THE profound impacts and many layers of grief and devastation that gay hate crimes have had on the community are made plain by the lifelong experience of the Russell family.
Peter Russell and his partner of 37 years, Donna Hannah, still mourn the loss of Peter's brother, John Russell, likely murdered in November, 1989.
Together, they have sat through many days of a gay hate inquiry, including the recent hearing focused on 'the Bondi cases' of Mr Russell and two other men who died or disappeared near Bondi's Marks Park in the 1980s.
In the 34 years since John's death there have been three inquiries before this one, as well as police investigations, a book, endless interviews and requests for input and cooperation
From their family home in Cardiff South Mr Russell and Ms Hannah say they are now just waiting for the inquiry's commissioner, supreme court justice John Sackar, to deliver a final report in August.
They hope it will finally open some of the doors closed on their many unanswered questions but they know better than to speculate, put too much weight on what might happen next.
Peter and John were living together in Bondi when in November 1989, John's lifeless body was found on the rocks beneath the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk around Marks Park, a popular gay beat.
John was 31-years-old when he died. It was later revealed he had human hairs in his left hand and his body was in an unusual position for misadventure or suicide, with his head and shoulders facing towards the cliff, and his legs facings towards the sea.
Police ruled John's death as accidental and no attempts to further investigate the matter as a homicide were made after 1990. Peter and Donna have been fighting ever since to find out what happened.
"I was the first person accused," Mr Russell said. "It was three days later. After I identified the body. They took me into a room and said, why'd you do it?"
Their grandfather had died just four weeks before, and the boys were in for an inheritance.
But the police were asking the wrong questions. The boys were close - super close. They still lived together in the family home they grew up in, on Ocean Street, Bondi, looking their grandfather together. Peter was a single dad, and John had helped him raise his son, Allen, aged 12 at the time.
"Already at a tragic time in my family's life with the loss of my grandfather four weeks prior, the loss of another loved one in my brother further devastated myself, my son and my partner," Peter told the inquiry. "The grief was hard to take."
John was planning to leave Sydney and build a 'kid home' on his father's property at Wollombi, as well as to do some travelling around Australia.
On the night of Wednesday, November 22, 1989, he had farewell drinks with a friend at the Bondi Hotel, and had a similar evening planned for the following night, and then he was due to drive to Wollombi together with his father, Ted on the Friday.
His death was not investigated as a homicide, even though some police involved in the investigation suspected he had been the victim of an assault.
That suspicion arose from a number of factors including the location of his body, known at the time to be a gay beat, and police awareness of assaults on gay men in the area of the beat.
The lead counsel assisting the New South Wales special inquiry into LGBTQ+ hate crimes, Peter Gray, SC, recently formally submitted that it was "highly probable" that John "met his death at the hands of one or more gay hate assailants".
- Peter Russell and Donna Hannah will appear on SBS's Insight on Tuesday night, at 8.30pm
