Officer believes someone involved in teen’s death

A police officer involved in the re-investigation of the death of Gomeroi teenager Mark Haines has said the inquest always believed someone was involved.

Mark Haines was 17 when his body was found on train tracks just outside Tamworth in northern NSW in January 1988.

Police found a stolen car that appeared to have crashed and rolled next to the railway line.

Mr Haines’ family never believed the findings of the initial police investigation, which concluded that the 17-year-old was lying on the tracks either deliberately or in a dazed state after a car crash.

A coroner handed down an open finding following a subsequent inquest.

Mr Haines’ family, led by his uncle Don Craigie, have been campaigning for decades to re-examine the circumstances of his death, with a new inquest due to start in April 2024.

Detective Constable Craig Dunn, who is involved in the re-investigation of the circumstances surrounding Mr Haines’ death in 2016, told the latest inquest he did not believe Mark fell onto the tracks.

“I’ve always believed there was someone involved; either he died through some unfortunate incident, which is my belief, or someone killed him and put him on the tracks,” he said Wednesday. he said.

Mr Dunn said it was “strange” that police did not seize the car found near Mr Haines’ body but, given the rain, he understood it had not been searched for fingerprints.

Asked whether Mr Haines was from a prominent Tamworth family and whether he would have been treated differently at the scene of the death, Mr Dunn said he could not comment.

While he said he had “no major problem” with how the initial investigation into Mr Haines’ death was conducted, he wished several people had been interviewed at the time.

He wanted to speak to several people about the teenager’s death in 2018, but said his memories would have been clearer if they had been contacted earlier.

“If I talked to a few people, I would have some questions answered,” he said.

During his investigations, Mr Dunn destroyed a lighter found among documents in a box.

Mr Dunn had sent the lighter to be tested for any DNA evidence.

When no DNA was found in the swab, the lighter was destroyed.

Mr Dunn said officers were under pressure to get rid of evidentiary exhibits due to the large quantity of such items at a storage facility.

“In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have thrown it away,” he said.

Mr Dunn acknowledged Mr Haines’ family’s disappointment with the inquest, which still does not have answers almost four decades after his death.

But he said the process of investigating a death takes time.

“I want to know what happened to Mark,” Mr Dunn said.

“Of course it’s frustrating not knowing what’s going on.”

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