An evil child murderer who was sentenced to life in prison after drowning his three children in a dam is about to file a new appeal against his sentence, and a specialist doctor will proclaim his innocence.
Robert Farquharson drove his Commodore into an ice dam with his children Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2, inside and left them to die on Father’s Day 2005.
He crashed into a seven-metre-deep dam near Winchelsea, 117 kilometers southwest of Melbourne, and was the only survivor, managing to swim away from the wreck.
Separate juries found Farquharson guilty of murdering her children both in 2007 and at a retrial in 2010 after her first conviction was overturned, in what Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry called “a terrifying death.”
But respiratory doctor Chris Steinfort, one of Farquharson’s most prominent supporters, said: “I think he’s an innocent man.”
Robert Farquharson (pictured) drove a car into a dam with his three children, Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2, inside and left them to die on Father’s Day 2005.
Farquharson’s bid for freedom is based on new laws introduced in Victoria in 2019 that allow an appeal if there is new and compelling evidence of a substantial miscarriage of justice, the ABC reported.
“It’s always a distressing thing when you believe that someone has committed a miscarriage of justice and that I was involved in some way in that process,” Dr. Steinfort, who testified in Farquharson’s previous trials, told 7:30 in an interview will air Thursday night.
Dr Steinfort evaluated Farquharson before his first trial and is convinced that the accident was caused by a cough-induced faint known as cough syncope, although this was rejected by the jurors.
‘I said, “What happened?” And (Farquharson) basically said, ‘Well, I really don’t know what happened,'” Dr. Steinfort said.
“That made me think there might be something to this as a cause of the accident, and I wrote it all down in my medical records.”
Farquharson had been ill before the accident, but took his children for a drive to pick up KFC for dinner in nearby Geelong.
The accident occurred while he was driving them back to Winchelsea, where they lived with his mother, Cindy-Gambino-Moules; They had separated the previous year.
Gambino-Moules died suddenly and unexpectedly, aged 50, in May 2022.
At first, she believed her ex-husband was innocent, but then changed her mind and thought he had deliberately killed her children in an act of family violence.
The prosecution argued that Farquharson made up that he had a coughing fit that caused him to faint.
Another medical expert, Dr. Thomas Naughton, testified that it was unlikely that Farquharson had suffered cough syncope.
Dr Thomas Naughton said the condition was “extremely rare” and, in Farquharson’s case, “extremely medically unlikely”.
Jai, Bailey and Tyler Farquharson (pictured left to right) died when their father pushed them into a dam in Victoria in 2005.
The boy’s mother, Cindy Gambino-Moules, leaves the Supreme Court in Melbourne on May 11, 2010.
A key witness in the case told the court that Farquharson intended to kill his children to get revenge on Mrs Gambino-Moules.
Greg King testified about a conversation with Farquharson two months before the murders, when his friend talked about getting revenge on his ex-wife and wanting to “take away the things that mean the most to her.”
Farquharson’s new appeal is expected to use the case of Geoffrey Ferguson, a truck driver who was jailed for a fatal crash near Shepparton, Victoria, in 2015.
Ferguson was freed on appeal after a court accepted he had fainted during a coughing fit.
End point Australia: 1800 385 578
1800 Respect National Helpline: 1800 737 732
DV Connect line for women: 1800 811 811
