Police have blamed dense bushland and radio confusion for wrongly reporting to 18-year-old Lily Hooper’s parents, the New South Wales premier and the media that the missing bushwalker had been found alive. Hooper had last been seen on 12 August after leaving home for a hike in the rugged bushland of Nattai national park, 90km south-west of Sydney. She was reported missing that night, triggering a multi-agency search involving nearly 1,000 people, including hundreds of volunteers.
Eight days later, on Thursday morning, police media told reporters a “hiker” had been found. At around midday, the premier, Chris Minns, was handed a piece of paper while addressing a parliamentary committee. He asked if it was accurate, to which the secretary of the cabinet office, Kate Boyd, said: “Yes.” The premier, reading the paper, said he had “fantastic news” that Hooper was “found in the bush with half a bottle of water with her”.
His remarks were published across media outlets. Minutes later, Minns told the committee: “I’ve got some terrible news. I apologise … Lily’s body has been found.” Questions immediately centred on how such a serious error could have been made.
SES search volunteers had told police they believed they had found Hooper alive at 11.30am, the police assistant commissioner Joseph Cassar told reporters in Moss Vale on Thursday afternoon. Recounting the sequence of communication, he said officers soon shared that message with Hooper’s parents, who had spent a “great deal” of time at the search command post near the head of the Bonnum Pic walking trail, where the teenager’s car had been found. Cassar said the hundreds of searchers, carrying handheld radios, faced communication challenges in the “thick, dense terrain”.
They had “clear instructions” to report when they found anything, even an item of clothing, he said. The SES assistant commissioner Colin Malone said the SES volunteers were from the “highly trained” bush search and rescue team. Within 10 minutes, the same SES volunteers made a second “more accurate” report, Cassar said.
He said they would probably have been “very close” to Hooper’s body. By then, the incorrect message had already begun to circulate publicly. The police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, told reporters on Thursday afternoon that police had hurried to share the initial report after searching for Hooper for eight days.
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