Police failed to prosecute a man who allegedly killed a bisexual race jockey and bar-hand in North Sydney with a metal tape dispenser three decades ago, an inquiry has heard.
A landmark royal-commission style inquiry into the deaths of gay men in NSW over four decades is examining the case of William Dutfield, an insular and lonely one-time race jockey and bar hand, who was allegedly murdered in his Mosman unit in November 1991 by his landlord and friend.
The special commission of inquiry is examining the approach of police to suspected hate crimes between 1970 and 2010.
The inquiry came after NSW Police released a report in 2018 on its own handling of crimes against LGBTQI people.
Strike Force Parrabell, a three-year review of 88 deaths from 1976 to 2000, concluded 23 deaths remained unsolved.
Seven cases from Parrabell's list are under examination in this block of hearings to determine whether they were properly investigated.
Counsel assisting William de Mars said Parrabell's analysis of the case was "disturbing" because it missed glaring inaccuracies and glossed over critical forensic gaps.
Retired lecturer Arthur Ashworth, aged 77 at the time of Mr Dutfield's death (now deceased), lived with Mr Dutfield for 10 years before renting a Mosman unit he owned to him.
Investigators three decades ago concluded instead that Mr Dutfield was a victim of a robbery by a male prostitute because he was bisexual.
But in 2008 Strike Force Hamish suggested Mr Ashworth had been the perpetrator, even though he was gay himself.
Mr Ashworth was called to give evidence at a 1994 inquest but wasn't considered to be a person of interest at the time.
Counsel de Mars said incriminating forensic evidence identified by Strike Force Hamish "should have been apparent" to investigators a few years later in Strike Force Parrabell.
These included Mr Ashworth's fingerprints on the tape dispenser found in the kitchen sink, a bloodied tissue and black cardigan left at the crime scene and neighbours hearing a heated argument and a loud thud afterwards.
"The totality of the available forensic evidence supports the view that Mr Ashworth was responsible for the attack," the inquiry heard.
"It must be said that it is highly surprising ... that Strike Force Parrabell appears to take no account of the key conclusion reached by police in the investigation of the matter by Strike Force Hamish - namely that the likely assailant was Arthur Ashworth."
In its 2018 report, Parrabell investigators said "it appears unlikely that sexuality or other bias was involved in the death of William Dutfield and it is most likely that the motive for assaulting Dutfield was robbery-related".
But Counsel de Mars lambasted the Parrabell review for failing to explicitly name his death as motivated by homophobic intent.
"The assertion that such a death could not be considered to be gay-hate bias related is not justified," Counsel de Mars explained.
He noted that Parrabell's labelling of the crime as falling outside the gay-hate crime bias indicators was short-sighted.
"The quality of the analysis disclosed by the bias crimes indicator form is disturbing," he argued adding that it was marred by "inaccuracies and inconsistencies".
"Were Arthur Ashworth still alive today, there would clearly be a basis to proceed to prosecute him for the unlawful killing of Mr Dutfield," Counsel de Mars concluded.
In the inquiry's first hearings, held late last year, assistant commissioner Anthony Crandell admitted past police indifference to gay bashings had been coupled with a tacit social tolerance of violence towards gay men.
