The case file of teenager Ursula Barwick, who was considered missing for decades after being misidentified in a car accident, lay untouched by police for more than a decade in part due to a data entry error, an inquest has been told.
Ursula was 17 when her father, Peter, dropped her off at Tuggerah train station in September 1987 to travel to Hornsby for a new job.
She was meant to call by the end of the week, but she was never seen by her loving family again.
In 2018, a coronial inquest found a young woman who died in a car accident on the Hume Highway on October 27, 1987, previously thought to be named Jessica Pearce, was in fact Ursula.
Her mother, Cheree, died before ever finding out what happened to her daughter.
The revelation brought a sort of closure for Peter, who died in October last year, Ursula’s stepmother Elizabeth Barwick told the NSW Coroner’s Court on Monday.
But it did not erase the decades of not knowing, nor did it soften the immense blow of learning Ursula was buried, somewhere, in an unmarked plot in the Catholic section of the Emu Plains General Cemetery.
“I would catch him at different times. Around her birthday, around Christmas, different memorable occasions we missed out on,” Mrs Barwick said.
“His demeanour would be so quiet. And Pete’s a talker. He would go into himself.”
Her case is now the subject of a coronial inquest looking at whether NSW Police adequately investigated four missing persons cases and whether any of them could have been solved sooner.
The NSW Coroner’s Court was told on Monday there was no activity recorded on Ursula’s police file from at least March 1988 until March 1999.
In 1994, she was mistakenly marked “located” due to a data entry error as the system switched from paper to computers. The mistake was not discovered until 1999, the inquest was told.
“I couldn’t give you an answer (why there was no investigation),” Sergeant Amy Scott, who took on Ursula’s file in 2014, told the NSW Coroner’s Court on Monday.
“Other than the period after 1994 when she was listed as located, that would probably explain that five-year gap.
“But prior to that, I don’t think there’s a reasonable answer as to why nothing was done.”
Sergeant Scott said it was “inexcusable” that police failed to take statements about Ursula’s disappearance from relevant people between 1987 and 2014, when she and Detective Sergeant Kurt Hayward were assigned to the case.
Mrs Barwick said police had dismissed the case as “just another runaway” when her husband reported Ursula missing two weeks after she had boarded the train.
Not knowing what to do next, the family waited. Occasionally, a call would come from someone saying they had taken over Ursula’s case.
“There was a long time between phone calls,” Mrs Barwick said.
Twenty-seven years passed.
But in 2014, the investigation shifted dramatically when Sergeant Scott and Sergeant Hayward took over, Mrs Barwick said.
She and Peter were formally interviewed for the first time.
In November 2015, Senior Constable Adam Marsh noticed similarities between what was known about Jessica Pearce and Ursula Barwick.
A photo piqued his interest even more — Sergeant Scott described the resemblance between Ursula and Jessica as strong, if not striking — and eventually police inquiries led to the conclusion that Jessica Pearce was Ursula Barwick.
The 2018 inquest determined Ursula likely made her way to Kings Cross after getting on the train. She lived in transient housing before meeting the people she was travelling with at the time of the Hume Highway smash that ended her life.
“She was bright, she was cheerful, she filled a room,” Ursula’s aunt, Dianne Panov, said outside court.
“I want her to be remembered as an amazing young woman.”
Ursula’s case is one of four missing persons investigations under the microscope at an inquest before deputy state coroner Derek Lee.
Mr Lee is looking at whether police processes were adequate and if DNA could have been better employed, seeking to answer, among other questions, if the cases could have been solved earlier.
The inquest will also consider the case of Gary Jones, an accountant who was 27 when he vanished from Rosebery in November 1990. In 2019, his DNA profile was linked to remains found at Little Bay in Sydney the same month he disappeared.
Christof Meier drowned while swimming at Broken Head Beach in rough conditions in 2002. His body was never found, but his DNA was later linked to a discovered tibia bone.
Lionel Daveson disappeared in 2007, and it was believed he was homeless and living in Queensland at the time, the inquest was told.
But he is now thought to have died by suicide in the Watsons Bay area, with three bodies unable to be excluded as his remains, counsel assisting the coroner Adam Casselden SC said.
The inquest continues.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrGWcp51jrrZ7zZqroqeelrlwutKwZJqbpGSwsMHRrapmpJGsfKq6xLGarquRl7mmecSrqaiqo2K%2FpsLEmqOenF2eu26wxJyYnZ2jobyvs4ymoKyrmaO0brzEq6qopqNiwKat0ZyfZp6fp3q2vtKuo5plkpa%2FuLXCpGannaeoerTAzquwaG5pZq9xhMVumZ6cYmp%2Fp4CXcpibcZWWsHaCkG2ZcZth