My statement in relation to ABC’s podcast: ‘Lies In Lismore’

The ABC invited me to participate in its Unravel podcast. I declined because I do not agree with its premise, namely that the entire police investigation was flawed. I had also been informed by a third party that Tobias Moran had instigated the production of this podcast, in an effort to clear his name, given the widespread media suspicions about him. When I sought clarification about this from the ABC, they refused to answer my questions. I concluded that I could not trust the project nor its editorial independence. I believe the proper place for Mr Moran to tell his story was at an inquest hearing—not on an entertainment platform.

Others took the same view, and ultimately the Strobel family, the NSW Police, the German police, and key witnesses refused to participate, even though some wrote statements in rebuttal of questions put to them by the podcast producers shortly before it went to air.

The lack of support, in my opinion, has led to a threadbare narrative and incorrect factual assertions. The producers construct and peddle a theory that the NSW Police failed in their investigation; that Tobias Moran was framed by incompetent or perhaps even vengeful police; that the original coroner jumped to unrealistic conclusions—and that the media, including me, since the 2007 inquest fell into line with a lazy conclusion that Tobias Moran killed Simone Strobel. It is important for me to say that in my book I never accuse Tobias Moran of being responsible for Simone’s death.

Significantly, the podcast erases the work of the German police investigators who travelled to Australia, Japan and the UK to conduct a separate investigation, relying on their own pathologists and analysts to reach their independent conclusions.

I appreciate that the ABC was faced with an enormous and complicated investigative brief numbering 58,000 pages, and was clearly hindered by the fact that nearly all of the central figures would not speak to them. But the lack of access to participants surely demanded extra caution. Instead, listening to the series, I was left with the impression that an immensely complicated case had been forced into a simpler narrative, sometimes privileging its central theme over accuracy.

The irony is that there are perfectly legitimate questions to ask about this investigation including why the police charged Tobias Moran when there was apparently not the evidence to do so. But if you are going to argue that police became wedded to a theory and then interpreted everything through it, the ABC surely had to be extraordinarily careful not to commit the same journalistic error.

After some self-deprecating soundbites were dug up, I’ve been presented as a hapless housewife who found herself in the middle of an active murder investigation. There is some truth to this—at the beginning that is. But over seven years of investigating the crime and meeting all of the people involved in this story, that changed. My access to the police brief was formally authorised by the Deputy State Coroner following the 2007 inquest when I was a doctoral candidate. And yes, the Australian Police provided me with the files and an office to work from. It was remarkable, and an honour to be trusted by both the German and Australian police. I never sensed any ‘tunnel vision’ on their part.

I assume the coroner gave me access to documents because, at the time of the 2007 inquest, the case had stalled in both jurisdictions. German investigators could take no further action without new evidence, and key witnesses in Germany were beyond the reach of the NSW Police.

When I arrived in Germany, two years and seven months after Simone’s death, I met a family who had no knowledge of the evidence surrounding their daughter’s death—not even the theory about how she may have died. It seemed clear then that this was why I had come, without knowing it before I arrived. The German police did not want to inform the Strobels about the evidence because they had become extremely close to the family of the suspected siblings.

The book I ultimately wrote: Have You Seen Simone?, and the accompanying thesis which examined the ethics of my involvement, resulted in me being awarded my doctorate from the University of London, in 2015. The book was also shortlisted for the Davitt Award that same year.

As my work has been questioned by the ABC, it is important to put the record straight. A letter from the Crown Solicitor dated 15 October 2020, addressed to the Strobel family, recognises the work I did in contributing to the evidence in Simone’s case. The letter records that a fresh inquest was ordered on the discovery of new evidence and facts, and specifically names interviews that I conducted as one of three categories of new evidence.

My work was also tested directly in court. In 2014, Tobias Moran sought an urgent injunction in the Supreme Court of Western Australia to stop publication of my book (Moran v Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd [2014] WASC 334). Justice Martin refused the injunction. He found that the suspicion the book raised rested on “a considerable body of evidence” (at [69]), not speculation. He also noted that investigating unsolved crime has never been the exclusive province of police, and it was that principle the Court accepted in refusing to stop the book. Following the injunction, a defamation action proceeded. The case lasted three years and settled in my favour with Moran ordered to pay my costs.

I was therefore shocked to hear the podcast state that the Supreme Court of Western Australia had agreed with Tobias Moran that my book imputed that he committed the murder. That was incorrect. Following my complaint, the ABC removed the allegation from the podcast and inserted a correction. To date, I have received no apology or explanation as to how the error occurred.

As a private citizen, I have had to carry the personal and legal risks of this work for the past twenty years, unlike police and journalists who undertake similar work with the protection of large corporations and government bodies. Nonetheless, I don’t regret the access I was given and am pleased that my book Have You Seen Simone? has helped keep Simone’s story alive and has come to form part of the body of evidence to progress this still active murder investigation.