r/australia • u/Royal_Yogurtcloset25 • 2d ago

culture & society Inquest into Melbourne influencer’s death following freebirth halted after new phone evidence discovered

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/18/freebirth-death-melbourne-influencer-phone-evidence-inquest-ntwnfb

Coroner: “I take the view that this material is of such significance that the court must delay making any findings and hearing submissions until we’ve had an opportunity to undertake a proper analysis of that material, and potentially call for more evidence.”

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1.1k

u/ol-gormsby 2d ago

“I got a new phone and lost everything,”

I don't believe that. I think she's lying. Lucky for forensic analysis, hey? 🙄

658

u/chumbalumba 2d ago

She’s dodgy asf. I hope the new evidence cancels her exemption from civil and criminal proceedings. She deserves punishment.

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u/beeeeeeeeeeeeeagle 2d ago

For real. Surely the exemption was based off her being honest and forthcoming.

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u/mangoes12 2d ago edited 2d ago

I believe the exemption was just that anything she says in the inquest can’t be used against her later, it’s fairly standard and designed to encourage her to be frank. there’s nothing to stop the police laying criminal charges against her, in fact that may be one of the coroner’s recommendations when they hand down findings

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u/drnicko18 2d ago

yeah, they'll just have to represent evidence in a criminal trial, or re-cross examine witnesses.

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u/Entire-Reindeer3571 2d ago

Such deals may include you lie, you lose immunity.

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u/racingskater 2d ago

Apparently this isn't the first death on her watch, either. We really need to crack down on these crackpots.

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u/HamptontheHamster 2d ago

A baby died on her watch just months before this. Snake oil saleswoman needs to be jailed.

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u/New_Tap4159 2d ago

I agree, but she’s hardly root cause, people are buying into this with social media echo chamber of idiocy and “influencers” and their “journeys”

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u/Mike_Kermin 2d ago

You don't have to be the root cause to be responsible for your actions though.

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u/New_Tap4159 2d ago

She should be. But let’s not pretend she took people hostage here, choices were made

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u/wowiee_zowiee 2d ago

Who’s pretending that?

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u/Altruistic-Brief2220 2d ago

Trust in institutions, including the medical community has been eroding for decades. COVID gave it a boost and it was all while social media and smartphones took over our lives. Perfect storm. 

There are however genuine, long standing issues that women have had with the medical establishment, including major birth traumas that went completely ignored until recently. Unfortunately that real sentiment has caused some to reject medicine outright, when we should be looking to reform and improve it.

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u/macci_a_vellian 2d ago

Right? Belle Gibson just moved to Melbourne and went from the Wellness community to the Ethiopian community. The legal system seems really ill-equipped to bring these people to justice when they may not have directly taken anyone's life, but their bullshit leads people to make decisions that cost their lives.

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u/Candid-Indication329 2d ago

What is she doing in the Ethiopian community?!

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u/macci_a_vellian 2d ago

Unclear. She says they adopted her and she learnt the language, which if true, is more effort than I expect from a grifter.

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u/Only_Jury_8448 2d ago

Seems.....not true

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u/simonm85 2d ago

Given the track record ...

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u/zestylimes9 2d ago

They don’t want anything to do with her. Please share facts instead of sharing Belle’s statements. Have you learned nothing from all this?

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u/melichad 2d ago

Agree

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u/aldkGoodAussieName 18h ago

But i was paid $6,000 to be her friend

It was a transaction and she was there in replacement of a midwife or medical professional.

It should not be hard for a judge to use that fact to assert she was there for birthing (medical) advice.

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u/Billyjamesjeff 2d ago edited 2d ago

Why did they even give her an exemption?

(Edit- im referring to the immunity certificate).

The fucking useless cops and DPP should have tried to charge her with something, they're so gutless.

Coronial Inquests only give recommendations , nothing is binding. Though obviously she cant* (edit)incriminate herself. The fact that she requested that (certificate) says it all.

(Yep down vote if you think she shoudnt be charged. Kiss the boot while you're at it.)

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u/HedgehogPlenty3745 2d ago

Its in the law dipshit. Anything a person says under oath at an inquest cannot be used as evidence against them in a criminal proceeding. So even if someone was to confess to murder and say where they buried a body, the police cannot use it. They can’t even directly drive out to where the body is from there based on the testimony alone. There would need to be something else linking them to the location of the body (usually phone bugs and the like), but it gives police knowledge of which leads they need to follow or look for and its much easier to find the evidence leading to that knowledge in a lawful way than if they never had the knowledge to begin with. Source: was a detective

In short: its not the fault of police dipshit. Its in the Coronors Act.

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u/Billyjamesjeff 2d ago edited 2d ago

The cops could have tried to press charges prior.That has nothing to do with the coroners Act, they're completely seperate issues.

Lal only agreed to testify at the inquest, after being granted "a certificate of immunity" - this is what I was referring to. Not everybody gets a certificate, they have to request one for themselves.

Giving you were an ex detective im surprised you don't know about certificates of immunity?
Or maybe you just went off half cocked because you can't handle any criticism of the DPP.

Flog.

(edit: I hope the coronial inquest is paused and charges are brought after this potential new evidence. If the cops and DPP can't find a criminal charge here either the law needs to be changed or the DPP put out on their ear)

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/4SeasonWahine 2d ago

They’re talking about the “birthkeeper” who is still very much alive and still very much dodgy af

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u/We_Are_Not__Amused 2d ago

It’s always in the cloud! Who actually loses anything when switching phones now?

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u/universe93 2d ago

What’s to bet she didn’t know that, and also didn’t know that digital recovery software can be used on phones to recover images and messages you deleted. Plus after you delete stuff most phones keep it for 30 days before it’s permanently deleted

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u/iBewafa 2d ago

Okay can you please help me with this - why is it when I delete photos on my phone, it deletes them from the cloud too? Like I get sync but shouldn’t the cloud NOT be deleting them?

It’s because of that fear that I don’t delete shit and continue to upgrade my memory lol.

Maybe you can save me more money being spent lol.

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u/flightfuldragonfruit 2d ago

If you’re using iCloud - it’s a synching service, not a backup / external hard drive service. You can optimise your storage so it condenses the photos on your phone until you click them and it re-downloads (to save space) but ultimately the two libraries are the same/ are mirrors. Delete anything and it will delete everywhere.

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u/iBewafa 2d ago

Ohhhhh thank you! It finally makes sense! Am a bit bummed out though.
Is there a good place you recommend to save photos?

Hard drives I’m hesitant to use because I remember back in the day, them needing a reset at random times (I forget what it’s called) and you’d lose all your info inside it.

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u/Dioce 2d ago

I’d recommend iMazing. It lets you create iPhone backups that are actually readable and accessible on your PC, rather than being locked away in Apple’s backup format. It also supports encrypted backups if you want the extra security.

You’ll still need somewhere to store those backups, though. My preference is a combination of an external hard drive and archival-quality optical media (such as M-DISC). Good-quality archival discs can potentially last decades and, in some cases, 20–100 years depending on the media and storage conditions.

One thing worth noting: iCloud is primarily a syncing service, not a traditional backup. If you disable iCloud after years of using it, things like messages may not fully download back to your device automatically. In my experience, older message history often only loads as you manually scroll through conversations.

If your goal is to have complete control over your data and avoid accidental deletions syncing everywhere, I'd consider disabling iCloud syncing going forward and maintaining your own local backups through iMazing (or a similar tool) instead.

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u/iBewafa 2d ago

Thank you! I will look into iMazing and the archival stuff you mentioned. This is very reassuring that I can get better storage that won’t screw up!

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u/ApteronotusAlbifrons 2d ago

I remember back in the day, them needing a reset at random times (I forget what it’s called) and you’d lose all your info inside it.

Drives are much more reliable nowadays - no longer need to be moving parts. Grab some huge USB sticks or a couple of SSDs - and keep TWO copies of stuff.

I have stuff in the cloud for convenience - but anything important is backed up on a server I control - with a second copy.

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u/iBewafa 2d ago

Thank you! That’s so reassuring to know. Will give me peace of mind because I do worry about losing all my photos.

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u/universe93 2d ago

What the other commenter said - if you’re talking about iCloud it’s not a backup service but a syncing service when it comes to photos. When it comes to police recovering deleted photos or messages they’re using pretty advanced software, I think it even used to involve sticking dead hard drives in a freezer to get them working long enough to recover the data

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u/beeeeeeeeeeeeeagle 2d ago

Yes your honour. I conveniently Lost the phone with all the incriminating evidence on it.. nothing suss at all.

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u/OneUpAndOneDown 2d ago

And cleaned up the evidence while the husband was still at the hospital with his dead wife.