Thank you to Eliza from WIN News Canberra for allowing us a voice on the 22nd anniversary of Who Killed Irma.
Minister Gentleman’s response to our plea lacks any compassion, care or understanding of what families endure losing a loved one to serious crime in the ACT. The waiting and searching for answers only to be pushed aside and discarded by a lack of interest as he has clearly shown over the last two years is abhorrent.
It is not just a slap in the face for Irma and Gregors family, but also for the families of Frank Campbell, Kathryn Grosvenor, Allen Redston, Karen Rowland and Susan Winburn. All these families also mourn the loss of their loved ones greatly. Mr Gentleman, if crime rates are so low in the ACT, why do Police lack the resources to follow up on investigations. Perhaps with the lack of apathy you have shown, you should hand over the portfolio to someone who is more committed.
Our family has been waiting 22 years for justice, we have begged and pleaded for someone in the community who knows what happened to come forward. Every year we have been out on the roadside putting up corflutes, running social media campaigns and handing out flyers in the hope someone might have just the small part of the puzzle that would help police solve the crime.
But it’s hard to contemplate that no matter how much effort we go to getting people to come forward, to think that the information that is provided doesn’t necessarily get followed up because ACT policing have insufficient resources or funding to be able to do anything with it. It has taken pressure and persistence from our family for the last two years to be able to secure the necessary resources from an already stretched Police force to work on our case again with zero help or input from the ACT Police Ministers office.
We have the most amazing people working in our Police force. They care so much, they go above and beyond, but there just aren’t enough of them. When you realise that they are stretched so thin, apparently the lowest numbers per capita in the country, we just can’t help but think there has got to be something wrong with the way Government funding is allocated.