Mark Haines coronial inquiry: police initially misidentified teenager's body
The morning teenager Mark Haines was found dead on rural train tracks, a hysterical mother pounded on her son's front door.
The woman was looking for her son Raymond Ervine, whose birth certificate was on Haines when his body was found on train tracks near Tamworth, New South Wales, on the morning of 16 January 1988.
Police initially wrongly identified Haines as Ervine, an older friend who had given the 17-year-old his birth certificate to get into nightclubs while they were out the night before.
Ervine gave emotional evidence at an inquest into Haines' death on Tuesday morning, recalling police and his mother knocking on his door having feared he was dead.
'My mother ... was hysterical, she just grabbed me,' he told the inquest via audiovisual link at the NSW coroners court in Sydney.
'The police had been to her home and told mum it was me.'
Amid the confusion, he soon realised the body on the tracks was Haines.
'I just remember mum saying 'he's dead out on the ... train tracks'.
'It was horrible.'
Ervine became teary several times during his evidence, describing how he feels some responsibility for his friend's death.
'If I hadn't have given him my birth certificate he might have come home with me,' he said, his voice shaking.
The inquest is examining Haines' death after an initial police investigation concluded he lay on the tracks either deliberately or in a dazed state after a car crash.
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A stolen white Torana was found near the train line, its smashed windscreen lying on the road, leading police to believe it had rolled.
The body of the Gomeroi teenager was found with a folded towel or a blanket propped under his head and cardboard boxes nearby.
With many unanswered questions and swirling rumours about who knew more about Haines' death, his uncle Don Craigie fought for years to have the case re-examined.
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Ervine said the teenager was not a troublemaker and would never have driven or been a passenger in a car he knew was stolen.
'[Police] said straight from the start that Mark had stolen a car and crashed it out on the train tracks,' he said.
'None of it made sense at all, it was never his character.
'It was just unbelievable, we all knew that's not what happened.'
Opening the final round of hearings at the inquest, which began in April 2024, counsel assisting Chris McGorey described the hours before and after Haines' death.
He said the coroner may consider questions including how and why Haines came to be on the tracks and who may have been with him.
'A number of questions have arisen over the past 37 years,' McGorey told the inquest on Monday.
The hearings are due to continue into Friday before deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame.
For information and support in Australia call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for a crisis support line for Indigenous Australians; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 and Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636
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