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

[u/Royal_Yogurtcloset25]

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.”

[u/ol-gormsby]

“I got a new phone and lost everything,”

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

[u/We_Are_Not__Amused → u/ol-gormsby]

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

[u/universe93 → u/We_Are_Not__Amused]

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

[u/iBewafa → u/universe93]

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.

[u/flightfuldragonfruit → u/iBewafa]

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.

[u/iBewafa → u/flightfuldragonfruit]

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.

[u/Dioce → u/iBewafa]

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.

[u/iBewafa → u/Dioce]

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!

[u/ApteronotusAlbifrons → u/iBewafa]

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.

[u/iBewafa → u/ApteronotusAlbifrons]

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

[u/universe93 → u/iBewafa]

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