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FOREVER YOUNG – AUSTRALIAN STORY revisits the errors made in the search for missing teenager, URSULA BARWICK

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A litany of errors and a blatant lack of investigation by NSW Police has been laid bare during evidence at a recent coronial inquest into the disappearance of Ursula Barwick.

Ursula Barwick (image – NSW Police Media)

The bubbly 17-year-old vanished without a trace in 1987.

Her family dropped her to the train station on the NSW Central Coast, where she was headed to Sydney to start a new job. But they never saw her again.

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Police failures in Ursula Barwick’s case were first raised in an Australian Story program in 2019. Evidence presented to the Coroner last month upheld many of the family’s concerns and documented a trail of errors and missed opportunities to piece together what had happened to her.

Stepmother, Liz Barwick, says:

“We now know through the evidence from the inquest that the missing persons report that Pete put in, there was no record of it. It appears that there was no investigation into her disappearance from day one,” 

Despite the evidence being available to locate Ursula weeks after she disappeared it took police 29 years to connect the dots.

Loren O’Keeffe from the Missing Persons Advocacy Network says:

“This inaction, this carelessness has led to three decades of absolute unnecessary, preventable torment for the family,” 

In the wake of widespread criticisms, the NSW Police Force launched a new Missing Persons Registry in 2019 and have updated procedures in relation to missing persons cases.

Watch Forever Young on Monday 26 April at 8pm on ABC TV + iview. You can watch replays on ABC NEWS channel on Wednesdays at 12:30am, Saturdays at 6:30pm and Sundays at 2:30pm and 9:30pm. All times are AEST.

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