A coroner has rebuked police at a murder-suicide investigation, saying their submissions can be “interpreted as blaming” the victim on the baby’s mother.
South Australian Deputy Coroner Ian White is conducting an inquest into the deaths of Kobi Anastasia Isobel Shepherdson, nine months, and Henry David Shepherdson, 38, at a dam north-east of Adelaide on April 21 of 2021.
The couple died hours after a magistrates’ court granted a variation to a no-contact order to allow Shepherdson to care for Kobi while his mother was on a date.
The inquest had previously been told that Shepherdson had called the baby’s mother 149 times from prison, in breach of an intervention order, and forced her to drop the charges against her.
During Thursday’s final presentations, White had a tense exchange with Lauren Gavranich, who was representing government agencies including the South Australian Police and the Department of Correctional Services.
“The (written) submissions, particularly on behalf of the police commissioner… commenting on Kobi’s mother, gave me a very bad reaction,” Mr White said.
“It seems that they do not recognize at all the coercive pressure to which she was subjected.
“You and everyone else here heard 15 grueling decisions in open court.”
Nine-month-old Kobi (pictured) died at a dam in northeast Adelaide on April 21, 2021.
The coroner said he was concerned about a paragraph in the police submission which said: “Kobi’s mother did not need to answer any of the calls or speak to him, particularly in circumstances where she was safe and he was in custody.”
“I think these submissions on behalf of the commissioner can be interpreted as a form of victim blaming,” he said.
“Your Honor, I completely disagree with you and that is not the commissioner’s position in any way,” Ms. Gavranich said.
“That’s how it will be publicly recorded,” Mr. White responded.
“It’s a misrepresentation to say he had no option to take those calls.”
He said it was “not melodramatic” to say Shepherdson was an unusual and dangerous man.
The lawyer assisting Martin Kirby said Kobi’s mother was “completely shocked” when she received Shepherdson’s first phone call, from prison, on January 31, 2021.
“She is quiet, initially unresponsive and seems fearful… this would have been a very scary and shocking moment,” he said.
Shepherdson was prevented from contacting her and for six weeks she was safe and supported by her family in Victoria, he said.
The inquest had previously been told that Henry David Shepherdson called Kobi’s mother 149 times from prison, in breach of an intervention order (pictured, baby Kobi).
“Not long after returning to Adelaide, where he was without family support, he answers the phone and Mr Shepherdson says ‘it’s me, I’m back’,” he said.
Shepherdson called her 13 times that day, immediately pressuring her to drop the charges against him and let him back into her life.
“He turned her on, dominated her and manipulated her,” Kirby said.
She wonders why Kobi’s mother answered the phone and didn’t tell police that Shepherdson was contacting her to “discount and minimize the emotional and psychological problems that victims of domestic violence face.”
Shepherdson, he noted, was a large man.
‘She was a single woman with a child. “It is not speculative to consider the additional level of physical threat his presence would have posed,” Mr Kirby said.
Shepherdson had significant mental health and drug problems and a history that included suicide threats.
And while his early life “might inspire some sympathy,” he was also a domestic violence perpetrator and a convicted armed robber, Kirby said.
The South African police’s initial response to the case was appropriate: Shepherdson was arrested and Kobi’s mother was offered support, the court was told.
Baby Kobi (pictured) died hours after a magistrates’ court granted a variation to a no-contact order to allow Shepherdson to care for the baby while her mother was on an appointment.
The coroner said a paragraph written in police submissions about the hundreds of calls Kobi’s mother received from Shepherdson could be interpreted as “victim blaming” (pictured, baby Kobi).
“Your Honor may discover that the domestic abuse risk forms were completed inaccurately on each occasion and that the processes in place by which those scores could be reviewed failed to detect the errors,” he said.
Kirby said he was not seeking findings against any individual because the problems were systemic.
It made a series of recommendations involving policies and procedures at various government agencies.
White will present his conclusions later.