The Northern Territory coroner has referred a nurse's suspicious death to police and prosecutors, after her partner told an inquest he “can’t 100 per cent say” whether he did something that caused her to take a deadly cocktail of alcohol and sedatives.
On Friday, Judge Elisabeth Armitage released her findings on the death of Katrina Hawker, 43, from the combined effects of alcohol and temazepam.
The inquest, in June, was told Ms Hawker was a registered nurse at the Royal Darwin Hospital and colleagues had described her as dedicated, professional and reliable.
In her findings, Judge Armitage said neighbours of Ms Hawker and her partner Peter Scammell had reported hearing frequent arguing and one neighbour described the relationship as “very toxic”.
Judge Armitage wrote that Mr Scammell had woken early on September 12, 2020 and began drinking vodka. He drove to Howard Springs Tavern with Ms Hawker and they played pool.
He bought a bottle of vodka from a nearby bottle shop on their way home to Palmerston.
Mr Scammell had raised the alarm at 6.30pm, telling a neighbour, “I think Kat’s dead”.
In her findings, Judge Armitage recounted an exchange between counsel assisting Clancy Dane and Mr Scammell.
Mr Dane: “You have this big argument with Katrina on the day. You call your friend of 21 years … and you say that you are going to kill her. She dies of a mixture of alcohol and temazepam. There is vodka in the room and a box of temazepam, and the only fingerprints they can identify on those two things are yours?”
Mr Scammell: “Yes”.
Mr Dane: “You change your story about some of the key details over time about where you were, where you were coming from. And then one of your other best friends starts going around telling people that you had made a confession to them?”
Mr Scammell: “Yes”.
Mr Dane: “Even if you don’t actually remember what happened that day, do you think it is possible that you did something to cause Katrina to ingest that temazepam?”
Mr Scammell: “I cannot remember anything from that day ... But I just can’t see myself doing that.”
Mr Dane: “You don’t know?”
Mr Scammell: “No.”
The coroner: “It might have happened? Is that what you are saying?”
Mr Scammell: “No. Well, I can’t 100 per cent say that it didn’t happen or it did happen. I’m just saying I can’t remember what happened.”
Judge Armitage noted evidence that Mr Scammell had been intermittently unfaithful to Ms Hawker and that he was “physically intimate” with an old high school friend eight days after his partner’s death.
In one of his five interviews with police, Mr Scammell said that Ms Hawker had threatened to leave him on several occasions because of his drinking. Ms Hawker also told her sister she was planning on leaving.
“The end of a relationship is a known risk factor for domestic violence,” Judge Armitage said.
There was “a distinct lack of evidence” that Ms Hawker committed suicide, she said. Ms Hawker had just bought a new car, was planning to go camping, had changed her annual leave plans and had booked a lunch date with a friend.
Judge Armitage wrote that she believed that an offence may have been committed in connection with Ms Hawker's death and she was reporting the matter to police and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
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