POLICE should not be held responsible for the handling of a domestic dispute that ended in a multiple murder, a coronial inquest has been told.
Queensland coroner Michael Barnes is examining whether the tragedy could have been averted and the way police responded to it.
Counsel assisting, Peter Johns, warned the coroner there was a “large danger” that hindsight could influence any findings.
In May last year, 40-year-old Paul Rogers stabbed to death his estranged fiancee Tania Simpson, 31, and her friend Anthony Way, 33, at Robina, before taking his daughter Kyla, five, from her bed.
He drove to Casino in northern NSW where he killed the child before taking his own life.
Mr Johns submitted that two days of evidence showed an investigation into Rogers’s behaviour, and the operation to find him and his daughter, had been handled professionally.
He also recommended no adverse finding be made against a police sergeant who took a phone call from Ms Simpson three months before she was killed, complaining of Rogers’s
behaviour.
Her concern was not for her safety but that her estranged fiance was “living in his car and hanging around, trying to get the relationship back on track”, Mr Johns said.
He recommended the coroner find the support and advice Ms Simpson received was adequate.
Mr Johns also said the inquest should accept evidence that a decision to delay issuing an “Amber alert” for Kyla after her abduction was
reasonable.
Given that a manhunt for Rogers was in progress, NSW police believed they were closing in on him, and there was a fear Kyla could be put in significant danger if the alert was issued to the media, the delay was justified, he said.
The coroner is to hand down his findings at 4pm today.