Lindy Cameron - I Got the Shit Car

I GOT THE SHIT CAR

by

Lindy Cameron

On Father's Day in Australia in 2005, Robert Farquharson drove his car and threesons in a dam in country Victoria. The estranged husband and loving father was the only one tosurvive.

One otherwise ordinary day in June 2005, Greg King was chatting to his mate Roboutside their local fish and chip shop. Rob was complaining about the raw deal he'd got in theseparation from his wife. He not only had to pay this and pay that for his kids, who continued tolive with her, but now she was going to marry 'the fucking dickhead' that was her new boyfriend.

What's more, he whinged, 'I got the shit car; she gets to drive around in the good car'.

Given the rate of separation and divorce in Australia - or, indeed, the western world - thisgripe probably gets aired somewhere in the country on at least a daily basis. Some blokes, who arereally pissed off about the car, might drive it accidentally into a tree so they can get a newer oneon the insurance. Some blokes might do a runner so they don't have to pay maintenance.

For some blokes though it's not really about the car, or even the money; it's not even aboutsupporting the kids - because they love their kids. For some blokes it's all about the ex-wife.

Greg King had possibly even heard that particular whinge from his mate Rob before; but he'd neverheard what came next before. And though he was shocked, he didn't believe what he heard; or rather,he didn't believe his childhood friend was serious.

For the rest of his life however, Greg King - bus driver and father - will regret that he didn'trealise how angry his mate was; that it wasn't just talk; that his mate was serious about gettingback at his ex-wife - in the most vindictive, horrible and final way possible.

King stood there that day listening to the litany of ex-husband woes, who should pull up in 'thebetter car' and head into the same takeaway shop but Rob's ex-wife.

And that's when the whinge turned nasty. That's when Robert Farquharson revealed the blight onhis soul; or what the judge at his trial later called his 'dark contemplation'.

Looking through the window at Cindy Gambino, the mother of his sons, Farquharson said, 'She isnot going to do that to me and get away with it'.

Robert Farquharson confided that he wanted to take away the things that were most important toher.

King asked him, 'What would that be Robbie?' When Farquharson nodded through the window, Kingsaid, 'What, the kids?'

When Farquharson said yes, King asked, 'What would you do, would you take them away orsomething?'

Farquharson stared at his friend. 'Kill them.'

'Bullshit,' King said to him. 'It's her own flesh and blood, Robbie.'

'So I hate them.'

King asked Farquharson how he would do this thing.

Robert Farquharson said, 'It would be close by. There'd be an accident involving a dam where Isurvive and the kids don't. It would be on a special day.'

'What kind of special day?' King asked him.

'Something like Father's Day,' Farquharson said, 'so she'd remember it when it was Father's Day;and I was the last one to have them for the last time, not her. Then she would suffer every Father'sDay for the rest of her life'.

King warned his mate, 'You don't even dream of that stuff, Robbie.'

Greg King shouldn't feel bad because he didn't do anything about what he heard thatday. And he certainly shouldn't feel guilty, though his experience could now serve as a warning toother men whose mates confide in them.

But really, without hindsight, who the hell would have believed that kind of threat?

For a start, what kind of man could even 'say' he hated his owns sons - just because they werealso 'hers' - let alone mean it?

Secondly who would be stupid enough to describe exactly what eventually came to pass; and thenclaim it was an accident?

An accident?

Not even coincidence is that cruel - or specific.

Three months later, when the TV and radio news broke one Sunday night that a familycar had plunged into a dam west of Geelong and that three young boys, at least, had not survived thecrash, the wider community took a collective breath of shock and grief.

It was Father's Day.

What a horrible thing to have happen on Father's Day. What a tragedy. How must the poor parents,if they survived, be feeling?

Then the news carried a bit more detail. The only other person in the car had been the boys'father, who'd been taking his sons 'home' to their mother after an access visit.

Community sympathy twisted in a moment. Although many people - many of us - probably cursed ourcynicism, we still thought, 'Oh my god, what a bastard. He obviously drove into that dam onpurpose'.

We were even more convinced when we learned that the father, the bastard, had survived.

His sons - aged 10, seven and two years old - had not.

But while we all just put two and two together - unfairly and with no evidence - there was oneman who knew that it was in fact so.

Greg King broke down at work on September 5, the morning after Father's Day, when he learned thatRobert Farquharson's three boys had died exactly the way his good mate had said they would.

The young Farquharson brothers Jai, Tyler and Bailey, drowned in a dam not too far from home,trapped in their father's shit car.

The police, emergency services and even the media gave Farquharson the benefit ofthe doubt in those first few days after the tragedy.

Initial news stories told how, just after 7 pm, Farquharson's car had run off the road aboutseven km east of Winchelsea; how he had tried unsuccessfully to save his sons; how he'd thenstruggled from the dam and made it to the road where he flagged down a car.

His own mobile was wet and useless and the driver of the car that stopped didn't have one.Farquharson begged to be taken into Winchelsea to raise the alarm.

Friends and family members then rushed back to the dam.

When the CFA and SES crews arrived at the chaotic scene at about 8 pm, other people were alreadydesperately searching for the boys. But it was dark, and no-one had been able to determine exactlywhere the car had entered the water.

CFA volunteers, attached to ropes, dived into the dam to join the search, but it wasn't untilclose to 11 pm that police divers finally found the car and its little occupants.

Acting Inspector Mick Talbot, of the major collision investigation unit, announced that theFarquharson bothers had been freed from their seatbelts.

'We don't now for sure, but our belief is that one of the children has released them all fromtheir seatbeltsbut they have been unable to get out of the car,' he said.

Newspapers the next day said the incident was being treated by police as a 'tragic accident'.Inspector Talbot said that 'somehow' the Farquharson family car left its lane of the PrincesHighway, crossed the opposite Geelong-bound lane, broke through a post-and-wire farm fence, andskipped 'like a stone' into the dam before vanishing into eight metres of dark water.

The car left no skid marks; there were no signs of speeding; and the breath tests done after theaccident showed that no alcohol was involved in the tragedy.

Inspector Talbot said police had, 'spoken to the driver of the car very, very briefly.

'As you can appreciate,' he said, 'we haven't been able to get much sense out of him at themoment because his three kids have been killed.'

Gradually, although it didn't take long, the facts of what really happened thatFather's Day night began to emerge. One of the strangest things, at first, was that the driver ofthe car that Farquharson flagged down did, in fact, have a mobile phone.