.54pm, the calls lasting for periods of time between 16 seconds and three minutes nine seconds.

  2. There is evidence of SMS and voice call communications between Mr Dickie and the accused from March 2016 in call charge records of Mr Dickie’s mobile phone and the phones used by the accused. I summarise relevant text messages that were recovered, but note that as well, in the period from 27 March 2016 to and including 9 June 2016, there were 58 entries for voice calls that lasted longer than ten seconds and seven text messages that could not be recovered. This review also includes some emails that were the subject of screenshots of Mr Dickie’s iPad.

  3. On 27 March 2016, that is, the date of the accused’s departure from Australia following her first 2016 trip, the accused texted Mr Dickie at 8.05am and Mr Dickie texted her at 9.45am; the content of both texts is not known. Voice calls are recorded at around the same time of between three minutes and nine seconds. Over the following months, there were longer voice calls: 14 minutes on 28 March; and five minutes 27 seconds on 3 April.

  4. On 3 April 2016, the accused forwarded four images of herself to Mr Dickie. Text messages from Mr Dickie to the accused are to the effect that he was expecting images, but he had not received them. The accused tried to send the images again on 4 and 5 April 2016, again unsuccessfully. In one of Mr Dickie’s replies, on 8 April 2016, he said: “I do miss you Baby”. On 21, 22 and 25 April 2016 his texts included expressions of frustration that the accused was not answering his calls or replying to his texts. The accused responded in positive terms on 25 April 2016, and Mr Dickie replied: “I am working on my farm, I miss you & love you. Come to me and let me show you :)”.

  5. Mr Dickie continued to forward loving and also erotic messages to the accused. As to the loving messages, on 9 May 2016, Mr Dickie texted: “I love you my sweet Baby & I need you here with me. I love you :)”. On 11 May 2016, the accused texted: “my will name Kylie; sure. Nam,so. Full family nam; Kylie so.” On 13 May 2016, the accused texted that “I’m coming see u soon”. Later the same day Mr Dickie texted: “When are you coming to me Baby? I love you $ I want you :)”. On 16 May 2016, the accused texted: “Don’t worry I com see u soon do u miss me how much u love me”. On 18 May 2016, Mr Dickie texted “Hurry up & come to me Kylie Baby so that I can love you :)”. The accused on 20 May 2016 texted: “about 2 more week I’m ready to go Australia u can buy me ticket to see u waiting I’m tell u wat day u can buy me ticket love u”.

  6. On 1 June 2016, Mr Dickie texted:

“I think I have seen you twice, about 6 years ago when you were a prostitute in Dubbo. Are you still a prostitute? … I need you here as my girl, not as a prostitute.”

  1. The accused texted in reply:

“I’m not do prostitute for long time u know me in Dubbo because there time I been holyday in dubbo no money to paid motel;$180 per night I need to past time job to paid motel there time I see u love to stay with u but my farther in newzealand get sick an very old I have come back newzealand look after my farther now to get merry with u love to stay with u darling u buy me tk soon darling”.

  1. Mr Dickie texted: “Are you only staying with me for a holiday Baby? How long are you going to stay? Love you”. She replied: “Darling I love stay with u marry with u stay with u forever kiss u”. Mr Dickie texted: “But what about your father in New Zealand?” She replied: “Darling did time my brother family look after my farther kiss u”. And later: “Darling my farther still healthy love u kiss u”. Later that day, the accused texted a request that Mr Dickie forward to her by Western Union the sum of $700 NZD. He texted back: “You said before $600. What is your full name? A lot of money Baby”. This was followed by an erotic comment as to how much he was looking forward to her arrival. The following day (2 June 2016) at 6.22am, Mr Dickie texted: “I cannot pay you money today. $700 is too much & I don’t even know what you look like. No pics!!” At 12.37pm, the accused emailed Mr Dickie an email titled “This is my picture” attaching four images of herself in coquettish poses, two revealing her breasts through gossamer clothing.

  1. If the Court determines that Mr Dickie did have the tendencies asserted by the Crown, it can use that in considering whether it is more likely that he pretended to commit to a long-term relationship with the accused but then, in a matter of days after her arrival at his property, told her she could no longer stay with him as expected.

The accused’s good character

  1. As noted, uncontested evidence was adduced by the defence of the accused’s good character. The Court bears in mind the accused's good character in considering whether it is prepared to draw from the evidence the conclusion of the accused's guilt. It is a factor affecting the likelihood of the accused committing the crime charged, and is relevant to the Court’s assessment of the credibility of the accused’s account of the events between her departure from the Weavers’ property on Tuesday 14 June 2016 and when she finally left Mr Dickie’s property on the evening of Thursday 16 June 2016.

  2. The Court is reminded, however, that people do commit crimes for the first time and that evidence of previous good character cannot prevail against evidence of guilt which it finds to be convincing, notwithstanding the accused’s previous good character.

The impact of delay

  1. Pursuant to s 165B(1) of the Evidence Act, taking into account s 133(3) of the Criminal Procedure Act, I am satisfied that s 165B applies to a trial by judge alone.

  2. Pursuant to s 165B(2) of the Evidence Act, I am satisfied that the accused has suffered a significant forensic disadvantage because of the consequences of delay, between the time of the disappearance of Mr Dickie and her arrest and between the time of her extradition to Australia and her trial. That delay has resulted in the loss of potential evidence of persons who have either died (Enid Fittler, Bronwyn, Robert Kilby) or otherwise become unavailable as witnesses (in particular, Diana), the impact on the recollection of those witnesses who have given evidence of the relevant events (Alex, Tracey, Kellie, Gordon Hockey, Ben Ryan, Troy, Peter, Graham Clarke) and the loss of opportunity to gather additional forensic evidence (for example the inability to retrieve and obtain evidence from the phones used by Tracey, Alex and Troy). The Court takes into account the significant forensic disadvantage by being mindful of the absence of evidence that might otherwise have been available and relevant.

Witnesses not called by the prosecution

  1. References were made in the trial to persons who may have been able to provide relevant evidence but who were not called, such as Samantha Fittler, who was living at 101 Wattle Road at the time of Mr Dickie’s disappearance, Raylene Fittler (Peter’s former partner), and Frank, who was associated with the suitcase in the second bedroom in Mr Dickie’s house. The Court takes into account the fact that there was no evidence from those witnesses in determining whether the Crown has proved the guilt of the accused, but not by speculating on what their evidence might have been, had they been called.

Part 10: Consideration

Whether Mr Dickie is deceased

  1. Multiple witnesses gave evidence to the effect that Mr Dickie was reluctant to leave his property for extended periods, because he needed to care for his livestock and other animals and he was particularly concerned for the security of his premises. On the rare occasion he was absent from his property overnight, he would arrange for neighbours to feed his animals. He made no such arrangements in relation to his disappearance.

  2. Two of Mr Dickie’s children, Damien and Darren, gave evidence that at the time of his disappearance, he had a relationship with them that involved regular contact. Annette O’Reilly, one of Mr Dickie’s sisters, gave evidence that she and Mr Dickie would phone each other once a week. She had not heard from him since his disappearance and was unaware of any contact from him since that time with any other family member. She and Susan Carter gave evidence that Mr Dickie always had his mobile phone with him. Ms Carter said that if he did not answer a call, he would return the call shortly afterwards. The last phone call made by a person using Mr Dickie’s phone and SIM was on Monday 13 June 2016. It remained connected to data until it apparently ran out of battery charge on the afternoon of Wednesday 15 June 2016, so there remained the possibility that until that time it could have been used to receive and/or make calls by a data phone call App, such as Facetime or WhatsApp, but not thereafter. His phone has not been used with a different SIM card.

  3. Mr Dickie’s financial affairs were managed by his sister, Ms O’Reilly, after his disappearance. She gave evidence that there were no transactions on any of his accounts following his disappearance, other than “part Centrelink” deposits. According to Mr Dickie’s NAB account statements, his last transactions were in Dubbo on Monday 13 June 2016 between 12.46pm and 1.24pm for purchases at a service station, bottle shop and supermarket. His account continued to receive fortnightly deposits from Centrelink of $496.53 and monthly deposits of $2,000 from a share portfolio company, at least until May 2017, with no withdrawals. His wallet, with all his cards, was discovered at his property. He hadn’t collected his post-office mail in Dubbo.

  4. DSC Adam Ridley made inquiries of hospitals and medical centres in the area of Dubbo and Elong Elong to see if Mr Dickie had presented for treatment in the week before his disappearance; he had not.

  5. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Dickie is deceased. As noted, by the stage of the trial that the evidence was completed, the defence did not resist that conclusion.

Whether Mr Dickie died between 14 and 15 June 2016

  1. As to when Mr Dickie died, the Crown relied upon the evidence that Mr Dickie always had his phone with him and would answer it when it rang either immediately or he would call back in a few minutes. Diana said that Mr Dickie always carried his phone with him, in a front pocket on his chest. Accordingly, the Crown submitted that Mr Dickie would have been unable to answer his phone from the time that Ms O’Reilly could not contact him on the morning of 15 June 2016.

  2. The fact that Mr Dickie would always have his phone with him and that it ceased communication on the afternoon of Wednesday 15 June 2016 is evidence that he was at least incapacitated before that time. The fact that it connected with the Elong Elong tower until then is persuasive evidence that the phone, and by inference, his remains, were somewhere within that catchment area and that the phone was not buried or otherwise placed out of range of the tower in that period.

  3. The phone ceased to connect at a time that would be consistent with his death occurring on 14 or 15 June 2016.

Whether the tendencies alleged by the Crown are established

  1. In order to establish a motive, that is, that Mr Dickie told the accused that she could not stay, the Crown relies upon a body of evidence to establish a tendencies on the part of Mr Dickie at that time to disavow long term, live-in domestic relationships and engage in short term sexual encounters in lieu, including having short-term sexual partners attend his home for a number of days, and endeavour to facilitate short term (days rather than weeks) sexual encounters with women by falsely promising long-term relationships with them.

  2. I am satisfied that these alleged tendencies are established by the evidence that was adduced by the Crown for that purpose. The evidence of Mr Dickie’s behaviour was underscored by the evidence of his assertions to the same effect to Ms Lovejoy, Susan Carter, Gary Weavers and Sandra Weavers.

  3. The question then arises, whether I am satisfied that between Mr Dickie and the accused’s return from the visit to Sandra Weavers on the morning of Tuesday 14 June 2016 and the arrival of police at Mr Dickie’s property the following evening, he told the accused that her stay would only be for a few days. The Crown evidence in that regard rests on a triggering event, which was Sandra Weavers’ account of her observations of Mr Dickie when the accused told her that she was staying; that is, that Mr Dickie “put his head down” and after an exchange between Ms Weavers and Mr Dickie concerning whether the accused assisted with feeding his animals, Mr Dickie “abruptly” stopped the conversation and they left, the accused shaking Ms Weavers’ fingers as she departed.

  4. It is likely that, at some point, Mr Dickie would have told the accused that she would not be staying long with him and that she would have to leave. This is consistent with what he told Ms Carter on 9 June 2016, that the accused “was hoping to stay with him long term … but that’s not going to happen”. However, it was unprecedented for Mr Dickie to introduce one of his female guests to a neighbour or anyone in his permanent social circle, which on Ms Weavers’ evidence seems to be the sole reason he drove her to the Weavers’ property, and which suggests that by that point Mr Dickie might have regarded the accused differently to how he regarded past short term sexual partners.

  5. Assuming that Mr Dickie did in fact tell the accused on the Tuesday or Wednesday that she was not to stay with him, one takes account of the evidence, if any, as to how the accused might have reacted to it. The evidence establishes that the accused believed that she was entering a long-term relationship with Mr Dickie and that, to that end, she had relinquished her flat in New Zealand, placed her belongings in storage and posted some seeds, cooking ingredients and implements to Mr Dickie to establish a kitchen garden. However, there is no evidence that suggests that the accused’s personality or past behaviour was such that she would react with extreme violence to being told that she was to leave, either immediately or within a few days. The accused is a person of good character. Her only prior convictions are for driving offences for which she was fined.

The reliability of the accused’s accounts to others

  1. There is a high degree of consistency in the accused’s accounts to others. However, there are also some differences. In assessing the reliability of the accused’s accounts to various people after her arrival in Dubbo on 10 June 2016, I take into account that all of her exchanges in evidence, with the exception of the police interview on 17 June 2016, were conducted without the assistance of an interpreter.

What the accused told Ms Gordon

  1. Ms Gordon said that the accused told her that she visited her “husband” every year and that she was in Dubbo for a fortnight. She described the accused’s ability to speak English as “broken”, agreed that she was not questioned about the conversation until over a year later, and that in her statement she had not mentioned the stay being for a fortnight, but nevertheless remained confident that her recollection was correct. However, with due respect to Ms Gordon, I do not regard her recollection of those aspects of her conversation with the accused as being reliable.

Damien’s account of what the accused said to him

  1. As noted, at [242]-[249] above, Damien’s account of what the accused told him concerning Mr Dickie’s disappearance is at odds with the account the accused gave to police the night before, later that same night and in the ensuing days, and, in particular, with the evidence of Ms Haley as to what the accused said. Understandably, Damien was distressed at his father’s disappearance and the presence of a stranger there, who he was convinced had killed his father.

  2. I prefer the evidence of Ms Haley as to the accused’s explanation to them prior to the arrival of the police later that night.

The conversation with Ms Weavers on 16 June 2016 in the Telstra shop

  1. To the extent that the conversation with the accused that was related by Ms Weavers contained elements that were otherwise contradicted, I take into account that Ms Weavers told police two days later that she found the accused difficult to understand and that the differences appear to be of little consequence.

  2. The Crown submitted that in the walkthrough interview on 21 June 2016, the accused falsely claimed that she had not used Mr Dickie’s address on “any application or document”. Upon reading the relevant passage, however, it is clear to me that she understood she was being asked what address she put on her bank account when she originally opened it, to which she replied, her brother’s address. She stated that she used “Bob’s address” when she applied for a new card “last week”. I reject that submission.

Whether Mr Dickie used drugs

  1. The accused claimed Mr Dickie liked drugs. She said she found some and threw them away. It appears that she was not asked where she threw them, so that aspect of her account, that was potentially verifiable, was not checked. Some other witnesses said they had seen Mr Dickie smoke marijuana or had smoked marijuana with him. In my view, the fact that Mr Dickie was reported to abhor drug users does not negate the possibility that the accused was accurately reporting her observations. Mr Dickie contradicted his stance on drugs by facilitating others accessing them.

The accused’s claim that she first met Mr Dickie at Liverpool, six years earlier

  1. The Crown submitted that Mr Dickie could not have first met the accused as a sex worker in Liverpool six years earlier, because in a text that he sent to the accused on 1 June 2016, he stated that “I think I have seen you twice, about 6 years ago when you were a prostitute in Dubbo”.

  2. I note that the accused was in Australia in mid-2010 for a period of two and a half months. I also note that the evidence suggests that Mr Dickie’s memory was imperfect. His son Brett recalled that when he last saw his father, at a family funeral in 2015, Mr Dickie asked him which of his sons Brett was.

The defence scenario

  1. The defence case is that Mr Dickie told the accused that on the evening of Tuesday 14 June 2016 he was going to a party and would be back by 10pm. She saw him being driven off in a vehicle by another, or others. She did not know in what direction. There was a phone call beforehand.

  2. The evidence that lends some support to this scenario is as follows.

  3. Although, according to the accused, Mr Dickie said he was going to a party, for him to have done so would have been unusual behaviour. However, there is no reason, on the accused’s version of events, for Mr Dickie to have been truthful with the accused, particularly if he was embarking on a meeting with criminal or otherwise unsavoury elements.

  4. On 3 February 2016, Mr Dickie reported to police an incident that occurred the night before. He alleged that Bella had demanded $2,000 from him for something he would not disclose, and he was sufficiently troubled by the situation to go with her to an ATM and withdraw cash to pay her $1,000. The fact that Mr Dickie attended Dubbo Police Station to make the report suggests a significant level of concern that he was in danger, although inquiries establish that while he did in fact withdraw $1,000 the night before from the ATM that he identified to police, it could not have been for Bella, because she was in prison at that time.

  5. Aaron O’Leary said that in March 2016, Mr Dickie stopped allowing him access to his property to deliver stock food, which was bags of grain, and would instead unload it at his front gate. Given that Mr Dickie would often have Mr O’Leary over for a drink on a Tuesday afternoon, and thus was presumably one of the few people not related to him who he trusted, it would seem that his vigilance, which was normally high in any event, was even more elevated than normal.

  6. It is not known who rang Mr Dickie on Monday 13 June 2016 at 10.35am, and who he then phoned back at 10.47am and 2.01pm, although the history of the phone that was used to call him suggests that it may well have been used by a person with criminal associations.

  7. If Mr Dickie was planning on meeting up with a person or persons who had criminal associations, it may well be that he would not disclose that to the accused, but instead give another explanation for his absence. For the same reason, he may have decided to not take his wallet with his cards in it with him, but rather leave it secreted in his locked vehicle in the machinery shed. He may not have anticipated any need for his wallet, in any event.

  8. It is also unsurprising in those circumstances that Mr Dickie would not want the accused to not accompany him, but rather require her to remain behind in his house, in which case, he could hardly lock up and therefore there was no need to take his keys with him. Indeed, the detail in the accused’s account of Mr Dickie telling the accused as he left the house to lock the door behind him is consistent with the evidence that Mr Dickie was security-conscious.

  9. The fact that the accused tried to phone Mr Dickie on the Thursday morning at 11.35 and 11.36am with her new Telstra phone is consistent with her innocence.

  10. The accused’s activities in Dubbo on Thursday 16 June 2016 are consistent with her believing that she would be residing at Mr Dickie’s property indefinitely; she bought a phone that she believed would operate from his property, obtained a Medicare card using Mr Dickie’s address and switched over her bank account to Mr Dickie’s address. In her Medicare application, she described her reason for travelling to Australia as “Migrant”, her address as 76 Wattle Road and her phone number as the one she had just obtained from the Telstra shop. The application form included a statutory declaration in which she stated; “Declare that I intend on remaining in Australia indefinitely”.

  11. There is no police report of injuries observed on the accused, including by DSC Sherlock when she took her fingerprints on 17 June 2016.

Did the accused steal cash from Mr Dickie’s wallet?

  1. As noted, the Crown submits that the Court would draw two inferences from the location and state of Mr Dickie’s wallet in light of evidence as to Mr Dickie’s habits with his wallet. Firstly, that the accused stole cash from it, since it normally had cash and there was none when it was located on 17 June 2016, and secondly, he must have died at his property since he was known to not go anywhere without it. There are difficulties with drawing these inferences.

  2. In order to access the wallet where DSC Jackson found it, which was hidden above the passenger-side sun visor in in Mr Dickie’s locked Mahindra, the accused would have needed to have a key to get into the car. It would be unsurprising if Mr Dickie routinely left the key where DSC Jackson found it, which was under a piece of carpet on a drum near the vehicle. There is no evidence that the accused knew it was there, or had access to another key to the Mahindra.

  3. The accused’s DNA was not identified on tape lifts from various parts of the wallet, including the top of the note section.

  4. There is no evidence that when the accused travelled to Dubbo on Thursday 16 June 2016, she spent more money that she would have received by way of the motel refund on Saturday 11 June 2016. Equally, however, there is no evidence that she did not, since her activities that day included a visit to the Dubbo RSL which had poker machines.

  5. If the accused had stolen the cash from Mr Dickie’s wallet and placed it, or left it, in his Mahindra, it is odd that she told police on 17 June 2016 that Mr Dickie always carried his wallet with him and that she thought he took it with him when he left to go to the party. While Mr Dickie always having his wallet with him is consistent with the evidence of some of those who knew him, If she had killed Mr Dickie, one would think that she would have been aware that it would eventually be found hidden in the Mahindra.

  6. As to the second proposed inference, if Mr Dickie had absented the house at 6pm, intending to be back at 10pm, he may not have needed his wallet. Further, if it was a meeting with a criminal element, he may have decided to leave his wallet behind. This possibility is particularly apposite in view of his report to police on 3 February 2016 that he came under pressure to withdraw $2,000 from his ATM account, and in fact withdrew $1,000. I note that his wallet had a large number of cards and other items.

The accused’s email on 13 June 2016 to her brother

  1. The email that the accused sent her brother on 13 June 2016 at 4.18pm, excerpted at [185] above, is bizarre. The tone of the earlier messages between her and her brother suggest that they were not close. They appear to have led quite separate lives in their respective countries. It would be unsurprising if her brother was unaware of her past relationships.

  2. Clearly the proposition that she and Mr Dickie had received that sum of money from her to “build” his transportable home and set up the property is contrary to the evidence of Mr Dickie’s family and past romantic partners. I conclude that it was a lie, intended to induce her brother to lend her a sum of money on the basis that the security for the loan would be equity that she had in Mr Dickie’s property so that she could buy a car.

The comparative strengths of the accused and Mr Dickie

  1. The Crown’s submission that the accused was strong, depended upon two pieces of evidence. One was a statement by SC Fairman that when he first saw the accused, she looked “very manly”, prompting him to suspect that she was transgender. I do not interpret that observation as reflecting upon the accused’s apparent strength or fitness. The second was a reference to the video of the accused’s luggage being searched in Dubbo Police Station on 17 June 2016, when the accused assisted DSC Sherlock to lift her suitcase onto a table. In my opinion, the video does not demonstrate that the accused was particularly strong. The officer had already lifted the suitcase, with a hand on each extremity, to almost waist level before the accused then placed her hands on it for a matter of seconds while DSC Sherlock placed it on the table.

  2. Mr Dickie was healthy and fit, according to the evidence of witnesses who knew him. In the CCTV images of him taken on 10 June 2016, Mr Dickie appears to be of slight stature, as does the accused, in her appearances in Court.

  3. In my view, the evidence of the accused’s strength is of limited relevance to the question of whether she caused a fatal injury to him in his main bedroom, since the injury could have been inflicted by a knife while Mr Dickie slept, after which he fell to the floor. It is relevant to whether she would have been able to move his body, but is not determinative of that issue.

The blood stains in the main bedroom

  1. I am satisfied that the blood stains under the carpet, on the bed frame, mattress and the three walls were caused in the same incident involving Mr Dickie and that attempts were made to clean the top of the carpet with cleaning products, producing a bleaching effect. In relation to the wipe mark on the southern wall observed by Snr Sgt Gane, I am satisfied that it pre-dated the droplets of blood on top of it. I am not satisfied that the spots of blood on the iPad were deposited there as part of the same incident. In view of the fact that Mr Dickie was an active person operating a farm with livestock and multiple items of farm machinery, it is quite possible that those spots of blood were deposited on the screen from an unrelated minor incident, such as a cut finger.

  2. There is no evidence as to the age of the stains. Inquiries made by police with the manufacturer of Mr Dickie’s transportable home established that it was placed on his property on 24 March 2011. Photos of the main bedroom which do not contain images of the bleached areas were taken on 24 April 2012. The stains could have been deposited at any time from then until the date of the photographs taken by SC Redden on 19 June 2016.

  3. There is also no evidence as to the quantity of Mr Dickie’s blood that would have caused the staining; it may have been relatively little. Having viewed the carpet, I note that the area of dark staining, as opposed to the light staining, which may have been caused by the application of cleaning fluids and water, is relatively small. The drops on the walls are small; the quantity of blood required to cause them was clearly a small amount. I note the evidence as to how much blood may be lost, without requiring medical intervention.

  4. I do not accept that the loss of blood can be attributed to expiration, since, as Professor Duflou accepts, medical attention would have been required shortly afterwards and there is no record of that occurring.

  5. To the extent that one might expect that Mr Dickie would have sought medical treatment, if he lost the blood in an earlier accident, l note the evidence of his multiple sexual liaisons over many years, the evidence of Diana that they would have sexual activities in the main bedroom and her evidence that they would effectively “party”, fuelled by dancing, music, alcohol and (in her case) drugs. In this sense, the accused’s observation that the accused “liked to party” resonates. I cannot eliminate a reasonable possibility that the blood stains were due to an earlier incident that was unrelated to Mr Dickie’s disappearance.

  6. I note the evidence that Mr Dickie kept his house tidy, neat and clean. If the incident had happened prior to the accused’s visit, it is unsurprising that he would have cleaned it up, including by using the nail brushes. This is particularly so in view of the evidence that he regularly entertained his female guests in that room.

Whether the evidence establishes that Mr Dickie’s body could have been disposed of on his property

  1. As the Crown submitted in its opening and closing addresses, what happened to Mr Dickie’s body or the location of his remains is unknown. As noted, there is evidence from DSC Jackson that when he inspected the perimeter fence on 17 June 2016, he found it to be in “reasonable condition”. There is no evidence to the effect that the accused was able to access either of the gates on the property. There did not appear to be tyre tracks in the gravel in front of the machinery shed on the evening of Wednesday 15 June 2016. The movement of vehicles captured on the point to point cameras on the Golden Highway was checked for the relevant period. If Mr Dickie’s body was disposed of by the use of one of his vehicles travelling on those sections, it would have been captured on them.

  2. The Crown accepted that Mr Dickie’s body must have been disposed of within the perimeter of his property, possibly by it being digested by some of the animals kept on it. There was no expert evidence as to how that could have occurred. There were varying accounts of how many dogs and adult pigs there were on the property at the time of his disappearance; it was in the order of six pit bull terriers and four or five adult pigs. Mr Weavers said, as to the condition of the dogs two or three days after Mr Dickie’s disappearance: “They were pretty hungry too. Their condition was fair”. If his body was devoured by animals, there was no sign of teeth or bones, in spite of forensic excavations and examinations of the dog kennels and other parts of the property.

  3. In relation to whether the fact that the pigs were observed by Damien and Mr Good on 16 June 2016 was unusual, I note that Ms Weavers’ evidence was that since she first met Mr Dickie, which was in 2015, she had been onto his property at least a couple of times and she observed that the pigs ran wild and would sleep “all over the property”. He did not have pigpens, but rather crates for the sows when they had piglets. In my view, according to the evidence, the fact that the pigs were seen to be roaming freely after Mr Dickie’s disappearance is not suspicious.

  4. If Mr Dickie’s body was dismembered, there were no observations of anything unusual when police attended on the night of 15 June 2016 or in the course of more detailed examinations in the following days, including by an experienced crimes scene officer. The examination of the chainsaw for signs of material that might link it to the disposal of Mr Dickie’s body was thorough. The sound of the chainsaw around noon on Tuesday 14 June 2016 is consistent with Mr Dickie cutting firewood.

Alternative theories that persons unrelated to the accused killed Mr Dickie

  1. I am not satisfied that the evidence to the effect that Peter was responsible for the death of Mr Dickie warrants any weight in my deliberations. It was denied by him and those who were alleged to have been his co-offenders. One of the theories involved Mr Dickie being shot on his property at his front door while his mother was present on the property, a scenario which is inherently unlikely. The other involved Peter plotting to harm Mr Dickie, at a time that could not be fixed with any certainty and which was denied by him and not admitted by the person with whom he was said to be conspiring.

“Diana”

  1. In my view, the evidence in relation to Diana establishes a real possibility that, contrary to what she told police, she was residing with Mr Dickie in the days prior to the arrival of the accused and that she had an association with Mr Dickie that extended in a significant way beyond what she disclosed. She informed Ms Eggleton that she was permanently residing with Mr Dickie a week before the accused’s arrival in Dubbo, although at a slightly different address, and that it was not until a few days after his disappearance that she advised Ms Eggleton that she had left his home.

  2. Her phone, together with a recharger, was in the laundry, although it had not been used since 2012, well before she had met Mr Dickie; in other words, it was unlikely to have been in the laundry since 2012. It would have been brought to the house by Diana after she met him.

Determination

  1. I conclude that the intermediate fact that the single blood-shedding event in the main bedroom occurred at the time of Mr Dickie’s disappearance is not established beyond reasonable doubt and that there is a reasonable possibility that the accused’s version of events is accurate. If Mr Dickie told her that he was going to a party, he was lying. Mr Dickie had associations with multiple local people who had long-term issues with prohibited drugs, who in turn had strong connections with criminals. I cannot exclude a reasonable possibility that he had agreed to meet a person or persons unknown and that they killed him, disposing of his phone either with or without his body in the catchment area of the Telstra cell tower at Elong Elong.

  2. In addition, I consider it unlikely that the accused could have disposed of Mr Dickie’s body in the time frame in which it must have occurred if the accused had killed Mr Dickie, according to the evidence of opportunity and within the perimeter of Mr Dickie’s property, without leaving traces of having done so that would have been detected by police or others who thoroughly searched the property in the days following Mr Dickie’s disappearance.

Verdict

  1. I conclude that I have a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the accused.

  2. Kylie So, on the charge that between the 14th day of June 2016 and the 15th day of June 2016, at Elong Elong in the State of New South Wales you did murder Robert Dickie, I find you not guilty.

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Endnote

Decision last updated: 13 November 2023

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R v So (No 2) [2023] NSWSC 1052
R v So (No 3) [2023] NSWSC 1113