William Tyrrell: Care workers break silence on foster parents’ distress

Two foster care workers responsible for William Tyrrell at the time he was reported missing say they fear the three-year-old has been “exploited” since and become a “footnote” in the ongoing police investigation.

Michelle White and Ben Atwood have spoken publicly for the first time since William disappeared on September 12, 2014 in interviews with the news.com.au podcast Witness: William Tyrrell.

Both worked for Young Hope, a Salvation Army service that oversaw William’s foster placement.

As Young Hope’s founder and director, Ms White was responsible for William’s care, including allowing his foster family to make the trip to Kendall, on the Mid North Coast of NSW, where he was reported missing.

“Whilst I am not responsible for William’s disappearance, I had responsibility for him,” Ms White told the podcast, released on Tuesday.

“And so I made a very strong commitment to myself and to him, that I would not walk out on finding out what has happened to him.”

Ms White travelled to Kendall the day after William went missing, and spent several days taking photographs and making notes on what she saw there, including that his foster parents were in a state of “visceral distress”.

“I remember when I first arrived and the male foster carer collapsing into me and sobbing into my neck,” Ms White said.

“The female foster carer [was also] collapsing at different points, and having to lift her from the ground where she’d collapsed in heaving sobs.”

Ms White said she was not questioned by police about what she saw during this time, although there have been other official inquiries into William’s foster care.

She fears William has been “exploited by other people with their own agendas” in the years that followed, during which his unsolved disappearance became the focus of a controversial and high-profile police investigation.

“And I think that that’s really sad,” she told the podcast.

“I think it’s an indictment on us as a society that we allow that to happen and that we hunger for that when we go clicking through social media and all kinds of things, looking for that stuff.”

“William has his own story. William is his own person,” she said.

“He shouldn’t be exploited. For any other purpose.”

William’s caseworker, Ben Atwood became emotional speaking about the child he remembered, saying “William has almost disappeared from the public discourse about this case”.

“I feel that he’s really faded into the background and other things have taken his place,” Mr Atwood said.

With William’s disappearance still unresolved more than 10 years after he was reported missing, Mr Atwood said he wished the three-year-old “was remembered and honoured for who he was”.

“We don’t know if he’s alive or not. We don’t know if he was abducted – if so, who took him? We don’t know anything,” the case worker said.

“But what I feel looking at the coverage is that gradually William has really become a bit of a footnote and has been replaced by conjecture.

“He’s been an absence since he was missing, but he’s become an absence in his own investigation, in a sense.”

NSW Police said they were unable to comment due to the ongoing inquest into William’s disappearance, which is due to resume in November.