William Tyrrell’s foster mother fights back against assault conviction

William Tyrrell’s foster mother is fighting to have her assault and intimidation convictions overturned on appeal, saying she was under “extraordinary” stress due to the “unique and heartbreaking” circumstances of the toddler’s disappearance, a court has heard.

The foster mother - who cannot be identified - was convicted over a number of incidents which relate to a child, who is not William, in 2021.

On Monday she appeared in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court in an effort to have her convictions for intimidation and assault, and her sentence, overturned on appeal.

She was found guilty of intimidation relating to threats to slap the child during an argument in 2021.

As part of the investigation into William’s disappearance, police planted surveillance devices in the home and car of William’s foster carers.

On a recording played to the court on Monday, the woman repeatedly admonished the child, saying at one point: “I’m going to slap you” and “I’m sick to death of it”.

However, her barrister John Stratton SC argued that the intimidation conviction should be quashed because it was incorrectly charged and the court attendance notice related to three separate incidents across a three-month period.

“You say there should have been three charges laid,” Judge Miiko Kumar asked during a hearing on Monday.

“Yes,” Mr Stratton said.

He further argued that the incident occurred at a time of an “extraordinary degree of emotional stress” for the woman who had been “living under the shadow” of William’s disappearance for years “without knowing what had been his fate”.

Mr Stratton told the court she had been subjected to “unfounded suspicions” that she was “somehow involved in (William’s) disappearance and death”.

The woman was also sentenced for two counts of assault after she pleaded guilty to kicking the child and hitting the child with a wooden spoon.

She was sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order.

The court heard the incidents occurred in January and October 2021 but she was not charged until November that year because police were waiting for her to appear at the NSW Crime Commission.

Mr Stratton submitted the wooden spoon incident was a case of “excessive lawful correction”.

He also argued she was remorseful, had apologised to the child after one of the incidents and expressed her distress to a friend on the phone.

Mr Stratton argued that she was unlikely to reoffend, had excellent prospects of rehabilitation and had expressed contrition.

He said the incidents were the result of the “unique and heartbreaking” set of circumstances surrounding William’s disappearance and the strain and stress she was under at the time.

He argued that no conviction should be recorded.

The woman was charged with lying to the secretive NSW Crime Commission after being asked about the wooden spoon incident.

And she was in November 2022 acquitted after a magistrate found it could not be found beyond a reasonable doubt that she had knowingly lied.

William was three-years-old when he vanished from his foster grandmother’s home at Kendall on the NSW Mid-North Coast in September 2014.

No one has been charged over his disappearance and suspected death.

The foster father was last year found guilty of one count of intimidating the child, with the court hearing the foster father had shouted and sworn at the tearful child while driving them to school.

His lawyers successfully argued the conviction ought to be quashed because the child was not asked about the incident, and whether they felt intimidated, during their evidence to the court.

Judge Sean Grant found that the man’s actions were similar to other parents “in those circumstances - a person who was stressed and using a loud and frustrated tone of voice to urge the child to close the door and get inside the car so they could make it to school in time.”

The hearing continues.