Australia: Police bungle helps confessed killer

A POLICE bungle means the man who helped a schoolgirl heroin victim shoot up will escape with a minor charge of drug supply despite admitting to police he "killed her". The decision comes eight months after an inquest heard fish shop worker Simon Munro admitted administering heroin that claimed 15-year-old Georgia Chant's life at Narrabeen in 2005. Munro, 27, will face court next month on a single charge of supplying a prohibited drug.

However the move, following the recommendations of the Director of Public Prosecution, has angered Georgia's family, who hoped the former actor from Scotland Island would face manslaughter charges. Georgia's mother Kerry Chant said yesterday the family was upset to learn a interview in which Munro admitted "killing" the teenager was inadmissible because he was not properly warned by police. The family wrote to the DPP, Nicholas Cowdery QC, seeking answers, but was told there was insufficient admissible evidence to lay manslaughter charges.

An angry Ms Chant said she felt abandoned by the system, after police failed to act when Georgia was first reported to be staying with Munro, 24 hours before she died. The low-grade charge was the final insult. "We are gutted . . . absolutely outraged," Ms Chant, who gave The Daily Telegraph permission to identify her daughter, said. "It just shows that somebody can do something so horrendous and get away with it."

The decision comes after Deputy State Coroner Dorelle Pinch terminated an inquest into Georgia's death in February, ruling there was enough evidence for a conviction against Munro, who admitted he helped the Clareville teenager inject herself because she was not doing it correctly. Georgia died after overdosing on a cocktail of heroin and sleeping pills on October 9, 2005, while staying in a Narrabeen unit Munro shared with his brother. Munro denied he was to blame for Georgia's death in an interview with The Daily Telegraph three weeks after the overdose.

The inquest was terminated after the confessed heroin addict refused to answer questions from the witness box.

Report here



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