Justice was not carried out during the investigation into the suspected death of Wollongong television presenter Ross Warren because of an acceptance of violent crime towards gay men at the time, the finding from a Parliamentary inquiry has revealed.
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An Upper House committee inquiring into Gay and Transgender hate crimes between 1970 and 2010 released its report on Tuesday.
The WIN TV newsreader and weatherman disappeared in July 1989.
Mr Warren, 24, was last seen driving along Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, on 22 July 1989 after socialising with friends. Mr Warren's keys were found two days later on rocks below the cliff top at Marks Park, Tamarama, a known gay beat. His car was located nearby.
Mr Warren's body was never found but police believe he was likely the victim of gay hate-related crime.
From the 1970s gay men were found slain in parks, homes or washed onto sharp rocks below Sydney's secluded gay beats during a violent and dark period of the city's history.
Chair of the inquiry Shayne Mallard, said the report provided the families, friends and community members of victims with the opportunity to share their experiences with the Parliament and seek a sense of justice for the victims.
The committee found that "a prevailing acceptance of and indifference towards violence and hostility directed at gay men principally during the period prior to the mid-1990s impacted on the protection of and delivery of justice to victims of hate crime, including but not limited to Alan Rosendale, Scott Johnson, John Russell and Ross Warren".
The committee has requested the new NSW Parliament re-establish the inquiry.
The report follows calls from the community for a parliamentary inquiry into at least 88 murders of gay and transgender people between 1970 to 2010, of which almost 30 remain unresolved.
During the inquiry, the committee received evidence that within a week of Mr Warren's disappearance that the detective sergeant investigating the case chose to ‘sideline’ the investigation, concluding that Mr Warren had likely fallen or slipped into the ocean given the ‘treacherous’ rock formation in which his keys were found.
The committee also heard that in 2001, former NSW Police Force Detective Sergeant Steve Page, found the notes in the police incident's record appeared to have been written after the initial report, ‘almost [like] a response to the [media] attention it was getting back in that era’.
In 2005, a coronial inquest was held into Mr Warren's suspected death. No copy of the documents sent to Missing Persons, nor any photographs of Mr Warren’s car, keys or the crime scene were included in the detective sergeant's brief of evidence given to the Coroner.
The Coroner ruled Mr Warren's death a homicide and found the police investigation into it to be ‘grossly inadequate and shameful’.
