'My daughter’s murder could’ve been prevented’: Aggie Di Mauro Pt. 1

When 23-year-old Celeste Manno was brutally murdered in her own bedroom in November 2020, her mother Aggie knew it could have been prevented. A former coworker had stalked and harassed Celeste for over a year, and the warning signs were everywhere. Police were told. Courts were involved. Intervention orders were issued. Somehow, none of it was enough. In this episode of I Catch Killers, Aggie Di Mauro exposes the catastrophic system failures that preceded Celeste's murder, a justice system she believes let her daughter down, and the fight for a coronial inquest that five and a half years later still hasn't happened. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operate. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Can murders be prevented? It's a complex question, but one that Aggie DiMauro is not afraid to ask. Aggie is the mother of Celeste, a vibrant 23-year-old whose life was brutally taken from her. She was stabbed to death in her own home by a former coworker she hardly knew, who was consumed by obsession. Today, Aggie joins me on I Catch Killers to make a point that is both heartbreaking and undeniable, that Celeste's murder could have been prevented. Nothing said in this conversation will bring Celeste back, but Aggie's voice matters, and if the right people are listening, perhaps lessons can be learnt. Accountability can be demanded, and real change can follow.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Because stalking is not harmless, it's dangerous, and far too often, it is deadly. It's time to wake up before something like this happens again.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Aggie DiMauro, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Thank you, Gary, and thank you for having me on.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  I know that you'd rather not be having the conversation with me in the circumstances that we're having the conversation, so... I apologise upfront, reliving things that are obviously very painful to you. But in the lengthy conversations that we've had in the lead up to this podcast, there's some very important messages that you want to get across. And I agree with you wholeheartedly on your concerns. Concerns and mixed with anger about what happened to Celeste? And the fact that it appears that no lessons have been learnt from them?

• 2:25Speaker 01

  None whatsoever.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  Despite your, all your efforts?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Despite efforts, despite promises and commitments that were made, nothing's been honoured.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  I've seen the pain homicide causes unless you've been affected by it directly. Nobody knows what you're going through. So my condolences for the pain that you're carrying still.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Thank you, Gary. I appreciate it.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Before we start speaking about what our concerns are, things that haven't been done, I think it's appropriate that you tell everyone the type of lady Celeste was, the type of young girl, the daughter that you knew, just so people understand what we're talking about here.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Celeste was 23 years old. She had completed her bachelor's degree in criminology and psychology. She still had one more year, her honours year to do, but decided to take a gap, found employment at an agency called Soco, which basically the department she worked in was handling contracts for services Australia. Became a team leader within six months. Was there two and a half years. Celeste was this kind, gentle, loving young woman.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  She was just happy-go-lucky, saw the positive in everything, always wanted to help people if she could. She was just a ray of sunshine, honestly. She'd walk in a room and people were just drawn to her. They were drawn to her presence, her smile, just everything about her. So she was just a beautiful soul. Well, she started working there in June of 2018.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  About a year later, she was handed over a new team to lead. She was upset the night she told me because she loved her previous team, but she'd done great work with them and one of the team managers, team leaders had left. So they gave her a new team to lead. And the beast we're going to refer to was on that team. She was only his team leader for about two months before he left the company, the organisation. And the way that came about was that he was put on notice by management one day. He decided

• 4:56Speaker 01

  to leave then and there, apologised for his behaviour and Celeste, being his team leader, was required to walk him to the exit door.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  She did so. She was telling me, you know, when she got home that night, that she'd experienced the most embarrassing moment of her life because she felt quite bad for him. So she extended her hand to shake his hand and wish him all the best in his future endeavours. And what she didn't expect was for him to kiss her on the cheek. So she went apparently bright red. She said, Mama must have been tomato red. I was so embarrassed. And in that moment, I thought she was just being a little bit of a drama queen. I said, don't worry about it. Didn't even know who she was talking about. I thought it was just a young kid, possibly her age, with some crush on her.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  At twenty three, as much as Celeste would have thought she was an adult, you are still a child at that age, aren't you?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, she didn't even look twenty three. You know, she's still got asked for I D in some venues. So.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  I saw the pictures of her and I can understand why that would happen. Her choice of career or study, criminology and psychology is an interesting path to go down too. Did she have dreams and aspirations, what she wanted to do?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  She wanted to help people. She used to do volunteer help for some of, you know, these not for profit organisations where people can call in if they need some sort of help talking to someone. And she did that for a while, volunteering with that. But, you know, she was a kind of. Kid at school, even in high school, if she saw someone on their own, she'd approach them and see if they're okay. She just didn't really like seeing people left out. So she just had this need to assist people. And yeah, she thought that, she was a little bit undecided with whether to go down legal studies, lawyer sort of work or psychology.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  But she really wanted to understand how people thought, you know, why they thought a particular way, how she could help them think differently. So yeah, she was very interested in that.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  Well, she sounds, it sounds like she was a beautiful young lady that would have contributed greatly to society. When we were discussing about coming on, on the podcast, and it's not something you openly wanted to do, but you wanted to get a message across. You didn't want to relive what happened to Celeste. It's the aftermath and it's the lead up to what happened that perhaps lessons could be learnt, or not perhaps, lessons should be learnt. If it's okay with you, just so our listeners understand what we're talking about here, for the few people that mightn't have heard about what happened to your daughter, is it all right with you if I just read out a summary of what's occurred?

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yes, of course.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Celeste was 23 years old when she was brutally murdered in her family home in the early hours of the morning on the 16th of November 2020. A former coworker, 35-year-old Leo Seko, who Celeste hardly knew, had become infatuated with her. And in the 12 months leading up to her murder, he bombarded her with messages, stalked her and harassed her. It made Celeste feel unsafe, to the point that her mother and the daughter went to the police for help. The initial cries for help with the police were just dismissed. When the situation escalated and the communications became even more concerning and of a sexual

• 8:32Speaker 00

  nature, you went to the police again. This time, your concerns were taken more seriously. A personal safety intervention order was taken out, which Seko bridged.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  After Celeste posted a picture of herself and her new boyfriend on social media, Seko went to your home in the early hours of the morning when everyone was sleeping. Then he smashed his way in through her bedroom window with a hammer and stabbed Celeste 23 times in a violent frenzied attack. During the attack, Celeste attempted to defend herself, as shown by defensive wounds on her hands. This brutal attack lasted only minutes. You, her mother, were awoken by the noise and went to your daughter's bedroom and she was dead. The murderer, or the beast as you refer to him, and I fully understand that, had run away by the time you'd entered the room.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Seko discarded the phone he'd used to harass and stalk Celeste and then handed himself into police. He denied aspects of the offence and contested the matter through the courts for years before finally pleading guilty. After he could not convince the courts, he was not of a sound mind and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 36 years in prison. Aggie, that's just a brief overview. I want, when people listen to this podcast, I want people to be angry. I want people to be shocked. I want people to think we've got to do things better. I think it's important to just spell out in the way that I did what has actually happened here.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Quite often, crimes like this are looked at as statistics. People don't give it a lot of thought. It becomes a headline. Is there anything you want to add to what I just read out?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Earlier, you said that I was a little bit reluctant to just do an interview because telling Celeste's story really does put a toll on me. But you're right that there are messages I need to get out there. I'm very angry. It's been five and a half years. This is not going to subside for me. It can't. I'm angry at many things. One, the fact that absolutely this could have been prevented. But outside of that... I've been saying Celeste was failed again and again. She was failed by not being taken seriously the first time. But she was also failed once she was murdered.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  So, you know, you got to the fact that he received thirty six years, non parole thirty. We have a system that will continue to excuse and justify offenders, murderers. Wanting, wanting, and not only them wanting it, but telling us that we want this. Absolutely wanting a murderer's rehabilitation, which I don't believe any of us want. In Celeste's case, in a nutshell, and this was all came out at the plea hearing and, and obviously the judge read it out in her sentencing remarks, but in Celeste's case,

• 11:50Speaker 01

  you have an offender who decides to stalk a young woman who didn't even know him for well over a year.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  We have an intervention order in place that he decides to breach with a three and a half page letter where he is pleading with Celeste to drop that intervention order. And there are many messages in that intervention order that absolutely basically say, drop it or else. We don't drop it and not because I didn't consider it. I did want to do things differently and I'm sure we'll go there as well. But we didn't drop it, um, purely on police insistence to keep it in place. He then buys a hammer and a knife the very next day after he was arrested and released.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Goes quiet for three months, leading us to believe that he'd actually learned his lesson and this was over. So we've completely dropped our guard at this point, three months of silence from him. Um, goes as far as finding our, our address on Google Maps, according to him. Downloads the floor plan to the house to pinpoint Celeste's room. And in the middle of the night, jumps a side gate, smashes through her bedroom window and stabs her viciously twenty three times.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  We rallied for an appeal the first time, didn't get anywhere with that. We rallied again insisting on an appeal, still didn't get anywhere with that. Once these decisions are made, they're made. I have not met, and I've met hundreds of people, I'm not exaggerating here, from the cemetery and just around the community, not one community member has ever said to me that they didn't believe he wouldn't get life. They were convinced he'd get life. The fact that the courts, the judges, everything they tell us through the sentencing act,

• 14:01Speaker 01

  that everything they do, they do in the interest of the community, with community expectations in mind, it's a load of rubbish. And this is what I call gaslighting. They want to convince us that we want what they offer, and we don't.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  I understand where you're coming from. And in the numerous discussions we've had, the issue of life sentencing for murder across the board that you raised, and I said I'm not an advocate for it. And I explained my way that each case needs to be, in my view, judged on the circumstances of the case, on its own merits. But what I also did say to you, and I want to put this out, and with the research I've done on the lead up to the murder, I have absolutely no doubt, not that my opinion counts for anything. You've got more of a right of an opinion than being the mother of a murdered young lady.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  But I believe this person should get life, imprisonment. I campaigned and I'm an advocate for rehabilitation, if possible. But this, to me, is, and I bear in mind, I was a homicide detective for a long time. This is the worst type of crime. This was premeditated. There was red flags. Steps, the whole way, that he could have walked away from it and he continued on. And I know there was a lot of discussion about mental health and, you know, was he impaired at the time of committing the offence? Well, he had enough nous to know what he did was wrong because he went to the police. He also discarded the phone that he was stalking and harassing your daughter on, discarded

• 15:46Speaker 00

  the phone before he went to the police and then had selective memory about what happened when he went to the place. So, Aggie, what I'm saying to you is I support your anger on this, I can understand it. And this is coming from a person that doesn't believe every murderer should get a life sentence. But for this one, if it's judged on its merits, for the life of me, I can't see.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Gary, I'm still always going to continue to, you know, we're going to have differences of opinion. I'm referring to murder, murder.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  When there is a question on whether something deserves a life sentence or not, maybe when we're considering manslaughter, but murder is murder. Murder is the intentional killing of a human being. And so to me, the person they killed does not get a second chance. Les was 23.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  I will never understand or agree that any murderer deserves a second chance. And we see, and we have seen it for years, time and time again, murderers that are paroled only to commit murder again. I mean, me personally, I'd be locking up the parole board, the people who made decisions at the parole board. Because this is not how we should have to, no family should have to.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Have their loved one murdered by someone who had previously murdered because we have a system that continues to insist that we rehabilitate them and give them a second chance. And we've seen rehabilitation doesn't always work.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  I look at it from the perspective of what was the lead up to this case? What was behind this case? This was just some beast, as you call him, and I can, that sits comfortably with me, infatuated with a young woman and just stalked and harassed repeatedly, was given warnings, was brushed off politely, not humiliated, there wasn't a relationship, they virtually didn't know each other, he just became obsessed. And when he gets in trouble, when orders were taken out and he breached those orders, and then that three and a half page letter, it's almost like she did him wrong. And it was the revenge, the preparation for it.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  It was absolute revenge, it was payback, it was, you didn't, you didn't listen to me, dropping the intervention order, you didn't listen to me, this is what I'm going to do. You know, at the end of the day, I know it's always been reported that the night that Celeste uploaded that photo, let's just remember, he bought the hammer and knife in August, just after he, he'd been arrested and released. He murdered Celeste in November, you know, it had to take, I suppose, what can we call it, some courage to see through his plan? The night Celeste uploaded that photo was simply the when. It was not the why, it was the when.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  This was pure revenge, payback, and that is exactly how the courts should have treated it.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  I agree with you, for what it counts, I, I agree with you. If, if this isn't in the category of the worst type of murder, I, I don't know what else you need to add to it. So what we want to talk about is, okay.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  This has happened, we'll talk about the lead up to it, but we'll also talk about what's happened after it, has any lessons been learnt? And I know you've been pushing and advocating for an inquest to be heard in relation to this, where they can look at, could have this death been prevented? Can you tell me what's happened on that front in regards to your efforts to get an inquest?

• 19:41Speaker 01

  So first I just want to correct something here. I've been pushing for an inquest because five and a half years later, it still hasn't taken place. But I was never the one who, I didn't even know what a coronial inquest was when this happened. I was told from day one, there would be a coronial inquest. And I was told that by the Attorney General I met at the time with the Secretary of the Department of Justice, because obviously when I met with these people, I wanted answers. And I was told that I would get those answers after the coronial inquest. I was told those very same words by the Police Commissioner at the time, when I was introduced to him and his deputy.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Again, I went in there not to meet these people, I wanted answers, how did this happen? Why did you allow it to happen? Because, I don't know, when you're introduced to the Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, you don't know what they know about the local police station or how everything unfolded. And again, I was met with, you know, condolences and apologies and told that an internal investigation had already begun, and that whilst they understood I wanted answers, they wouldn't be able to give me anything until after the coronial inquest. So this was something I was told from the get go, but five and a half years later, there's still no inquest.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  So the inquest, the thought of an inquest, and I take on board what you're saying there, you didn't understand the system. The thought was put in your head by those people, the people in authority, that will give you answers after the inquest. And here we are, five and a half years later, and there's still no inquest.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  No inquest. In fact, the Commissioner's words at the time were... That although he understood, he said, Aggie, I understand and realise that this might not give you any solace, but a coronial inquest will make findings and it'll teach us what to do better next time. You know, I did my research, I understood what the coronial inquest intends to do, what it's going to look at, the system failures, how could this be prevented? So, given the significance of an inquest and why it's done, why hasn't it been done?

• 22:02Speaker 01

  In fact, over the last five and a half years, what's been done differently by Victoria Police? Absolutely nothing. Intervention orders are still being breached, women are still being murdered, okay? We haven't heard murders in the context of, say, Celeste, where she wasn't intimately involved with this person, didn't really know him. The ones we hear about are domestic violence murders, just as important, intervention orders in place, breached, nothing's been done different.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  It's concerning, isn't it?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Very.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  You said you've done research and I know in speaking to you, you've got your head around so many different aspects. The inquest is, you know, determine the cause and nature of death, well, that's been established through the criminal courts, but could that death be prevented? And that's what you were hoping to get from the inquest?

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. Could it have been prevented? What could the police have done differently? There's so many things that could have been done differently, but we want, you know, we want the coroner to make those findings.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  Have you been given the date for the inquest yet?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Let's talk about the stalking aspect of the offence. I've always had a concern about stalking. I think that it's a very worrying, red flag type of offence. If someone's stalking someone, there's a real, real concern.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  In my experience in the police, I don't think all police fully accept that or fully understand it. I don't think the courts understand it as well, and the politicians don't understand it. One of the campaigns that you've been pushing through is about getting a more understanding of the offence and nature of stalking, and make sure that police respond to it in an appropriate way. Can you tell me about your thoughts and efforts in that regards?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Well, again, when this happened, the Attorney General at the time asked the Victorian Law Reform Commission to do an inquiry into stalking, the laws around it, as well as the laws or legislation around the personal safety intervention order. That inquiry was done. It took 18 months. It came up with 45 recommendations. There were two reports, an interim report and then a final report. The interim report was recommendations specific for Victoria Police, in which it made, I think

• 24:41Speaker 01

  it was nine recommendations, which form part of the 45. So, you know, going back to politicians don't understand it, police don't understand it. But an inquiry was done, and it's allowed them to know where legislation is lacking, what police could be doing differently. Part of those recommendations makes reference to what they refer to as SASH, which the former Attorney General in Victoria decided through a 60 Minutes interview that was done just after that beast was sentenced.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  To say that Victoria Police had responded appropriately to Celeste's murder by trialling the SASH pilot, which at that point she still couldn't say where it was at. They've trialled it, we know nothing else. The SASH pilot is basically, let's call it a screening tool. It's a questionnaire, among other things that that they will delve into. But it's a questionnaire that allows police to categorise the level of risk that an offender poses, a stalker poses.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  And depending on that level of risk, they'll they'll categorise him low, medium or high risk. When I was taken through the pilot and what it meant, that's as far as they got at the time. This was at the end of, this was December of 2022. They still had to do stage two and stage three and some sort of evaluation, which I was supposed to be kept informed with, never happened. I have been following up on that every six months, still know nothing. But, you know, when I had this meeting with the Assistant Commissioner that was spearheading that that pilot, my question at the end of the meeting was very, very simple.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  When you've categorised that the offender poses a high risk, what do you do then? Now, at that point, there was no answer because they hadn't gotten that far.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Honestly, this is not rocket science to anybody.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Clearly, my statement was to the point. Well, in my opinion, you're telling me that this has been done to prevent what happened to Celeste from happening again. And in my opinion, you will not prevent

• 27:28Speaker 01

  that same scenario, you will not prevent another death if you do not detain or detect. Either you're going to keep the offender, the high risk offender, in remand until he's before the courts, or...

• 27:48Speaker 01

  You're going to detect through, whether it's an ankle bracelet or some other advice, a device, but through electronic monitoring. That has been dismissed altogether. Our Premier here in Victoria in 2024 announced that electronic monitoring would not be implemented. She did state her reasons. Her reasons were it would give women a false sense of security.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  I've read the judge's summary in the sentencing for this matter. And I broke down some points and I just want to read those points out. And there's a lot of them, but I want people to listen to specifically what we're talking about, what you and your daughter experienced in the lead up to this. And when they do, look at how many red flags there were, how many indicators there were that something bad was going to happen. Seiko was employed with Serco in April 2018. Let's listen to the dates too, how long this went on for. In 2019, Celeste became his team leader. June 2019, Seiko's employment was terminated. Celeste was tasked with escorting him from the premises.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  As Seiko was leaving, he thanked Celeste for her kindness. Without encouragement, he kissed her on the cheek, as you talked about at the start of the podcast. Three days later, after he left, he tracked down various social media accounts held by Celeste, including Instagram accounts, began direct messaging her on Instagram, declaring his feelings for her, which she politely declined and told him she was not interested. So there is a person that, a very distant association with a person and being told that your interest in me is not appreciated or not reciprocated. That should be a warning sign enough to tell someone to stay away. He continued to message her until she blocked him on Instagram.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  A few weeks later, he created a second Instagram account and again resumed messaging Celeste. Again, warning signs, red flags, told you're not interested, then starts to surreptitiously change his, his addresses so he can get in contact again. Celeste did not accept Sacco as a follower but was able to continue to view his messages. Occasionally Celeste would respond and request Sacco cease his communications. Again, understandable. What do you do when someone keeps repeatedly, you know, reaching out to you? No, I'm not interested. Stay away from me.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  He'd create new accounts after this and then you, her mother, asked him to stop contacting. Around the 31st of December 2019, sent a series of sexually explicit and derogatory messages. Celeste began to fear for her safety, was encouraged to report the matter to police and also reported it to her employer. Celeste had seen him sitting in his car outside of her work, observing her car. I mean, red flag, warning, concerns. This is not normal behaviour. And it should be noted around this time, or I think it was on the 3rd of February 2020,

• 31:10Speaker 00

  you and Celeste went to the police station and reported the matter. And this wasn't in the judge's comments, because the judge left this out of the comments, but in my conversation with you, it fits into the timeline. But nothing was done or recorded when you went in and explained this to police at this point in time?

• 31:29Speaker 01

  It wasn't in the judge's comments because it wasn't in the opening summary from the prosecution, because it was that first time into the police station was never recorded.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Can you tell me what happened and why it wasn't recorded?

• 31:41Speaker 01

  I have no idea. That's part, I suppose, of what the coronial inquest should be investigating.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  So were you at the police station when you went in on this time, or was it Celeste?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  We did all of it together. We went to the police station together the first time. We went to the police station together the second time, which was in July. We went to the magistrate's court together, both in July and again in August. She always did it all with me.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Okay, so when you went in there on the 3rd of February 2020, tell us what happened and why did you go in there? And what was the purpose of going in there and what happened when you got in there?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  We went in there because the messages from him had been going on for six months. And at this point, they were sounding...

• 32:32Speaker 01

  To me, they sounded quite, um, they started to sound angry. And so I said to Celeste, look, because she just wanted to ignore him for a while. She just thought he'd go away, he'll get bored, but it wasn't working. And so because I felt that he sounded angry, I said, well, sweetie, we've got to go in. But also, the last message he sent, which you stated, he sent it was the 31st of December. I mean, this is New Year's Eve. She didn't see that message until that 3rd of February. So that morning was when she's telling me about it because she wasn't always looking at her Instagram messages. And it was such a vulgar message, I just. So yes, I replied to that message.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Um, I was not as sweet as Celeste. Celeste always used please to stop contacting her. Mine was very direct, capital letters, telling him to stay the hell away from my daughter and that we were going to the police. Yeah, this is a person that comes back with a question mark. And, you know, another message to Celeste, like, Celeste, honestly, your mother.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  We went to the police, tried to show this particular message. This is a disgusting message. He just looked at Celeste and said, look, you know, there's nothing we can do about it. She could have said, mum, they're not going to do, and I'm insisting, get in the car, we're going to the police. So I, I didn't even know what to say to her. Try telling a 23 year old to get off social media.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Could I just break that down a little bit more? So you're telling me you've gone into the police station, a mother and a daughter. So, you know, you've got to form an opinion when someone walks into a police station. Here's a mother and a daughter here, both reporting. It's not someone that's come in making up allegations. You've got the actual communications there. You're trying to show police. You're concerned enough to go to the police station. This is a person, it's not a relationship, it's not love gone sour, which is dangerous enough as it is. This is someone that's shown repeatedly he's obsessed with your daughter. And you've gone into the police station.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. And can I just add to that, that before we actually went to the police station, I called the police station. Explained what was happening over the phone. And that officer that I was speaking to, which obviously was someone else. Said, if you're concerned about anything, you should come in and report it. Which is why I said, Celeste, we're going and we went in. Yeah, there was nothing they could do about it. In fact, he said, a crime hasn't been committed. To which you can imagine my instant reply was, so we have to wait? For the crime to be committed? And we walked out quite, I felt.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Completely helpless. So just prior to appearing in court, the prosecution, you know, got us to go in and sit down with them because they had to take us through that opening statement. And when they were reading that out, I remember interrupting and saying, because they've gone straight to the July. Report at the police station. I said, no, no, you've forgotten February. And they've looked at me and said, Aggie, we, we haven't forgotten, it's, it was never recorded. So we can't have it in the opening summary. I was livid. And I remember saying, but what do you mean?

• 35:57Speaker 00

  And on that, what concerns me, I don't think there's an excuse if someone comes in and reports that. That is a warning sign to me. Someone's obsessed with someone enough that they're sending these messages. Repeatedly changing the address so they can stay in contact and. The warning signs are there. Even if a criminal offence couldn't be established, you would take the details down in case this escalated, in case it's reported again. Maybe he's doing it to other women. There's so many things that could be done. I'm choosing my words carefully here, but it infuriates me because it would be so easy. For me, if I'm a police officer to dismiss you and your daughter if you walked into the police station. You'd be sitting there thinking, well, I've come to the police, the police know what to do. And I could just bullshit like that.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  And you'd walk out of the police station, think, oh, well, there's, there's nothing that can be done. But my anger and frustration is the fact that indicators, red flags are missed in situations like that. That is concerning to me.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Very concerning. And this is what I mean when I said at the start, very angry because I absolutely believe that Celeste, Celeste's murder was preventable. What I mean by that is you're dealing with an individual who has, within those first six months, turned what must have been an infatuation, turning into an obsession, right? Because there, there are messages that come at, at a later stage where he states that this is becoming unhealthy for him because she's all he thinks about. He says he can't eat,

• 37:42Speaker 01

  he can't sleep, he can't function, he can't look for work. So, you know, it gets to an obsession. And so what I'm saying is, if it had been taken seriously the first time, and you've got this individual coming in, having a discussion with them, letting them know what the repercussions will be, offering, I've heard a lot about these men's behavioural programme. Who are they for? Because they only seem to be for the rehabilitation purpose before they release them from, from prison. How about we start trialling those before they end up in prison? That's what preventative measures are. Why do we only have them there

• 38:27Speaker 01

  as a, something to use to rehabilitate them so that they don't re-offend? Why aren't we using these same programmes to fix what's obviously quite not right with them? So I absolutely believe that if they

• 38:43Speaker 01

  If they had done things differently, maybe, just maybe, he would have taken it more. He would have been, he can't deny that he has been told what the repercussions will be, what the consequences will be. He absolutely should accept help. Does he recognise he needs help? Does he need to be told by professionals that he needs help? But what I'm saying is, it could have de-escalated the situation as opposed to what ended up happening.

• 39:18Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think you made a valid point that is infatuated and that led to becoming obsessed. And you could see the build up and it's like you're seeing murder here in slow motion. I wanted to raise the fact that you went in there and I, I, I believe that's unforgivable. And this, if change needs to be done, this is the type of change that needs to be done. If someone comes in and reports that to a police station, there should be an expectation that records have made of, uh, made of that and not, uh, not fobbed off. On the first of July, two thousand and twenty, your game went to the police station and reported the continued stalking. You got a different response then. So this is five months later. What happened there?

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Well, the response there gave us hope because that turned out to be leading constable. His reaction was the complete opposite. He was shocked to see the sexually explicit message. And the first thing that came out of his mouth was, have you been here before? Which of course led to me saying, yes, absolutely, six months ago. Are you saying something should have been done then? And his reply to that was, I'm never, I'm just never going to forget it. Let's just say, um, some of us do our job better than others.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  And then he asked us to go into a room where we were there for a couple of hours because he took photos of every single message on Celeste's phone. And that was, that was probably, especially because to take the screenshots, sometimes when you're taking screenshots, it doesn't capture the whole message. So, you know, there was over, I've got 220 pages because they were all printed as well to take at the magistrate's court.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  So a completely different response.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  Can I just say there, because I've criticised police in the previous encounter you had with police, but yes, he's quite, quite right. And that's the difference. But it shouldn't depend which officer or who's in the police station at the time you come to report. These are the things that if there was an inquest or if there was an internal investigation, these are the things that need to be tightened up, that there is a standard response if someone comes in and reports a situation of the nature that you and Celeste reported.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  That is what a coronial inquest should be looking into.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  So that was the 1st of July, you went in and reported it and you had the police officer taking the details. At that stage, and again, this is from the judge's comments, at that stage, Seko's behaviour had been ongoing for 12 months. When it was reported, Celeste produced all the messages to police. So that's, that's 12 months. On the 3rd of July, you attended the magistrate's court and took out a personal safety intervention order, a PSIO. On the 8th of the 7th, 2020, that order was served on him. The harassment stopped for a while. On the 4th of August, Celeste attended the magistrate's court for an interim order to be made final.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Celeste and I, yep.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Yep. And. Saiko refused to consent to the final orders and a hearing was sent, set down for the nine, uh, 9th of March 2021. So we're going from August, he's not consenting to the orders and the orders I would imagine would be not to communicate harass or the standard type of features in the order. He wouldn't consent to it. So a hearing was set, set down, say he could contest what's in there.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  We should add that the day he contested, however, the magistrates court still put in place an interim order with the same conditions that a final order would have had.

• 43:06Speaker 00

  Okay. And that carries through until the hea- hearing.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Until March.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  Okay. On the 10th of August 2020, Saiko was arrested and interviewed at the police station for repeated messages. He was released pending further investigations. The 11th of August purchased the murder weapon. Now, you've indicated, I've just pulled that out from the summary. I'm not making whether he knew it was the murder weapon, but that's the date he purchased the weapon that he used to murder Celeste.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  What you referred to as the date just prior to that, when you said on the 10th of August, he was arrested, that was for breaching the intervention order.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. And he was interviewed at the police station, released, and the next day, he just happened to buy this knife.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  And a hammer.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  And a hammer. The hammer they used to.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  To smash into Celeste's bedroom window, yes.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  Celeste's workplace put in a safety plan escorting to her to a car. So this is how concerned, concerning it is at this stage. So even her.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  The safety plans were put in place, you know, from earlier on because obviously I was very concerned and so I wanted to.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  I was very worried about Celeste leaving work and he knew where she worked. So we didn't need him finding out where we lived. So I wanted to start, you know, going to Celeste's place before she finished work every day. And then follow her home to make sure that nobody was following her. But she kept insisting, no mum, I'm fine, I'll, I'll keep an eye on things. There's someone walking me to the car every night. And I know that that was happening. Um, they had a separate staff car park, this building. And she was being walked to the car park, uh, to the car every night by another team leader. So that was, that was already happening from the start.

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Okay, on the 15th of August, 2020, Sako contravened the interim PSIO, sending her a three and a half page letter. That's the letter that you've referred to, that was on the 15th of August. On the 25th of August, 2020, he was interviewed by police regarding his contravention of the interim order and attempting to pervert the course of justice. I'm assuming the pervert the course of justice is because he was telling her to, um, uh, drop the, drop the order.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 45:35Speaker 00

  To me, that, that's concerning. So here he is, it's been to court, it's been to the police, it's been to court. The orders are in place and he's still sending, uh, a three and a half page, uh, page letter. So he's not learning from this, he is not learning from it. Interviewed by police, so he wasn't, uh, wasn't charged. He did not attempt any further contact after that interview. On the 6th of September, the interim order was served on Sako by post to appear at the magistrate's court on the 15th of February, 2021. Can I just break that down because that concerns me. So you've got the build up that we've talked about. You've got attending the police station twice.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  On the second time, the, um, PSIO has been taken out. It's appeared at court, he wants to contest the, uh, conditions in there. But an interim order's been there. He's then breached that interim order, been interviewed by police. And when it was served on him, it was served by post to appear at the magistrate's court on the 15th of February.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  I think there's, and I can't blame an individual officer here, but my, my instinct here is there's obviously a record that's building up here now, like a, a pattern of behaviour. One would think that instead of serving it by post, you'd go knock on the door. You would knock on the door and have a very harsh conversation.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Wouldn't a perpetrator just deny ever receiving anything by post?

• 47:08Speaker 00

  Well, it doesn't have the impact of two police officers knocking on the door, standing there and warning and making it very clear that this type of behaviour is not going to be tolerated. Does it change things? I don't know, but I do know you'd have a better chance of changing things if you served it in person and explained how serious this was getting. On the 11th of November, he emailed the officer in charge of the case, asking for electronic copies of each brief. So it's still in his mind, 11th of November. And then the 16th of November was the, the night that Celeste was murdered. That's the build up for it. There's so many things that concern me in that.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  And now that people are listening to this, understand what you and your daughter were going through, where do you think it, it should have been stopped?

• 48:03Speaker 01

  It should have been stopped from that first visit, from the first visit. It wasn't, and again, I will go back to now, let's go to the leading constable that did take it seriously. Once he's then breached the intervention order, and remember, because of what I was reading in that three and a half page letter, I was terrified. I felt that there would be retaliation for not dropping this order. So I picked up the phone, even though Celeste didn't want to hear me because she'd already met with the constable who'd convinced her not to drop the intervention order.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  I picked up the phone to say to him, you know what, why don't we just drop this intervention order? And he didn't want to hear about it. And I continued, I was trying to speak above him to say, just, he clearly lives at home, that was understood by the letter, call him in, call him in with his family, we'll have a meeting. He just needs to get through his head, he needs to stay away. We don't want to ruin his life because he's put a lot in this letter about how it's going to destroy him. He won't be able to look after his sick mother and whatever he's carrying on about. But the constable is absolutely insisting that we do not drop this intervention order. And the more I'm trying to get him to do things my way, the more, the more insistent he is, to the point that he says, if Celeste

• 49:29Speaker 01

  drops this intervention order, we won't be able to protect her. He literally made me freeze with those words because it made me feel like I would be the one putting my daughter in danger. So of course, at that point, I was quick to reply, we won't drop anything. But it also put Celeste and I, who was right next to me, she could hear the conversation, I had him on speaker, it also put both of us under the impression that they must be monitoring him. I was absolutely convinced with those words that they must be monitoring his movements. So, you know, to say to someone, whether he had said it,

• 50:14Speaker 01

  and I'm sure he had said it to Celeste herself, and now to me, if Celeste drops the intervention order, we won't be able to protect her. That means you have something in place that's clearly going to protect her. Well, they didn't, did they? There was nothing in place. They weren't monitoring anything. So, again, you know, this goes to earlier in the conversation, where we're talking about.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  The V L R C, the recommendations and, you know, the non recommendation being the electronic monitoring. Monitoring would absolutely have prevented what happened that night.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  And there's no one that's gonna take that out of my head.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  No, well, I agree with you and we will talk about that in depth. With the police saying, don't withdraw it, I can understand the logic of that. I'm trying to be balanced in it, but I certainly can understand your concerns. And that would be, yeah, why are we picking the fight? And when they're saying, don't withdraw it because then we won't be able to protect. I can understand you also making the assumption that there must be some sort of protection in place, like police are monitoring him and police are going around and visiting him.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely, because if you're going to tell me, her mother, when I'm pointing out that I am seen, retaliation if we don't. At the end of the day, the person that was at risk was only Celeste, right? It's not the person you're dealing with. My daughter was at risk.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  These are the things that we've got to appreciate. And I think it comes back to not fully appreciating the nature of stalking and understanding how dangerous offence that is. I've had on a high profile investigation I was working on and I was so surprised. We came across a person of interest that was stalking someone. Horrendous case of stalking, just an infatuation, an obsession, that type of thing. And I was surprised by the amount of police that didn't think that was a serious red flag in the investigation. I was gobsmacked by it. And I've had the benefit, because I do get a bee in my bonnet about stalking, that people don't appreciate how serious it is.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  And it's probably because I see the tail end of it as a homicide detective. But I had the benefits of speaking to Laura Richards on the podcast. And she's a world renowned criminal behavioural analyst, international expert on stalking, homicide and risk assessment. She trained with the FBI and she also worked for New Scotland Yard. She developed the Domestic Abuse Stalking Honour-based Violence, which is called DASH, which is similar to what you're saying with SASH, which is the Risk Identification, Assessment and Management Model, which has currently been implemented in the UK. And she also was the founder of the world's first national stalking advocacy service. So she knows what she's talking about when she's talking stalking.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  And when I spoke to her, she made a number of interesting points about stalking. First, she said that stalking is often used in a comedic sense, like, ah, I'm not stalking you, and we all laugh, and it's sort of the innocent stalker, oh, it's just someone obsessed. And she said, that gives the wrong connotation of what stalking is. Stalking is a very serious predatory behaviour. She also made the point that in her first five years working with New Scotland Yard on stranger rape, murder and abduction cases, she would call the majority of the offenders we caught were predatory stalkers. So let's break that down. She was working on the stranger rape, murder and abduction cases, and the majority of

• 54:14Speaker 00

  the offenders caught in that five-year period were predatory stalkers. She talked about how stalking is often missed by police as predatory behaviour, but predators are the most dangerous type of offenders. So this is the world's expert on it, and she talks about murder in slow motion, she talks about red flags of the mist, and the need to make police fully understand how serious stalking is.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Yes. Police don't take, I don't believe, take stalking seriously in the case of family violence, where you do have ex-partners that are stalking their wives, girlfriends, what have you. In Celesta's case, because...

• 55:02Speaker 01

  You know, that was the first question that was asked. Are you involved with him or something like that? Because it was none of that, just someone that used to work there, doesn't even work there at this point in time. When we're going in the first time, so six months after it'd been happening. He hasn't been working there for six months. But the fact that they were never involved in anything, there was no relationship. I think that that there was reason for that police officer to take it even less seriously. Because it was, just ignore him, I'm sure he'll go away. Even though we were saying she has been ignoring him for six months.

• 55:41Speaker 00

  You you make an interesting point there, Aggie, and I I think you're probably right. Like, we have this heightened awareness now of domestic violence and stalking for disgruntled ex-partners and that. And this, the police officer that dismissed it out of hand first up and and and didn't do their their job.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they're not seeing a disgruntled ex, right? It's like the disgruntled ex has reason to be angry at her. Therefore, it makes sense he's stalking her. But like I said, he's, they're still not really treating that any differently, but in the case where you're not.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  That could be a a simple, yeah, layman's understanding of of stalking. Oh, well, it's not a domestic relationship. But from a police officer's point of view, I think it's more scary that someone becomes obsessed with someone that they've had literally hardly or nothing to do with. And they've become obsessed with them.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Yes, it it should show, if anything, and it's been going on for six months at that point. How does six months not indicate that they're not going to get bored? How does it not indicate that it's become or becoming a fixation?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  How is that not a red flag there?

• 57:04Speaker 00

  It is a red flag and that's why I hope people listening to this discussion get an understanding of what we're talking about here and don't dismiss this. And, you know, police need to understand that, the courts need to understand that, the politicians need to understand, the ones that make laws, need to understand that stalking is a dangerous, dangerous crime. And if someone is stalking, there's potential for something tragic to happen like's happened to Celeste.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Well Gary, so far politicians in particular are not understanding it at all. Because when you have a premier who heard from the get-go, and with all the discussions around stalking and breaches of intervention orders, regardless of the context, family violence or not, when you're hearing that those orders are getting breached, and you're then saying that electronic monitoring is a no because it gives women a false sense of security, but then decide to say the way you're going to make women feel more secure is you're going to extend the intervention order.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  That crappy piece of paper that they have admitted time and time again is a worthless piece of paper. You're going to extend the intervention order for two years. That is going to give women a sense of security. So what has never made them feel safe, keeping it in there for longer, making them feel unsafe for longer will give them a sense of security. Make that make sense.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  I can't, I can't make it make sense. Aggie, let's have a break now. When we get back, we'll talk again in more depth about how your daughter's murder could have been prevented. And let's push for what can change. If other people aren't going to make changes, let's talk about what changes could be made so this type of thing doesn't happen. Because I can guarantee it will happen again.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely it will happen again, unfortunately.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Okay, let's have that break.