Corrective Services NSW is investigating how a journalist interviewed a couple convicted of abusing their daughter for a podcast. The victim expressed that the podcast has harmed her mental health.
Key points
Corrective Services NSW is investigating unauthorized inmate interviews
The podcast raised questions about the couple's guilt
The victim reported negative mental health effects from the podcast
Interviews were conducted by journalist Richard Guilliatt
Inmate identities were protected in the podcast
Mentioned in this story
Corrective Services NSWRichard Guilliatt
Corrective Services New South Wales is investigating how a journalist from The Australian was able to interview a man and a woman convicted of abusing their daughter for a podcast that raised questions about their guilt.
According to Corrective Services NSW, journalists are not permitted to visit inmates or interview them by phone without written permission from the agency.
Guardian Australia understands that the journalist, Richard Guilliatt, did not have permission to conduct interviews with the inmates, whose telephone calls with him from jail were recorded. In the podcast, Shadow of Doubt, they were not named and their voices were distorted to protect their identities.
“Community safety is a top priority for Corrective Services NSW,” a spokesperson told Guardian Australia. “Corrective Services NSW takes our responsibility to protect and support victims of crime seriously. We are looking into the circumstances of this case, but we do not comment on individual inmates’ circumstances.”
In 2023 The Australian published Guilliatt’s eight-part podcast investigation featuring extensive interviews with William “Rob” Gilfillan and Karen Gilfillan, who were jailed in 2016 for the sexual abuse of their daughter for 14 years on a rural property in northern NSW.
Guilliatt began reporting on the case in 2017. The podcast claimed it might have been a “grave miscarriage of justice”.
The couple told him: “We’re innocent … these things just did not happen.”
The theory was based largely on the argument that “no one noticed the abuse”.
Q&A
What is the investigation by Corrective Services NSW about?
The investigation concerns how a journalist was able to interview a convicted couple without proper permission.
How did the podcast affect the victim of the abuse?
The victim stated that the podcast was highly detrimental to her mental health.
Who conducted the interviews with the jailed couple?
The interviews were conducted by journalist Richard Guilliatt for the podcast titled 'Shadow of Doubt.'
What are the legal restrictions on interviewing inmates in NSW?
Journalists are not allowed to visit or interview inmates without written permission from Corrective Services NSW.
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“I don’t believe any of it,” Guilliatt quoted a family friend saying in 2017. “Honestly, I cannot see it.”
Another woman quoted in The Australian said: “I’ve thought long and hard about it; I’ve looked back and asked myself, ‘Could this really be true?’ And in the end I’ve decided that there is just no way it is possible.”
Guilliatt floated the theory that the victim’s allegations “were based on recovered memories or ‘dissociative flashbacks’”.
The 2016 guilty verdict, and sentence of 48 years for the father, was upheld in the court of criminal appeal and in the high court.
An editorial in The Australian in 2023 said the victim’s story was “manifestly implausible”.
Guilliatt did not respond to a request for comment but defended the podcast after it was criticised by the victim in a series of articles in news.com.au last month.
“I take my professional responsibilities very seriously,” Guilliatt told the news.com.au journalist Nina Funnell. “Efforts were made to present a nuanced picture of this case and the many issues it raises.”
The Australian did not respond to questions from Guardian Australia but has defended the podcast as public interest investigative journalism.
“The news.com.au reporting of the case includes criticism of the podcast for interviewing the convicted pedophile and his wife and reporting notes from [the victims’] counselling and psychiatric treatment,” its editorial said.
“Such criticism mischaracterises public interest investigative journalism. And further restricting what can be reported from an already opaque justice system would not serve the public interest.
“Claims of miscarriages of justice and concerns about the failings of our mental health system warrant meticulous media scrutiny.”
The Gilfillans were not named in Shadow of Doubt, or other media, because there were suppression orders in place until a jury returned a verdict in a case in the Victorian courts against Rob Gilfillan.
He was found guilty of five charges of abuse committed against two schoolgirls when he was a physical education teacher in Gippsland in the 1980s.
