{"id":218391,"date":"2025-10-16T18:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T18:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/218391\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T18:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T18:55:10","slug":"police-incorrectly-binned-manslaughter-case-evidence-court-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/218391\/","title":{"rendered":"Police ‘incorrectly’ binned manslaughter case evidence, court hears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police destroyed evidence by mistake from a negligent manslaughter case including the accused’s mobile phone, a magistrate has heard.<\/p>\n

Emma Bates, 49, was found dead at her home at Cobram near the NSW<\/a>–Victoria<\/a> border on April 23, 2024.<\/p>\n

Her neighbour John Torney, 40, is facing a negligent manslaughter charge and other offences, which he denies.<\/p>\n

\"EmmaEmma Bates was found dead at her home at Cobram near the NSW-Victoria border last year. (Nine)<\/p>\n

Torney’s mother previously told a committal hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court that the two were in a relationship for about a fortnight and had argued in the lead-up to Bates’ death.<\/p>\n

Today, it was revealed property seized from Torney during his arrest including his phone and watch were “destroyed incorrectly” by an officer at Cobram police station.<\/p>\n

Detective Senior Constable Kim Sneddon told the court evidence had been labelled as usual but one of her colleagues incorrectly thought it was rubbish and threw it out.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Forensic pathologist Michael Bourke said Bates “absolutely” died from a serious condition involving high sugar levels. (Nine)<\/p>\n

She said by the time the mistake was realised the station’s skip bins had already been taken to landfill.<\/p>\n

“That telephone was destroyed before it could be analysed,” the officer said.<\/p>\n

“By the time I had already got on to it, it has already been crushed.”<\/p>\n

Detective Senior Constable Sneddon said Torney had been the only police suspect in this case.<\/p>\n

Forensic physician Jason Schreiber previously told the court Bates had methamphetamine in her system and her diabetes was “not well controlled” when she died.<\/p>\n

He said a large gash to the top of her head, a cut to her nose and bruising under her eye could not be attributed to a single fall.<\/p>\n

Today, forensic pathologist Michael Bourke said Bates “absolutely” died from a serious condition involving high sugar levels.<\/p>\n

“She died of diabetic ketoacidosis,” Dr Bourke told the court.<\/p>\n

He said anyone in that state needed treatment as soon as possible but could not say how quickly, likening it to the rhetorical question “how long is a piece of string?”<\/p>\n

“This woman was in diabetic ketoacidosis and without treatment she was going to die,” Bourke told the court.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Torney, 40, is facing a negligent manslaughter charge and other offences, which he denies. (Nine)<\/p>\n

He said medical evidence showed Bates suffered a head injury within 48 hours before her death but could not pinpoint which had caused a brain injury.<\/p>\n

“Any of them could have caused the brain injury, anything that caused a rotation to the brain,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said injuries of that nature may or may not have made the person become unconsciousness.<\/p>\n

Homicide Squad Detective Leading Senior Constable Lee Horsley said her specialist squad did not continue investigating the case after Bates’ post-mortem.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t have that direct link to a homicide as to cause of death,” she said.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Matthew Cookson has alleged Torney had taken on duty of care for Bates.<\/p>\n

However, Torney’s lawyer Hayden Rattray disputed that, asking for clarification of how they alleged his client voluntarily assumed that duty.<\/p>\n

The hearing will resume in November for final submissions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police destroyed evidence by mistake from a negligent manslaughter case including the accused’s mobile phone, a magistrate has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-218391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}