By Ann Marie Angebrandt
SHIRLEY Irwin vows she will change Victoria’s laws if it’s the last thing she ever does.
She says she owes it to her two daughters, Colleen, 23, and Laura, 21, who were viciously murdered in Altona North last January.
“They could have been anyone’s family, sisters, daughters,” she said from her small hometown of Toolamba, near Shepparton, where she spends much of her time in a memorial garden built for her only two children.
“Unfortunately, they were mine.”
Shirley and husband Allan were devastated when a coronial inquest earlier this month refused to examine why convicted rapist, William Watkins, 35, was placed next door to the sisters after he was released early on parole.
“That’s where we really wanted answers,” said Shirley.
“All the coroner did was tell us who killed them and we know damn well who it was.”
Melbourne QC Peter Faris has volunteered to help the Irwins fight to introduce a law that would publicise the names, photos, addresses and conviction histories of sexual offenders.
Similar legislation, known as Megan’s Law, has been effect in the US since 1996.
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“If it prevents just one family from having to go through what we have, it will be worth it,” she said.
Mr Faris said he is taking the “extremely unusual course” of asking for a new inquest, with a new coroner.
He will take the matter as far as the Supreme Court if necessary.
“We don’t want him [Coroner Dyson Hoare-Lacy] back again because he got it wrong,” he said.
Mr Faris said a coroner can comment on anything related to deaths under investigation, including public safety.
“He could have asked why an incredibly violent rapist was placed next to these two girls and close to schools as well,” he said.
The Irwins will also challenge whether justice was properly administered when Watkins was released on parole after serving only two years of a four-year sentence for a previous rape.
“The Irwins expected these answers from the coroner and they got nothing,” Mr Faris said.
A State Government spokesman said Victoria already had some of the toughest sex offence laws in Australia, including a monitoring act for repeat offenders.
But Mr Faris said it was insufficient.
“The surveillance part of it is only used in the most extreme cases like Mr Baldy,” he said.
“There’s no way Watkins would have been considered extreme.”
Watkins, who had a long criminal history, was shot dead in Western Australia three days after he murdered the girls, then drove nearly non-stop across the country.
An unknowing policeman pulled him over for allegedly stealing petrol.
The officer was forced to shoot when Watkins began assaulting him while being questioned.
Mrs Irwin said Watkins’ road-side death was a fitting end to his “pathetic, horrible life.”
“If he was put in jail, some stinking judge would have him out by now.”
The Irwin sisters had moved to Melbourne to live in the family’s Millers Rd investment property and establish their rapidly rising careers.
Laura worked in the graphics department at Network 10, and Colleen was a talented photographer.
“We believed they were on their way to bright, magnificent futures,” Mrs Irwin said.
“Never in a million years did we imagine this.”
