WARNING: This week's Background Briefing investigates the violent rape and murder of a 14 year old girl. There are frequent detailed references to acts of sexual violence, and the program presents stark images of what happened, taken from police records of interview with other teenagers. Some listeners may find this program disturbing.

SFX: Party/music

Boy: I saw Leigh. I'm not sure where she came from but she was crying, I could see blood on her pants in between her legs. Leigh was moaning and crying... She grabbed hold of me and said "Oh I'm pregnant". She was screaming and crying a real lot. She fell on the ground... I believed that Leigh was in a lot of pain. Someone said "Who done it". Leigh said "---" then she said "--- fucked me". She yelled that out. Two girls came over to her. They took Leigh away over to another table. They sat her down at the table and I could see them talking to her.

Police: Did you ask Leigh to go down the beach with you?

Boy: She asked me.

Police: What did she say?

Boy: She said "Let's go down the beach".

Police: What happened when you sat down?

Boy: I was just kissing her and that, then she just asked me if I wanted to do it.

Police: What did she say?

Boy: Let's do it.

Police: What happened then?

Boy: We did it.

Police: What did you do?

Boy: A root.

Kylie Morris: Seven years ago, the rape and murder of 14 year old Leigh Leigh chilled an Australian summer. It was the end of 1989 and at a party in an old surf clubhouse in Newcastle, Leigh suffered a series of violent attacks, that culminated in her murder. She was raped, kicked, and spat upon,then raped again, strangled and finally bashed to death with a rock. There's evidence as many as ten young men aged between 15 and 19 participated in the attacks, but only three were charged... Hello, I'm Kylie Morris... Seven years later, there are calls for a fresh investigation into Leigh's death. But first let's go back to that Friday night... Jason Robertson's 16th birthday party...

party music sfx again

Boy: Matt came up to me, and said "---'s already had two roots, one was with Leigh Leigh, and she's a bit of a slut and why don't all of us have a go... And so then I put my arm around her as she was walking outside and I asked her if I could have a root, and she said "No", and then she walked off, and she was on the ground, and I seen people around her, so I started pouring beer on her...

Boy: It was from a twist top. He spat on her and he kicked her once, I think that was on her legs. He was saying, "You silly slut".

Boy: While Webster and Wilson were pouring the beer, and kicking Leigh Leigh they were calling her names and saying "Get up you dumb bitch, you're a slut and a whore, piss off you slut". There was a lot of people watching, and they were laughing about it.

Boy: I didn't tip any beer on her, and I can't remember who was doing that... I didn't see anyone kicking or hurting her... I didn't kick her, or throw beer over her.

Boy: I walked over to where they were and said, "What's going on here?" He said "A bit of fun"... I poured some beer over her as well, I nearly poured the whole of my twist top over her... I saw them each spit on her about three times... I also saw Matt Webster spray her with a mouthful off beer... When I poured the beer over Leigh, I poured it over her left side... She was lying on her side with her knees up towards her stomach... Her head was to the south, and she was facing the ocean.

I saw about 10 people sitting and standing around us watching what was happening... I can't remember who they were.

Girl: These boys standing around Leigh were spitting beer on her, and kicking her around the ears. They were kicking her pretty hard, but not as hard as they could have...

Boy: Leigh got up and staggered away, I saw her pick up a bottle, it was a twist top bottle she picked up and she threw the bottle towards us. It hit the corner of the building and smashed. I saw Guy Wilson throw the twist top bottle that he had at Leigh. It hit her in the leg

Police: Why did you throw the beer bottle at her?

Boy: Because it was empty.

Boy: I saw Leigh come into the hall. And she came up to us. And we were calling her a slut, mole, bitch, and we poured beers over her and spat on her, and pushed her with my hands, while I was doing it she was crying, and she got up and walked out.

Boy: About 10 minutes later, I saw Leigh Leigh walking across the grass towards the end of the car park, she was about 20 feet away, and I yelled out to her, Leigh don't go down there. She turned around and yelled at me "Fuck off and leave me alone".

Boy: Well I did it... but I just couldn't believe it happened it's just unbelievable...

I went to look for my beers and I saw Leigh Leigh sitting down on the grass my beers weren't there. Somebody must have pinched them. And then I walked up to Leigh Leigh and she carried on with her normal shit and I tried to get on to her. Then we walked down to the bushes, and I pulled her clothes off and I pulled my shorts down and I put my finger in her pussy. I thought I was right for a root, and then she started pushing me away saying "Don't". I lost my temper and I did what I did.

Police: Can you tell us what you mean by "did what you did"?

Boy: She was punching and pushing and I grabbed her by the throat and she said don't and I choked her a bit. She stopped punching and I grabbed the rock, and killed her.

Kylie Morris: Immediately after that confession, Matthew Webster was charged with Leigh's murder. He was convicted and sentenced to a minimum 14 year jail term.

But there are crucial elements missing from his account, and the evidence presented at trial, that indicate the full story of what happened that night was far worse than what you've heard so far.

Leigh's family knows terrible things happened, and they're angry the police investigation didn't go further. Leigh's mother Robyn has campaigned to throw open the books on what really happened, and how many young people were really involved. Her calls for a re-investigation have brought her into conflict with the police and the Stockton community.

In the end, three boys were charged: Matthew Webster for murder, Guy Wilson for assault, and another who can't be named on legal grounds for carnal knowledge.

The distinction between carnal knowledge and rape in this case is important. Having sex with any girl between the age of 10 and 16 can be called carnal knowledge, and a charge on that count excludes any consideration of whether or not the girl consented.

When Judge Joseph Moore revisited the evidence in a victim's compensation case in May last year, he considered further professional opinions on what happened that night. And his conclusions were extraordinary.

He began by finding that Leigh's first sexual encounter at the party went beyond "carnal knowledge". He called it non-consensual. She'd been raped.

JUDGE MOORE READING: The evidence before me indicates that Leigh rejected the juvenile's advances, and that his intercourse with her was without her consent.

Kylie Morris: Lawyers at the Newcastle Legal Centre act as advocates for Robyn Leigh. They say the inadequate manner in which that first sexual encounter was originally presented to the court minimised the sentence of the young man, who we can't name for legal reasons.

On appeal, he was sentenced to 100 hours community service.

But the Legal Centre's Robert Cavanagh says there was no shortage of evidence available to police to indicate Leigh was raped.

Robert Cavanagh: Her state of distress, the fact that she was crying, significantly complaining immediately after. She came back to the clubhouse and told people she'd been abused and assaulted in that way. And those complaints made by her are clearly indicative of it not being consensual, as with the linguistics analysis that we got in. Her complaints however resulted in further assaults upon her, and in an increasing level of severity, leading to her death.

Boy: She was screaming and crying a real lot. She fell on the ground .I believed that Leigh was in a lot of pain. Someone said "who done it" Leigh said "---" then she said "--- fucked me". She yelled that out.

Kylie Morris: If police were unsure as to whether Leigh had been raped, there was another clue in a witness statement about the young man we can't name. in what you're about to hear, the term "baldies" refers to pre-pubescent girls, still without pubic hair.

Boy: Early in the night as the people were arriving I was talking to him and he said "Were all the baldies coming tonight?" and I said as far as I know they were. The baldies are the younger girls in years 7 and 8 at school, which is Leigh Leigh and her group. From this conversation I got the impression they were going to get them pissed and then they were going to root them. That's what I've heard they normally do.

Kylie Morris: Police interviews with another girl, one of Leigh's friends, indicate she also had sex with the same boy. If this is true, he could have been charged with at least one other count of carnal knowledge. But he never was.

Boy: Matt came up to me and said, "---'s already had two roots, one with Leigh Leigh, and she's a bit of a slut, and why don't all of us have a go.

Kylie Morris: Criminologist Kerry Carrington has researched closely the Leigh Leigh case. In her view, the first assault on Leigh was misconstrued as sex with consent, instead of rape, and began a legal fiction.

Kerry Carrington: Because all the evidence of her non-consent was excluded from the process in the pre-trial stages of the investigation. And so it was never put into a public forum. Because it was silenced. That created a fiction in the public arena, that in fact she wasn't sexually assaulted, and then that in turn fed into the reversal of blame, and that led then to malicious gossip and community suspicion that it was Leigh Leigh to blame. That somehow or other she'd asked for this, that she was sexually promisciuous, that she wasn't raped. That is an incredible injustice in this case.

Kylie Morris: The second attack on Leigh, when she was kicked, and spat upon, led police to charge only one person for assault. Guy Wilson, who was 19 at the time. he was sentenced to six months jail. He occasionally returns from Western Australia to Stockton for holidays. The Newcastle Legal Centre argues that at least 4 others should have been charged, while one witness said there were 10 boys involved. Judge Moore described that incident in this way...

JUDGE MOORE READING: The statements of witnesses speak about a group of young men in a semi circle. All the men are not identified. Some of them are described as Fat Mat, Guy Wilson, --- and ---. One of the assailants, and only one has been detected and charged.

Boy: I walked over to where they were and said, "What's going on here?". He said "A bit of fun".

Kylie Morris: So not only had the police not laid any charges of rape, and prosecuted Leigh's attacker on a much lesser charge. They hadn't even charged those involved in the second assault.

But Judge Moore wasn't finished. He identified other injuries to Leigh and concluded there must have been other acts of violence over which no-one had been charged.

JUDGE MOORE READING: The genital injuries to Leigh which I shall not, for reasons of delicacy and distress recount here, show that there was very severe, violent and resisted invasion of her body, which was performed by persons who have not been detected.

Kylie Morris: By questioning in an open court who was involved in the offences committed against Leigh, and what those offences were, Judge Moore gave Newcastle Legal Centre reason enough to put a submission to the NSW government calling for the matter to be independently re-investigated.

The Attorney General passed that submission to the Police Minister, who referred it to the Ombudsman, who gave it back to police internal affairs.

Fourteen months on, the Director of Newcastle Legal Centre, John Boersig, says there's no indication of a resolution, and the delays are distressing for Leigh's mother.

John Boersig: I can't imagine this process could be any more frustrating for her, or for anyone, than it has been. She is asking such a simple question, and she is saying this "What happened to my daughter on that night?" That's the question she's really been asking for the past 7 years.

Kylie Morris: Police internal affairs do say they're still inquiring into the murder investigation, which is why the Service refused permission for any of the police officers involved in either the original investigation or the inquiry to take part in this program.

But with police co-operation, the Newcastle Legal Centre has gained access to what it's told are all the documents held by police in relation to the Leigh Leigh investigation.

And on analysis of those, they concluded the police failed to competently and diligently investigate her murder.

They say Judge Moore's questions are only the beginning of a whole range of issues left unresolved by the police investigation.

One is whether or not other underage girls were assaulted.

Another is the real possiblity, according to Robert Cavanagh, that people other than Matthew Webster were involved in Leigh's death.

Robert Cavanagh: There was I think a general view that they had the murderer, and that was the end of the matter. But it may well be that they had a murderer. But that person was never asked, from the documents that I've reviewed, whether or not any other person was present while he was killing Leigh Leigh. That is a real problem, because the forensic evidence points to significant difficulties in terms of how he could have performed the acts he said he performed in the way he performed them, alone.

Kylie Morris: These seem extraordinary oversights. In your experience in the law are they extraordinary?

Robert Cavanagh: One of the things we're doing is asking the police to explain, and we're having a real difficulty in getting them to explain. It is for them to say why they reached their conclusions. There are just significant gaps. It has for too long been the case that police can simply say "We took an approach, that's what we did", and then say no more. And indeed they are very very rarely brought to account for their actions. And I suppose they traditionally like it that way. By saying that I am not in this case suggesting any police officer involved in the case necessarily did anything wrong, but there is a need for accountability and transparency. It's unfortunate that the Minister for Police, the Attorney General and the Ombudsman don't require it. And that's inexcusable.

Kylie Morris: I suppose you could argue that the police did manage to present a case that secured a fairly lengthy sentence, a 14 year non parole term, for a relatively young man. Couldn't their approach to the case be denfended on the grounds they were simply being single minded in their drive to find the murderer?

Robert Cavanagh: It's important they do find murderers, and in doing that there is a requirement that they do focus and target particular people. It's also however essential that they go through the process of excluding other people, other possibilities, rather than just a single minded focus by itself because history has shown they quite often get it wrong by that approach.

Kylie Morris: One of the closest supporters of Leigh's mother, Robyn is Hilda Armstrong. Hilda's grand-daughter was a close friend of Leigh's, and these days Hilda assists the Newcastle Legal Centre.

Having agreed to show me the dunes in Stockton, where Leigh was murdered, Hilda first asked for a detour, to a sandy graveyard, bordered by saltbush, on a strip of land between the Pacific Highway, and the sea.

Hilda Armstrong: Since I was here last time a little bear and a little angel sticker has been put on there, by some young person I would think but other than that I never find anyone here.

Kylie Morris: There's a photo there of Leigh on the headstone, it's a nice photo - when was it taken, do you know?

Hilda Armstrong: That was when she was at at school, high school, one of the later photos, although there's another one that I prefer.

I used to say Leigh Leigh with the laughing face. She was she was a giggler, a smiler. she was always full of energy and life and laughter. She was a nice kid.

Kylie Morris: What happened to Leigh's friends. Do they come and visit? - obviously someone's been to visit from the bear and sticker on the headstone, but you don't see many of them?

Hilda Armstrong: No, I heard a lot of the children have gone away to different areas. A few of her friends that I know are just leaving. one has left to go overseas. one's gone up to Queensland. one to South Australia. They've just scattered to the winds. I think probably it touched all their lives to an extent it has changed their lives to some degree or other, it has to.

Kylie Morris: And the boys are many of them still around the community.

Hilda Armstrong: I have heard some went to Western Australia, and some to Queensland, but I don't know whether it was the same reason as the girls or not.

Kylie Morris: Not far from where she died here, is it?

Hilda Armstrong: It's about a mile from where she died, down towards the shopping centre, and it's about half a mile in the other direction, towards her original home. It's a very lonely place.

Kylie Morris: Down the road, past Stockton hospital, the rows of houses thickened until they delivered us up to the dunes where Leigh's body was found.

Hilda Armstrong: That little bit of digging just down there. that's where approximately Leigh's body was. All this here. was completely covered with saltbush.

Kylie Morris: It's not very far from the street here is it?

Hilda Armstrong: It's probably about... to the house behind us. would be about 5 car lengths I would think.

Kylie Morris: Shall we walk over to where the party was?... What is it now? It's obviously not a surf club anymore. It's got a fence around it, and it's painted brightly, it's a kindergarten of some sort is it?

Hilda Armstrong: Yes, it's been turned into a kindergarten which is rather strange I think. It's got playthings out there. I don't know what the name of it is even. It's been like that for about 18 months, 2 years that I know of.

Kylie Morris: Among the parents whose children are now cared for in the building where the party was held, a number remembered Leigh's murder, and the talk in the community after it happened.

Parent 1: There was a lot of outrage, a lot of anger, and just disbelief that it could happen somewhere like this in this type of a community. It was just more shock and outrage, that someone could be so barbaric to do what they did to her.

Kylie Morris: Do people still talk about it now?

Parent 1: Occasionally they do. When you see family members of the boys involved. One of the boys who went to jail for his involvement in it comes home, and you see him walking the street when he comes from holidays, and what not, and how can he walk the streets when everyone else is sort of, y'know there's still a lot of talk that the one that was in jail now, isn't the only one that did it. There's still a lot of talk about that.

Kylie Morris: Do people talk about specific individuals, or is it more just that the whole truth isn't known, and that makes people feel unsettled?

Parent 1: It does because you don't actually know who did do all of it, because there's no way all the things that came out in the court case. What he's supposed to have consumed, that he could have done what he did on loose sand. There's no way. I mean a 6 kilo rock., you mean a 14 year old girl that couldn't fight someone that was drunk, and in the condition that he was, you know, in loose sand... there had to be someone else holding her down. There's certainly more than one person involved.

Kylie Morris: You were nodding your head. Did you want to say something?

Parent 2: I just think it was disgusting what happened. I think there were more people involved than what there is, the guys that have been to jail, and have been let out. I think they should go back and have a trial, and see what has happened. And I think there's more to come out than what there was. I think they should give Matthew aqnother trial to see what happened, cause I went to school with Matt. And I think there's more involvement than what there is.

Kylie Morris: Further back from the beach, I met another young mother, Karen.

She says she had family at the party where Leigh was killed.

Karen: And they were actually like under suspicion as well. One was a brother, he was young at the time, and the police went to the school, and they called him out many a time for interviews and that. And he just felt really really pressured like he was involved in it. but he wasn't . And even my mum got suspicious even though my brothers weren't involved. She was really worried about them as well. I think there was always the underlying thing that they knew who it was. It was really terrible on the community as a whole.

Kylie Morris: Leigh's mother is quite keen to see another investigation into the matter because she doesn't think the whole truth is known. and she wants to know what actually happened that night. What would your response be as a community member to that?

Karen: Uh, yeah. I think that there was more involved. But I don't know whether it's too late to bring it up now. I mean most people have got on with their lives. it's been seven years. And it's a sad thing for Matthew Webster's family for it all to be brought up again. And I think it's just been left too late really.

Kylie Morris: One Stockton resident who thinks it isn't too late for another look at the evidence is Graham Parsons. Graham says he lost a lot of faith in people, when his community began converting the truth into secrets.

To break that code of silence that he says closed over the town in the days after the murder, he went into the poster-making business.

On impulse, he knocked up a quick poster at work, ran off about 50 copies and plastered the shopping centre with it.

Graham Parsons: It was a dark and gloomy, shadowy depiction of a dead girl on the sand at the beach, and three shadowy figures , one clutching a big rock standing over her. But I didn't try to make the three people look like anybody in particular. I dressed in the current fashion at the time: T-shirts, flannelette shirts wrapped around the waist, and shorts, and left it at that, long hair.

Kylie Morris: There were words printed on it as well?

Graham Parsons: Yeah, shame Stockton shame. Dob the gutless bastards in. I think that was it. something like that.

Graham says most people just want Leigh's murder to go away. But he says if the community just faced up to what happened, and tried to atone for it, it would go away.

Graham Parsons: But until something positive comes from it all, it's just going to keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back. And other people can bury their heads in the sand but it won't go away.

Kylie Morris: On the street, two girls in their early teens, about the age Leigh was when she died, stopped to talk to me about what they remembered.

Girl 1: Yeah, I knew her, because she was my sister's friend and she came around a lot and I babysitted her sister. And like, she was a nice sort of person. And my mum and that they liked her, everyone just thought it was a shame cause she was such a nice person and bad things always happen to good people, and it's a bit of a shame.

Kylie Morris: The boys at the party treated Leigh really badly, and viciously...

Girl 2: Yeah, I think they just wanted to find out if the rumours were true, cause I heard there was heaps of rumours about her. Is that what you heard?

Girl 1: There were quite a few stories going around...

Girl 2: They were probably just drunk and wanted to know if they were right or not. I suppose it happens everywhere.

Kylie Morris: What were the rumours?

Girl 2: Oh that she was y'know easy and everything, she probably wasn't I don't think.

Girl 1: A lot of people said she was a slut and she deserved it. I remember my mum telling me that...

Girl 2: No-one deserves something like that, god .

Girl 1: I know. My mum was talking to my sister about it, she got really upset about it. Because she knew she wasn't cause she was good friends with her and that. But nobody deserves to be called a slut, and that's that.

Kylie Morris: Leigh's mother Robyn is familiar with stories around Stockton that put at least part of the blame on Leigh for what happened that night.

She says the community also blamed her.

Robyn Leigh: There were very few people that stuck by me, very few. But I found a lot of people blamed me for moving into the area. If I hadn't moved there it wouldn't have happened. Those poor boys were being harassed. She got what she deserved. In general not a very good response whatsoever. I was a bit shocked actually, because I couldn't really understand what I or my daugher had done to deserve the treatment. And my youngest daughter I had to pull her out of school because of the abuse she was getting in kindergarten from other students.

Kylie Morris: Is that why you left Stockton?

Robyn Leigh: Well, after going to the police for a bit of help, and being told there was nothing they could do, how can anyone in that situation stay somewhere where they don't feel safe.

Kylie Morris: So the harrassment you were under was fairly direct. What sort of things were hhappening to you?

Robyn Leigh: My house had been broken into, of a night time. Louts, that's the only way I can describe them, would come around and harass around the house. If I run into them in public, I was abused. spat at. And just generally not treated very nice at all.

Kylie Morris: But its not only the community response to her daughter's death that concerns Robyn Leigh. she's also critical of the police response.

The investigation into Leigh Leigh's murder was headed by Detective Sergeant Lance Chaffey, who worked with a team of as many as 20 others. Detective Sergeant Chaffey is viewed by many within the Hunter Region, as an investigator who gets results. Indeed, the conviction of Matthew Webster for Leigh's murder won him considerable kudos within the community he serves. He was singled out for praise in his management of the case, by Justice Wood, who presided over the trial.

JUSTICE WOOD READING: The police involved, working under the direction of Detective Sergeant Chaffey should, in my view, be highly commended for the care, dedication, and professionalism with which they went about their task, and for bringing the offender to book.

Kylie Morris: But Robyn Leigh has specific concerns about the way in which Detective Sergeant Chaffey conducted her daughter's murder investigation.

They are set out in an affidavit tendered in the District Court. This is a reading from that document.

ROBYN LEIGH READING: When I complained to Chaffey that not everyone involved in the assaults, and events relating to my daugher's murder had been charged, he said "do you know how much it costs to run an investigation?"

He said " tomorrow we start to lay the first of many charges". They charged Matthew Webster with the murder the following day. Chaffey asked me 'out to drinks' to celebrate. I declined in disgust.

DuringWebster's murder hearing I had expected the truth of the involvement of the others in her murder and those who raped my daughter to be made public, as Chaffey had promised. It wasn't. After Webster was sentenced, Chaffey admitted he had lied to me when he told me that he had no evidence that Leigh was raped. He said "that yes Leigh had been gang raped, and yes in his belief that --- did rape Leigh but it was ---'s word against a dead person. He told me I had no say in whether others should be charged with Leigh's murder or rape. He also told me this was a private conversation which he would deny publicly ever being a party to so there was no point me mouthing off about it to anyone. He will deny saying any of these things to me. He told me it would be his word, the word of a respected police officer against the word of a single mother.

Kylie Morris: That was a reading from Robyn Leigh's affidavit presented to the Court last year. I spoke to Robyn a few weeks ago.

Robyn Leigh: And they did promise me all along that in the trial the truth would come out. They told me that for nearly 12 months. So I was naive and believed them and when the trial come out, nothing come out. Just that Matthew Webster had been charged with her murder and that and, yeah, none of the truth come out.

Kylie Morris: Background Briefing was refused an interview with Lance Chaffey. His views of a number of Robyn Leigh's criticisms are, however, on the public record, in the form of newspaper interviews.

What follows is a reading from an article published last year.

LANCE CHAFFEY READING: Detective Chaffey saidI think the criticisms are most unfair, not only to myself, but to the other police in the investigation.

"A lot of police worked hard for very long hours on the investigation over three months."

He said Leigh's mother had no foundation for many of her comments. She's based a lot of it on rumour and gossip she's been given by people in Stockton, who do not really know the facts.

WARNING : Listeners are again warned that forensic evidence relating to Leigh's injuries and the sexual violence that occurred may be disturbing.

Kylie Morris: You'll recall in the compensation case, Leigh's genital injures were described as showing very severe, violent and resisted invasion of her body.

Judge Moore also said those actions were performed by people who haven't been identified.

Leigh's genitals were badly damaged. Her hymen was bruised and torn in four places. There were ragged wounds around her vulva, and bruising to her pelvic muscles. Injuries described by one General Practitioner in the following way...

DR RUTH ARMSTRONG READING: I Doctor Ruth Armstrong have sighted the autopsy report of Leigh Leigh.

As a female general practitioner, I examine normal and abnormal female genitalia on a daily basis. The injuries described to Leigh Leigh's genitals are consistent with non-consensual intercourse of an extremely violent nature.

Kylie Morris: Detective Sergeant Chaffey has a different understanding of what caused those injuries. In a newspaper interview last year, he ruled out rape. He suggested that her injuries were at least partly caused by Matthew Webster putting his fingers inside her.

NEWSPAPER READING: There was no evidence she was gang -raped. Asked about the injuries to Leigh's genital region, Sergeant Chaffey said they were consistent with the admissions made by Webster of having digital intercourse, and the fact that Leigh was a virgin before that night.

Kylie Morris: An analysis of the post mortem results by Doctor Johan Duflou, cited by Newcastle Legal Centre takes a different view of what caused the wounds. He says her injuries may have been caused by digital penetration.

DR JOHAN DUFLOU READING: However these injuries appear severe, and I would favour another object having been used to cause the injuries described.

I am of the opinion that it is much more probable that an inflexible object such as a beer bottle, as distinct from a flexible object such as a finger or penis caused the majority of the genital injuries.

Kylie Morris: If there was an assault with an object on Leigh at some point in the night, as interpreted by Doctor Duflou, again no-one's been charged in connection with that.

But at some point at least, police were aware of the allegation, that a beer bottle may have been used in an attack against Leigh.

Leigh's friend, Sandy Nickerson, says she didn't go to the party, but she was interviewed on a number of occasions by police about that night.

She says there were lots of stories around Stockton about what finally happened.

Sandy Nickerson: A lot of people didn't know exacly what had happened to Leigh. There was just someone had hit her in the head with a rock, and someone had raped her, and she'd been found naked and dead on the beach. But I found out other things that had happened to her. Then other people start finding out things, and then in the end you don't know what happened to her really.

Kylie Morris: What sort of things did you find out?

Sandy Nickerson: Oh that she had a... it's pretty gross. I don't really like to say it. That she had a beer bottle inserted in her, and it was broken. And she was bitten. All over her was bitten. And rocks and things were thrown at her, and sticks and things, and she had sand shoved down her mouth, just terrible horrible things.

Kylie Morris: Where did you hear these stories from?

Sandy Nickerson: That's a good question. around Stockton, from people a bit closer to the families and more involved in the investigation. And I think I heard one of it from the police, about the beer bottle, that's what I heard from the police.

Kylie Morris: The beer bottle suggestion I take it happened when you were being interviewed by them, is that right.

Sandy Nickerson: Yeah.

PARTY SFX under...

Boy: Hey dude we're going to get Leigh Leigh pissed and all go through her.

Kylie Morris: A forensic examination of the murder itself raises another set of questions, although they're difficult to answer on the basis of the evidence collected by police. Leigh was bashed, until her head caved in. Blood splattered onto the sand, and the clothing of at least Matthew Webster.

What follows is a police account of gathering the clothing worn by Webster.

Police: Webster undressed and handed me a pair of black and pink board shorts. He then removed a T-shirt from some clothing on the floor of his room and handed that to me. I said what about your shoes and underpants. Webster then collected an old pair of Dunlop volley shoes from near his wardrobe, and handed them to me. He said "I can't remember which undies I had on. I think they're in the wash anyway". I said "Were you wearing a jumper or anything like that?" He said, "Yeah, I had a flanno, but it's in the wash too". I said, "Alright, we'll take what we've got."

Kylie Morris: The Newcastle Legal Centre questions whether the clothing that was collected from Webster's home was ever sent for appropriate testing.

What clothing was gathered, and what happened to it is important, because of the need for analysis of the way the blood splattered when she was killed.

An analysis of Leigh's head injuries, based on the forensic evidence available, was conducted by Professor Harry Boettcher, who concluded the blows which Leigh suffered to the head came from different directions.

PROF HARRY BoeTTCHER READING: The inescapable conclusition is that Leigh was hit forcibly several times. The last time she was hit could have been with the rock, as described. Webster could have been somewhere near Leigh's right knee, or astride her, and threw the rock to hit the left side of her head.

It is possible, in view of only incomplete information being available that Leigh was hit by different people, with the final blow being the rock thrown by Webster.

Kylie Morris: If Leigh was conscious when Webster was collecting the rock, from 4 or 5 feet away, as he told police, that also raises the question of whether someone else was present, restraining her.

NEWSPAPER READING: The officer who headed the murder inquiry, detective sergeant Lance Chaffey told the Herald: there's nothing whatsoever to suggest that any other person apart from Webster was involved in the murder.

Kylie Morris: Worst case, then, the police in the Leigh Leigh investigation may have failed to charge someone with rape, who had sex with Leigh without her consent.

They then failed to charge with assault, a number of boys who participated in kicking her, and spitting beer at her.

And found no explanation for her severe genital injuries, or who caused them.

In addition, other forensic evidence indicates there may have been more than one person directly involved in Leigh's murder, although on the available evidence, the one convicted murderer, Matthew Webster, was never asked whether there was anyone with him at the time.

On the basis of the material that's available, you'd think Robyn Leigh would have strong enough grounds to entice an external authority to review the matter. But that isn't the case.

The State's Police Royal Commission says it's outside its terms of reference.

So the Newcastle Legal Centre has engaged in attempts to persuade a triad of other government authorities to investigate the matter.

But, as Robert Cavanagh illustrates the report prepared by the Legal Centre, on the basis of police documents, is yet to hook a reader, although it's been sent to the Attorney General, the Ombudsman and the Police Minister.

Robert Cavanagh: I would be pleased if somebody reviewed the report and came back and said well here we can say you're clearly wrong, you've made mistakes here, your analysis doesn't fit with the facts, even the facts you've been provided with. But the most we're getting is what I think would be colloquially described as duck shoving between the vearious instrumentalities, and ministers. And that is most inappropriate, and is not tolerable, and they should explain themselves. They are accountable and they must explain themselves. Because it won't go away, we won't let it go away.

Kylie Morris: As for the police, the Legal Centre is concerned relations between those officers involved in the internal inquiry, and the original investigators on the case itself could be too close.

There is a connection between Lance Chaffey, the chief investigator on the case, and the man behind the internal inquiry, Bob Goddin.

Before moving into homicide, Chaffey worked with the now infamous New South Wales detective Roger Rogerson, in the Armed Hold-Up Squad of the Criminal Investigation Bureau or CIB from 1979 until 1984.

Bob Goddin was another who worked with Chaffey in the days of Roger Rogerson, although the Police Royal Commission has heard they belonged to separate factions within the branch.

Detective Inspector Goddin is now head of the Internal Affairs Unit at Gosford on the New South Wales Central Coast.

His powers extend along the F3 Freeway to Newcastle, placing him in the driver's seat of the inquiry into his former colleague's investigation of Leigh's murder.

The Ombudsman's office is oversighting that inquiry. Steve Kinmond, who's the State's Assistant Ombudsman couldn't discuss the matter in detail because of confidentiality concerns, but said impartiality is a priority.

Steve Kinmond: if the relationship was such that it could impact on investigatiors's performance. then we would certainly have concerns.

Kylie Morris: We're not suggesting there is necessarily a conflict of interest. only that that past connection hasn't been declared by police to the office supervising the inquiry.

But it's not only in an investigative sense, that Leigh's murder remains an open book.

Her death has taken on a fictional life, and is now the subject of a film, and 2 plays: "Blackrock", currently being performed in Sydney, and "Property of the Clan", produced for performance in schools.

Director of the Freewheels Theatre Group, Brian Joyce, says "Property of the Clan" was researched inside the Stockton community, but Leigh's death wasn't its only inspiration.

He says it also considered a party in another nearby town.

Brian Joyce: It wasn't referred to in the play, but it was an incident where there was that male violence that was running the evening, and the victim of that male violence was a young woman, and in that incident she was pushed into a fire and badly burnt. So parties like this happen, and incidents like this happen in a whole range of areas, when we toured around the country, yes we found that. In a North Coast town, we performed at they didn't have any knowledge of the incident that happened in stockton, and they actually thought it was about an incident that happened at their town that had received no national publicity but basically a girl had been killed in exactly the same situation, at a beachside party, and she ended up dead at the end of it. They thought property of the clan was a fictionalised telling of that specific incident, not the specific incident here. Similarly at a town in South Australia, where a young woman was dumped for dead, after being sexually assaulted, they thought oh this was us, only you put it at the beach.

We as a community in Australia, generally as a culture need to come to terms with male violence and adolescent violence. To isolate it into a single incident is unfair, and I think we do need to acknowledge what prompts us to do these things, and not deny that.

Kylie Morris: Robert Cavanagh agrees on the need to come to terms with the way culture influenced the way the young people at the party behaved that night.

And he says understanding the group mentality is part of discovering the truth about Leigh Leigh's death.

Robert Cavanagh: She was systematically assaulted by a number of people acting as a group, properly described as a pack.

Boy: Early in the night as the people were arriving I was talking to him and he said "were all the baldies coming tonight" and I said as far as I know they were. The baldies are the younger girls in Years 7 and 8 at school, Leigh Leigh and her group. From this conversation I got the impression they were going to get them pissed, and then they were going to root them. That's what I've heard they normally do.

Robert Cavanagh: There is a pack mentality of the group. A group that were engaged in a cultural practice, which could only be described as quite deranged. That is the sexual assaulting of pre-pubescent girls, seem to have been an accepted approach of violent packs, gang rapes upon young girls. Assaults on other young boys on the night. It went on all night. It went right to the point where she died.

Kylie Morris: Background Briefing would like to thank the performers from The Australian Theatre for Young People, and Gary Cartwright for his song, "Shame Stockton Shame". You also heard Bill Conn, Brandon Bourke and Ronnie Falk.

Co-ordinating producer is Linda McGinness, Technical producers were John Diamond and Michael Lamrock. Research by Suzan Campbell. Executive producer is Kirsten Garrett. I'm Kylie Morris.