Warning: this article contains distressing content and the names of Aboriginal people who have died.
Grieving mother Dawn Smith has been waiting too long for justice that will never truly come, for her daughter Cindy.
In the early hours of Sunday, December 6, 1987, cousins 16-year-old Murrawarri and Kunja girl Mona Lisa ‘Mona’ Smith and 15-year-old Wangkumara girl Jacinta Rose ‘Cindy’ Smith were killed in a car crash near Bourke in north-west NSW.
A middle-aged non-Indigenous man, Alexander Grant, was seen by a farm worker with his arm draped across the bare chest of Cindy, who was nearly naked.
Last year, a coronial inquest found that Alexander Grant had been driving the car at the time of the crash and sexually assaulted Cindy after she had died.
NSW Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan also found that the concerns of the family were repeatedly dismissed; the initial police investigation was 'inexplicably deficient' and that racial bias within NSW Police at the time of the girls' deaths impacted the investigation.
Alexander Grant was tried and acquitted over the teenagers' deaths in 1990. He died in 2017.
He was also charged with indecent interference with a dead human body but the charge was dropped before the trial because it couldn't be decided if Cindy was alive or dead at the time Grant sexually assaulted her.
On Wednesday the NSW Parliament introduced legislation to close a legal loophole in the Crimes Act that will make it possible to prosecute offenders who commit acts of sexual violence, or indecently interfere with a body, when the time of death is unknown.
“We have waited too long for justice for our girls," Aunty Dawn said.
"Justice that will never come.
"I hope no-one ever has to go through what my Cindy went through, but if they do, I am comforted that these changes might help them find justice.
"We will always love and remember our girls.”
The National Justice Project worked with the Smith family during the coronial inquest, with chief executive George Newhouse saying the law reform was welcome but long overdue.
“Mona and Cindy were vibrant, much-loved Aboriginal girls whose lives were tragically cut short," he said.
"Their deaths devastated their families and communities but the pain did not end there, it was compounded by a series of legal and institutional failures that denied their families dignity, justice, and closure.
“The coronial inquest confirmed what the family have always known: that the legal system and police failed their daughters and failed them."
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Professor Newhouse said one of the most harrowing elements of the case was the decision not to proceed with charges against the man who sexually assaulted Cindy as she lay helpless by the side of the road.
"Because it could not be determined whether the assault occurred before or after Cindy’s death, the charge was ultimately dropped," he said.
"This legal technicality was deeply distressing for the family and a glaring example of a system ill-equipped to respond to the reality of such traumatic crimes.
"Thanks to the courage of Mona and Cindy’s families - and their unwavering demand for accountability – this is an important opportunity to change the law.
"While this reform cannot bring back Mona or Cindy, it is a meaningful step forward and a powerful legacy of their lives."
Cindy's older sister Kerrie said the family would never really see true justice.
"Because the bloke who done it, he died, he is gone," she said.
"He didn't even be in jail for one day, so he got away with everything where our little girls, my sister, my little cousin died out on the road out there and he lived his whole life to the full until he got sick or whatever happened to him.
"That's not really fair."
Strength through family
Aunty Dawn said she hoped no other family ever had to go through what her family had and thanked NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley for listening to them and introducing the law reform .
"I'm feeling hurt, really," she said.
"... But if we can help anyone, I'm willing to help them.
"The rest of my family, my daughter, my son, my son-in-law, they supported me.
"And every time I go to cry, they tell me not to, but it hurts and you can't help it.
"But when you think about my grandchildren, they probably need me fighting."
Kerrie said she hoped people understood that Cindy and Mona had been well loved by their family and community.
"We just want them to be remembered as loving and caring," she said.
"They used to look after my kids, my two boys, Sheldon and Neil, Mona and Cindy used to take them down to camp and look after them all the time.
"And they used to love kids, looking after children and babysitting kids.
"So we just want to remember them as a loving sister and daughter and niece."
Aunty Dawn said Mona and Cindy were good girls.
"But I've always wondered what she would've been like today, whether she got married and had kids - you think of all of these things and I miss them very much," she said.
"I don't do my crying around my kids.
"I wait till nighttime to do my crying on my own.
"Sometimes the boys might hear me come and ask me what's happening - I lie to them.
"I just say nothing.
"You got a pain, that's all."
13YARN 13 92 76
Aboriginal Counselling Services 0410 539 905
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
