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- Jessica Small inquest reopens
AN inquest into the death of missing Bathurst teenager Jessica Small yesterday heard that just hours before her abduction another young girl was followed by a man in a dirty white Commodore as she walked along Rocket Street.
The inquest into Jessica’s presumed murder is again under way before deputy State Coroner Sharon Freund at Bathurst Local Court House.
The coroner yesterday heard that on October 25, 1997, Kayla Brien had walked from her father’s house in Gladstone Street to the Rocket Street shops when she was followed and then approached by a man.
Ms Brien told the inquest she remembered feeling quite scared.
“I was extremely scared by the guy. I can’t recall if he was in his car when he approached me or was standing next to the car. But I ran home,” she told the inquest.
Ms Brien said she was so scared at one point she hid behind a tree so the man couldn’t follow her to her father’s house. When she got home, Ms Brien didn’t tell her father but instead told her mother when she picked her up later that morning.
When asked by counsel assisting the coroner Ian Bourke why she didn’t tell her father, Ms Brien said: “Because we weren’t close.”
She said as soon as her mother picked her up she told her what happened.
At the time of making her report, Ms Brien told Detective Terry Cosgrove, who took her statement, that the man was 178cm tall, with short brown hair and suntanned skin.
In the report she referred to the man’s vehicle as “a dirty white Holden Commodore”.
As best as she could recall Ms Brien told the inquest she didn’t know a lot about cars at the time and presumed the officer showed her photos to assist her in identifying the car.
When Mr Bourke asked Ms Brien if she recalled Jessica Small going missing she said she had no memory of it, although she said she knows when her mother heard about what happened to Jessica it prompted her to take her to the police station and make a statement.
Ms Brien’s mother, Rhonda Griffin, was the next witness at the inquest and said she was shocked when her daughter told her what happened and after talking to her rang her ex-husband.
She said at the time she thought about going to the police but her ex-husband told her he couldn’t see the point as by that stage it was five to six hours ago and every third or fourth car was a white Holden. After hearing about Jessica’s abduction on the news – and noting the similarity between the cars – Mrs Griffin said she went to the police with Kayla to make a statement on October 29, 1997.
She said after two weeks she assumed it wasn’t the same man because the police didn’t get back to her.
“I just put it away until March this year when Kayla told me the police had rung her, ” she said.
The inquest resumes today.