A senior missing persons officer was concerned the theory alleged Sydney fraudster Melissa Caddick ran away was being pursued "to the detriment of others" in the days after she disappeared, an inquest has heard.
Ms Caddick, 49, vanished on November 12, 2020 after the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) raided her Dover Heights home, in the city's eastern suburbs, over her alleged Ponzi scheme.
The inquest resumed on Monday in Sydney's Downing Centre, after two weeks of evidence in September.
It has previously heard the scheme allegedly involved fraud of between $20 million and $30 million.
Detective Chief Inspector Glen Browne, the then-manager of the NSW Missing Persons Registry, said the unit reviews every missing person report recorded in the police database.
He first became aware of the Caddick case on the Monday after her husband, Anthony Koletti, reported her missing and spoke to the initial officer in charge, Detective Sergeant Michael Kyneur.
"I pressed upon him the importance of keeping an open mind as to other lines of enquiry," he told the court.
An early risk assessment raised three possibilities; that Ms Caddick had self-harmed, that she may have been harmed by another person as a result of her pending prosecution, or that she may have been in hiding.
Chief Inspector Browne said he got the sense the line of enquiry about Ms Caddick hiding was being pursued "more heavily than the others", but that didn't mean others were being "neglected".
He again spoke to Sergeant Kyneur the following week, as well as Detective Inspector Gretchen Atkins, the Crime Manager of the Eastern Suburbs police area command.
"I felt that a specific line of enquiry was being prioritised to the detriment of others," he recalled.
But Chief Inspector Browne also said he was "comforted" by the fact the Sergeant Kyneur was involved, as he had some 20 years of experience as a detective and had worked on many missing persons cases.
Sergeant Kyneur was replaced as officer in charge, because Inspector Atkins believed the investigation may benefit from "a fresh set of eyes".
Sergeant Kyneur, who was recalled to give more evidence on Monday, disagreed with the suggestion he favoured one line of enquiry over the others.
"I had a view at that time about what happened, but I don't believe it was to the detriment of any other lines of enquiry," he told the court.
"For example, we didn't stop searching, we didn't stop canvassing. Those other lines of enquiry continued concurrently."
Sergeant Kyneur said the amount of information police were receiving increased after police held a media conference with Mr Koletti on November 20.
"As soon as the information was released into the media, there was just an avalanche of information that came forward," he recalled.
Chief Inspector Browne was also asked whether it was "a concern" that by February 2021, shortly before Ms Caddick's foot washed up on a south coast beach, only 20 per cent of the gathered CCTV footage had been reviewed.
"Potentially," he replied.
"But I don't know what material had been gathered and what material had been viewed. It's not unusual to gather CCTV from airports, buses, trains, so you prioritise the material that you gathered."
The court has previously heard Ms Caddick's mother and brother felt their "voice isn't being heard" at the inquest and wanted to give evidence.
But on Monday, Counsel Assisting Jason Downing SC said there was no statement the family would like to read.
The inquest has previously heard of a proposed police experiment involving pig carcasses fitted with tracking devices — and some with running shoes — being cast into the ocean, to explore the behaviour of sharks.
Chief Inspector Browne on Monday told the court the experiment still hasn't occurred and it "didn't necessarily relate to this matter".
"In NSW we have far too many people disappear from the shoreline," he told the court.
"We generally don't recover the bodies at all, so we proposed an experiment to gather some evidence about what is likely to happen to a human body that ends up unconscious in the ocean."
Chief Inspector Browne said discussions about the experiment began "well before" Ms Caddick vanished and a number of meetings took place.
"In the end, it didn't progress to a physical experiment because there were concerns about what the devices ... might do to a protected species, being a great white shark."
The inquest, before Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan, continues.
