William Tyrrell’s biological mother revealed her fears about the treatment of her son by his foster family years before police began to investigate them, new TV footage has revealed.
His mum admitted that she was worried about how her son was being looked after in new never-seen-before footage from a TV interview she did with Seven in 2018.
William Tyrrell, 3, vanished nine years ago, sparking a massive investigation which last month led to police handing over a brief of evidence to prosecutors.
The move could see William’s foster mother, 58 – who cannot be named for legal reasons – being charged in connection with his disappearance.
But five years ago, his mother revealed she had sounded the alarm about her son’s care at the hands of his foster mother.
‘From the start, I always had concerns and I wrote letters back and forth to one of the carers,’ William’s mum said in previously unseen footage.
‘Because I didn’t really like the care that I thought he was being given. My son would come home with bruises, snotty noses, not dressed appropriately for the weather…’
Little William Tyrrell, 3, (pictured) vanished nine years ago, sparking a massive investigation which last month led to police handing over a brief of evidence to prosecutors
The former home and surrounds of William Tyrrell’s foster grandmother is searched by police for clues in November, 2021. Police believe William may have fallen from the balcony
The interview segment hit the cutting room floor when the interview was first recorded and broadcast by Seven for current affairs show Sunday Night in 2018.
But in light of the latest developments, it has now taken on new significance.
It was finally broadcast in a Seven Spotlight special on Sunday which returned to the mystery that has gripped Australia for almost a decade.
The clip was shown despite a court suppression order preventing the naming or picturing of WIlliam’s mum.
On Monday’s Sunrise on Seven, host Natalie Barr quizzed former homicide cop Charlie Bezzina about the revelations and the new focus on the foster mother.
He told her that it was no shock that the biological mother would be concerned about the treatment of her child by the foster mother.
‘That’s to be expected from a biological mother to be a little bit bitter towards the foster mother – to have a child taken from you is quite dramatic,’ he said.
He slammed the police case against the foster mother – which has divided NSW detectives – as ‘very weak’ and said it seems to be based on circumstantial evidence.
Barr added: ‘So basically you’re saying we have no idea who killed William and we’re no closer to finding that out?’
Mr Bezzina admitted: ‘Absolutely. And I think it’s unfortunate that the current investigators have done the investigation through the media.’
The three-year-old, dressed in a Spider-Man outfit, vanished while playing in the garden of his foster grandmother’s home in the small NSW mid-north coast town of Kendall shortly before 10.30am on September 12, 2014.
Within hours, hundreds of local residents and emergency service workers to searched bushland for William – but no trace was ever found.
His foster mother has been under intense scrutiny from NSW Police over the past 12 months.
Detectives now believe they have enough evidence to charge the foster mother with two offences: perverting the course of justice and interfering with a corpse.
The charges are believed to relate to a theory police have been investigating since 2021, that William may have fallen from the balcony at his foster grandmother’s home and that the foster mother then went on to cover it up.
Any decision on whether to proceed with charges being laid is up to the Director of Public Prosecutions. No charges have so far been laid against the foster mother.
Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting the woman is guilty of a role in William’s disappearance.
Police believe they have enough evidence to charge the foster mother with perverting the course of justice and interfering with a corpse. They have prepared a brief of evidence for the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions
In 2018, his biological mother admitted she had made some ‘bad choices’ after the birth of her eldest daughter which ultimately led to both her children being taken into care.
‘Because I had domestic violence and drugs and alcohol, marijuana,’ she said in the interview in 2018.
‘When I had to do a drug screen, I tested positive after I’d had my children.’
William was taken into care when he was just nine months old, but vanished while visiting his foster grandmother in Kendall.
‘They were responsible for looking after him, and they failed,’ said his mother in 2018.
‘She went inside and made a cup of tea. If that’s the case, like, OK, that’s an accident, and that’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t make any sense to me.
‘Kids don’t just go missing.’
A coronial inquest ran hearings into William’s disappearance from March 2019 to October 2020.
But the matter then went behind closed doors as police explored other avenues of inquiry.
Several locals, identified persons of interest, have been definitively ruled out as suspects.
Detectives cited ‘new evidence’ that shone a spotlight on William’s foster mother as the reason behind the delay.
William’s foster mother and father have always denied having any knowledge about what happened to the little boy.
The possible charges against his foster mother came just one day after what would be William’s 12th birthday.
William disappeared from his foster grandmother’s home in Kendall, on the NSW north coast, on September 12, 2014, and has not been seen since
The former home and surrounds of William Tyrrell’s foster grandmother is searched by police for clues in November, 2021
NSW Police said the ‘determination of strike force detectives has never wavered as they continue to meticulously explore and exhaust every line of inquiry’.
‘As another of William Tyrrell’s birthdays comes and goes – on what should be a happy occasion – the NSW Police Force continues to actively and vigorously search for answers into his disappearance.’
The baffling missing person’s investigation remains one Australia’s most high profile cold cases.
Late last year, it was revealed that the NSW Crime Commission had grilled William Tyrrell’s foster mother behind closed doors, putting to her that she may have her hid the toddler’s body after the boy fell from the verandah of the Kendall home.
Extraordinary details emerged in a Sydney court about how NSW Crime Commissioner Michael Barnes and counsel assisting Sophie Callan piled pressure onto the then 58-year-old in closed door hearings last November.
The grilling was detailed during a NSW Local Court hearing into charges that the foster mother had lied to the NSW Crime Commission, which were later dismissed by a magistrate.
The foster mother had faced court to fight a charge she gave false or misleading evidence to the Crime Commission – with a senior detective telling the court he believed the foster mother ‘knows where William Tyrrell is’.
The court heard police told the foster mother ‘we know why, we know how’ William disappeared and his body was disposed of.
The court heard that the foster mother repeatedly denied the accusations about William.
She challenged investigators to ‘dig up’ the area where they claimed the three-year-old’s remains were buried.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and NSW Police declined to comment. The investigation continues.
Timeline of William Tyrrell’s disappearance
Still missing: William Tyrrell vanished from his foster grandmother’s home five years ago
2014
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September 12 – Dressed in a Spider-Man outfit, three-year-old William Tyrrell goes missing from the garden while visiting members of his foster family on the NSW north coast.
September 21 – Police stop searching for the missing boy after scouring surrounding bushland and neighbouring houses.
2015
January 20 – Police search the home and business of washing machine repairman Bill Spedding, who had been due to carry out repairs at the house at the time the three-year-old went missing.
Detectives take items for testing including a mattress, computer and vehicles. They drain his septic tank.
January 23 – The washing machine repairman publicly denies any involvement in William’s disappearance and says he and his wife are on the verge of a breakdown due to the public attention.
February 19 – Homicide detectives take over the case and say it’s likely William was abducted.
March 2 – Police fruitlessly search an area of bushland near Bonny Hills for three days after a tip-off.
April 17 – William’s foster parents speak publicly for the first time in an emotional video released through police which does not identify them.
April 17 – Police say the boy may have been a victim of a paedophile ring.
September 6 – The Nine Network’s 60 Minutes reveal two suspicious cars were parked on the street the morning William went missing.
September 12 – ‘Where’s William’ week is launched one year after he disappeared.
2016
September 12 – A $1million reward is offered for information leading to William’s return.
2017
August 24 – William’s foster child status is revealed after a landmark court ruling.
2018
June 12 – NSW Police announce the start of a four-week forensic search of bushland conducted by Strike Force Rosann.
June 14 – William’s grandmother scolds police who have failed to find the young boy after four years, and claims their latest search is ‘just for show’.
June 26 – The forensic search continues on what would have been William’s seventh birthday.
June 27 – Strike Force Rosann announces it will move the search to an 800sqm block of bushland just 4km from where William was last seen alive.
June 5 – The latest search ends with Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin saying the case could soon go to a coroner.
August – Investigation leader Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jubelin and a sergeant get into a disagreement during a briefing.
September 13 – Police reveal they found a burned out car wreck belonging to a former person of interest.
December 19 – Coroners say William could still be alive and the inquest will determine if he died or not.
2019
February – DCI Jubelin is removed from the investigation amid a misconduct probe.
March 25 – The inquest into William Tyrrell’s disappearance begins, with William’s biological and foster parents appearing over the course of a week.
The inquest’s first batch of hearings focused on William’s family situation and the events leading up to his disappearance.
Both his foster and biological parents were quizzed, as were neighbours who helped in the search.
It was disclosed that William’s biological parents absconded with him for six weeks in 2012, following a children’s court order.
William’s biological father slammed authorities for letting them down.
‘Authorities f***ed up … The minister had a duty of care to keep William safe until he was 18. That was not the case at all.’
May: DCI Jubelin quits the Police Force.
June: Four charges of breaching the Surveillance Devices Act are laid against DCI Jubelin. He denies any wrongdoing whatsover
August: The second tranche of inquest hearings began on Wednesday August 7
Inquest hears Bill Spedding, a NSW mid-north coast repairman and one-time person of interest in the disappearance of William Tyrrell, met his wife for coffee about 9.30am in Laurieton, a 15-minute drive from Kendall, on the day William went missing.
They then attended a school assembly across the road to see a child in their care receive an award.
The inquest heard how a man who claims he saw William Tyrrell unrestrained in the back of a speeding car on the day the child went missing was waiting for police to interview him to tell them what he saw.
He told the inquest he contacted police but did not hear back about an interview.
It took it took almost 1000 days before he was able to reveal what he saw to police.
The coroner orders an urgent probe into the final image that was taken on the day William vanished as metadata suggests the picture may have been taken 118 minutes earlier than originally thought.
The image has a ‘created time’ of 7.39am and a ‘corrected time’ of 9.37am, a new document from the 2000-page evidence brief.
The coronial inquest has been delayed for another eight months with the next round of hearings happening in March 2020.
November 11: The deputy state coroner releases footage of William Tyrrell and family at Heatherbrae McDonalds, on September 11, 2014
Feb – March 2020: Gary Jubelin defends four charges of illegally recording person of interest Paul Savage in court hearing
February 21: Daily Mail Australia reveals Frank Abbott was arrested in custody for the purposes of a police interview about William’s disappearance
March 2020: The coronial inquest into William’s disappearance resumes but stops with two days to go due to the coronavirus outbreak
April 6, 2020: Magistrate Ross Hudson delivers his verdict in Gary Jubelin case
April 8, 2020: Jubelin is convicted of all four charges and fined $10,000. Ex-cop says he will appeal
June 22, 2020: Police and SES launch new search for William Tyrrell near Herons Creek, where Abbott once lived
June 26, 2021: Police acknowledge William Tyrrell’s 10th birthday
November 15, 2021: Detectives return to Kendall after receiving new information and admit they are searching for a body. His foster parents are reported to be persons of interest in the case
December 15, 2021: Police reveal a bone fragment of unknown origin has been found in the search ahead, and are planning to wrap up the search by the end of the week
June, 2022 – William Tyrrell’s foster parents face court over allegedly hitting a 10-year-old girl with a wooden spoon and grabbing her
August 22, 2022 – The foster parents are charged for allegedly getting someone to attend an auction and make fraudulent dummy bids on a home
October 20, 2022: The foster parents plead not guilty to dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception in relation to the alleged fraudulent dummy bids
November 4, 2022 – William Tyrrell’s foster mum found not guilty of lying to the NSW Crime Commission about allegedly hitting the girl with the wooden spoon
December 1, 2022 – Bill Spedding to receive $1.48 million in compensation plus interest after police falsely charged him with historical child sex allegations during their search for William Tyrrell
June 27, 2023: Detectives believe there is enough evidence to potentially charge William Tyrrell’s foster mother over the boy’s disappearance in 2014
