The Queensland coroner, Terry Ryan, will revive an inquest into the death of Daniel Morcombe, raising the prospect of fresh scrutiny of the eight-year investigation it took police to convict his killer.
An inquiry into the schoolboy’s fate, which was adjourned after serial paedophile Brett Peter Cowan was charged in 2011, is set to resume by early 2017.
It reportedly follows a written plea by Daniel’s parents, Bruce and Denise, that Ryan examine mistakes made by police after their son’s disappearance from a Sunshine Coast bus stop in 2003.
The investigation, the largest in Queensland police history, concluded after an elaborate undercover sting duped Cowan into making a confession and leading police to the site of Morcombe’s killing and his remains.
The Courier-Mail reported the Morcombes – tireless child safety campaigners who also support the controversial measure of sex offender registries – wanted a focus on issues with the investigation into Cowan to “ensure lessons have been learnt”.
It follows new details of an alleged vigilante prison attack on their son’s killer, also published by the newspaper.
Cowan allegedly had a bucket of boiling water thrown over him – known in prison as a “hot shower” - by an inmate who yelled: “This is for Daniel.”
The alleged attacker was a a mentally impaired man suspected of acting on the instructions of another inmate, the newspaper said.
Both Cowan and his alleged attacker, who later slashed himself with a razor blade inside the detention unit at Wolston Correctional Centre, are undergoing treatment in Princess Alexandra hospital in Brisbane.
Cowan had previously been marked as a “bash on sight” among prisoners while on remand, meaning inmates themselves faced bashings were they not to seize an opportunity to do him harm.
Solicitor Tim Meehan told the Courier-Mail it was not for other prisoners to dispense “vigilante” punishment to his client, currently serving a life sentence.
Meehan said it was “disappointing” Wolston’s general manager had seen fit to move Cowan from a protective cell, given the threats he faced.
“There’s an awful lot of ill feeling towards him but vigilante justice is something that has never been condoned by the courts,” Meehan said.
Claims of mishandling in the investigation of Morcombe’s disappearance include complaints by the first investigator to talk to Cowan, constable Ken King, that superiors did not take seriously enough his assessment that Cowan was a “red-hot suspect”.
King told Cowan’s trial a recording of a December 2013 conversation with Cowan later went missing.
Delays in checking Cowan’s alibi and testing of forensic samples of his car have previously been raised in inquest hearings, the Courier-Mail reported.
A spokesman for Ryan said the coroner was “still considering the scope of the issues to be considered” at future inquest hearings, which would likely run over “two to three further days”.
Cowan eventually led police to the site of the murder and made a detailed confession after being duped by officers posing as members of a crime gang.
The police use of that method of sting, known as the “Mr Big” scenario and put forward by Western Australia police where Cowan had moved after the killing, survived a high court challenge by Cowan this year.
