'The loneliest road': NT police officer's mother still searching for answers five years after her death

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2 days ago

Amy* believed she knew her daughter better than anyone.
As a toddler, she says Sophia* was strong-willed and clever — "a force to be reckoned with".
"We told each other everything and we went through so much together," Amy says.
So, when she noticed reappearing bruises on her daughter's face and body and Sophia said she had developed a blood disorder, Amy believed her.
"She'd never lied to me before or hidden anything," she says.
"I just did not doubt her."
Looking back now, five years after her daughter's death, Amy says she battles with the agonising thought that she could have done more.
Sophia was 38 years old when she died at Royal Darwin Hospital in 2020.
Initially, Amy was told her daughter overdosed on prescription medication, but Sophia's cause of death was later revealed to be a subdural haemorrhage — or brain bleed.
According to a coronial report published in 2021, Sophia had complained of a headache the day before her death and, after waking from an afternoon nap, "appeared to be hallucinating".
"She didn't know what day or time of day it was, she was trying to plug her phone cord into open sockets and was incoherent," NT Coroner Greg Cavanagh wrote.
Sophia's partner found her "unresponsive" in the early hours of the next morning and after calling an ambulance, he told paramedics she had overdosed on migraine pills.
No crime scene was established and Sophia was declared dead an hour later.
An autopsy later indicated the bleeding in her brain had commenced three to five days prior to her death.
Judge Cavanagh noted Sophia's injury "would have required some form of trauma, likely a hit to the head, either due to falling or from another person".
Her death was also found to have occurred "in the context of chronic alcoholism due to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)", stemming from a traumatic miscarriage years earlier.
Amy remembers seeing signs Sophia's mental health was declining, but she doesn't believe her daughter's alcohol addiction was solely related to the loss of her first pregnancy.
At age 23, Sophia began her career as a police officer, serving several years interstate before relocating to the Northern Territory with her partner, a fellow officer, in 2009.
Two years later, Sophia suffered a traumatic miscarriage, leading to her PTSD diagnosis.
"No mother needs to go through that and no man should have to go through that either, it was awful for him as well," Amy says.
Just four weeks later, Sophia fell pregnant a second time, and, concerned about her daughter's fragile mental state, Amy relocated to Darwin to live with her.
Evidence heard during the coronial inquest revealed Sophia "turned to alcohol" to cope with the grief of her miscarriage and her addiction "impacted the relationship with her partner".
During three years staying downstairs from the young couple, Amy says she noticed tension between the pair worsen.
"The conflict escalated and her drinking escalated at the same time," she says.
Amy says Sophia would confide in her about problems in the relationship and on several occasions, she encouraged her daughter to speak to the police.
"I said 'if you don't report it, I'm going to', but she said 'no, no, no don't'," she says.
Amy says while she witnessed flashes of the pair's troubled dynamic, she was shocked to learn afterwards how many other people had raised concerns.
"There was just so much out there … so much that people didn't do," she says.
The coronial report chronicles 17 complaints to the NT Police Force from neighbours, work colleagues, friends and doctors about alleged domestic violence and disturbances over a five-year period leading up to Sophia's death.
Judge Cavanagh found her partner "was sometimes said to be manipulative and controlling", although his "controlling ways" were often explained as a response to Sophia's alcoholism.
"He generally indicated … he needed to know where she was to either stop her drinking or so as to assist her when she was intoxicated," he wrote.
Despite this, Judge Cavanagh said it was "difficult" to see Sophia's drinking as justification for her partner's access to her social media accounts or the "foul and abusive" messages he would send.
Sophia's partner did not give evidence at the inquest and Judge Cavanagh declined to compel him to do so on the grounds it might incriminate him in an offence in relation to Sophia's death.
The coroner ultimately referred the case to the NT Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
In February 2023, Sophia's partner was charged with "callously" failing to rescue or render assistance and his case was committed to the NT Supreme Court.
Amy was told a trial had been set down for September 2024, but in the weeks leading up to it, DPP Lloyd Babb SC requested an in-person meeting.
Mr Babb and three other senior prosecutors told her the trial would no longer be going ahead.
"They said they didn't believe they could win the case," Amy says.
In a statement to the ABC, a spokesperson for Mr Babb said the assigned prosecutor had requested a review of the evidence to determine whether the case "continued to have reasonable prospects of success".
"The director, on review of the evidentiary material available, determined that there were no reasonable prospects of securing a conviction at trial, and that the prosecution should not continue further," the spokesperson said.
Sophia's partner, who remains a serving member of the NT Police Force, was contacted for comment.
Responding on his behalf, his lawyer Luke Officer said "from a defence perspective, the tragic case always deeply troubled us" and "the decision to discontinue was plainly right".
"In our view there were never any reasonable prospects of conviction," he said.
"Unfortunately, for our client and particularly his children, that decision took way too long."
After what the inquest heard were multiple reports of disturbances made by those around her, police had attempted to obtain a statement from Sophia, but she declined.
Judge Cavanagh noted the reasons a victim of domestic violence might not report instances of abuse were "magnified when the perpetrator is also a police officer".
"Those fears were from time to time expressed by [Sophia]," he wrote.
Judge Cavanagh indicated the couple's involvement with the force was a likely contributor to the way complaints and reports were handled.
In his evidence to the inquest, NT Police Assistant Commissioner Michael White acknowledged there were "red flags" which should have been investigated more thoroughly.
"The Assistant Commissioner was of the view that there were a number of failures in the way the police dealt with the complaints," the coronial report stated.
Either way, Amy says the stress of nearly four years of court proceedings while still trying to process the loss of her only daughter has been crippling.
"At the end of the day, all you get is 'we're sorry', but [Sophia] is dead, and she should be here with her family and her daughter," she says.
But Amy says she finds strength in her daughter's memory.
"My daughter was strong and now I need to do that for her — I need to be just as strong as what she was."
*Names have been changed.