justice dies too

This is a horror story. A parental nightmare. A 12-year-old girl was killed while innocently walking home from school two years ago and her mother still doesn’t know who killed her.  To make things worse she has a fair idea. But she has been abandoned by police and the legal system.

It would appear Annalise Van Dorssen was the victim of a brutal and sadistic thrill killing after she was dropped off the school bus and started the short walk home in March 2006.

As her mother, Lisa, so painfully explains in an e-mail, ‘within minutes of disembarking  a person driving a four wheel drive vehicle drove off the road and onto the side  nature strip running over Annalise. According to police, the driver following the  initial contact, then reversed over her and then once again drove off over her crushing this beautiful girl. Annalise was some two meters from the road edge and well away from the busy road.’

 Two days later a young man, Kyle Gordon, went to police and said he was driving
 a similar vehicle to the one that was wanted and was in the area at the time. His vehicle was impounded while Police investigated the case and eventually Gordon was charged with a number of offences.

A passenger in the  car reportedly told Police that Gordon had driven off the road to run over what he  thought was a bag of rubbish.

Two years down the track, after repeated adjournments and court manoeuvering, All charges were dropped against Kyle Gordon due to lack of evidence. The fact  that he is the son of a prominent W.A police officer obviously had nothing to do with it.

What hurts Annalise’s mother even more is the failure of the DPP to answer
 any of her questions, provide her with any of the witness statements and
 the haunting memory that  Gordon, not long after her daughter’s death, said to
 her, in tears, that he was sorry.

This bewildered and angry mother understandably wants answers. The courts haven’t  done that for her, neither has the DPP, nor the  Corruption and Crime Commission, nor various government departments.

Lisa Anderson said in her e-mail to me:

‘ So who does care about the shocking death of my beautiful 12 year old girl? No one can imagine the pain and heartache associated with seeing your only child dead on the side of the road in a broke battered way.’

She says: ‘As a result of this terrible day, I have lost my marriage, my capacity to work, my sanity as I now suffer depression, my friends in Perth as I could no longer  live in the city and most importantly  my best friend, Annalise.’

There is not even a semblance of justice being done, let alone being seen to be done, in this case. It is a shocking scandal.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2008