ANITA COBBY

BusinessLIFE
UNSUNG HEROES • LEGACY BULIDERS • NETWORKERS
WWW.WSBA.COM.AU
Continued from page 25
tion no matter how bad it is that you and your
colleagues find out and I want to know every
bit of information. Some people left behind
after a homicide don’t want to know or need
to know. I want to know and I need to know
everything.”
When all the offenders were subsequently
caught, I was away from the police station following
a lead.
As I arrived back at the station, the offenders
were being brought in. Ugliness on two
legs. They were interviewed, walked around
the crime scene and charged. They showed no
emotion, no remorse or no regret. They were
only sorry they got caught, not sorry for the
murder.
When the interviewing, charging and
court appearance were finished an announcement
came over the station public address
system: “All available police to urgently
assemble at the front of the police station for
crowd control. I immediately put on my gun
and handcuffs. The entire Kildare Road was
packed with a crowd of about or so 500 people
yelling obscenities and threats towards the
perpetrators. I have never seen anything like it
before or since.
What amazed me was the composition
of the crowd. All ages, nationalities and both
genders. The terror and rage on their faces was
noticeable yet with some relief the offenders
had been captured and charged. It was a crowd
yelling threats of reprisal and wanting an eye for
an eye.
The Westfield Shopping Centre is opposite
the police station and word had spread
through the media and by word of mouth that
the Cobby killers were at Blacktown Police
Station.
Gracious: Anita’s parents Gary and Grace Lynch being interviewed.
Hanging from the roof of the Shopping
Centre carpark was a rope noose. The crowd
wanted to lynch them on the spot. The area
was in lockdown. The police virtually faced a
modern day lynch mob.
As the police vehicles came out with the
offenders, I recall the crowd lunged forward.
Along with other police I yelled: “Move back,
Move back.” Physical encounters started
occurring between the crowd and the police.
People looked straight through me and continued
to push forward.
They wanted a look at the offenders and
give them a mouth full of abuse. An elderly
lady of about 80-years-old looked at me and
said as she pointed to the nooses hanging from
the building opposite: “That’s what we’re going
to do with them and you’re going to let us.”
The rhythmic cries of: “Hang the bastards”
became very loud. Another woman looked at
me and said: “Do you have a daughter?” I said,
“No”. She said with rage in his eyes: “I do, let
me get the mongrels and string ‘em up.”
For John Travers, the word mercy was an
unknown. Even in the last act of throat slitting.
A wild cowardly act however, we couldn’t allow
street justice to prevail and the lynch mob was
restrained and controlled with a lot of difficulty
and high emotion.
One policeman told me he wanted to leave
the cops join the lynch mob and hang the
bastards.
So the police cars moved away and the
crowd slowly dispersed, but I have never
forgotten the scene. I am convinced beyond
doubt had the police lost control of the crowd,
they would have released the offenders from
the vans and hung them all by the neck until
dead.
One of the most amazing things about the
whole Cobby killing is the sheer grace shown
“
Every woman in the area
was terrified and it was
real fear, not perceived.
I had never seen people
so scared, hypersensitive
and hypervigilant. Even the
toughest blokes around the
streets of Blacktown were
anxious for two reasons.”
by Anita’s parents and the fact her father served
on the Parole Board for some years after the
murder.
One thing he did stipulate was that if any
of his daughter’s killers came before the board,
he would not attend as he had a conflict of
interest.
For Garry Lynch the loss of his daughter
pained him to his dying day. He said: “It feels
like a dagger goes through your heart.”
Grace Lynch said it was: “An experience
beyond thinking.” They helped establish the
Homicide Victim’s Support Group which is
an amazing non-profit organisation working
miracles in those left behind after a murder,
especially children. For a Christian like me, to
put such an act as the Anita Cobby murder into
perspective has been hard.
As I turned to the scriptures I thought perhaps
there’s help in the words of Romans 8:28:
“
And we know that all things work together for
good to those who love God, to those who are
the called according to His purpose”.
After all, there’s no way in which God can
be blamed for the crimes of the Travers gang.
This gang of five made their decision against
God’s will and the consequences of their sins
were catastrophic.
Does this offer some explanation? For
surely it well describes those who have no time
for God and God was the last person in the
mind of those five when they attacked Anita
Cobby. Perhaps they did know it was grossly
wrong but went ahead anyway.
At the trial, the judge said: “Wild animals
are given to assault and killing for the purpose
of survival. Not so these prisoners. They assaulted
in a pack for satisfying their lust and
killed for the purpose of identification.”
As Steve Liebmann, television presenter,
put it the Cobby case is: “A scar that will never
go away.” After an urgent change in legislation,
justly the files on the accused were marked,
never to be released.
For me there’s hope. As a Christian I believe
things will not always stay as they are.
A change is on the way: “God will wipe every
tear from their eyes. There will be no more
death or mourning or crying or pain, for the
old order of things has passed away” (Revelation
21: 3-4).
The memory of Anita Cobby should and
must be kept alive. Anita’s parents were never
the same after her murder. Garry Lynch passed
away recently followed by her mother.
The dark deeds of that night should never
be shrouded in mystery but kept clearly in the
light of truth. A woman was violated in a most
despicable way and we should never let this
act be forgotten.
26 WESTERN SYDNEY BUSINESS ACCESS JANUARY 2016