Mark Stewart

Mark Stewart was eighteen years old when his body was found on the rocks at the base of a cliff south of Fairy Bower headland in Manly, on the morning of 11 May 1976. He was lying face down, about twenty feet from the cliff face. He had been dead for several hours. No one has ever been charged.

The NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes (Sackar J, 2023) examined his death as a Category A matter — one of the cases subject to full public examination. The Inquiry’s conclusion, nearly fifty years later: the cause of his fall cannot be determined, and there is objectively reason to suspect that LGBTIQ bias was a factor in his death.

Who was Mark Stewart

Mark was born on 18 July 1957 in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea — the second of three children. His family moved to Fiji in 1962, where his father John Spanswick worked for Burns Philp. As children, the family visited Sydney on holiday at least three times, staying in Manly or Kings Cross for six or seven weeks at a time. Mark’s father later recalled that Mark loved the Shelly Beach area and would go exploring up into the rocks and headlands above the beach. He would have known the coastline well.

At thirteen or fourteen, Mark was sent to school in Masterton, New Zealand. In September 1973 — aged sixteen — he joined the Royal New Zealand Navy as a cadet, stationed at Training College in Devonport. By August 1974, after a period of growing estrangement from his parents and disenchantment with navy life, he had deserted and was absent without leave.

The circumstances of his departure are documented in letters the Inquiry later obtained from the Royal New Zealand Navy: his father had written to senior officers asking that Mark not be permitted to visit Fiji for Christmas, citing concern about street violence in Suva. Mark apparently wrote to his parents in anger after learning of his father’s contact with his superiors. His mother wrote to the Navy: “Obviously Mark is all bitter and twisted with us and I very much doubt that we shall hear from him, that is assuming he is alive and has not done anything silly.”

Sometime in mid-1975, Mark surfaced in Fiji. He spoke briefly with his father by phone. He then flew to New Zealand, stayed with his parents for a few days, and his father drove him to Christchurch to catch a flight to Brisbane — for what he described only as “an appointment”. He wrote once to say he had arrived safely and found work. His parents did not hear from him again.

At some point — possibly in 1974, possibly in early 1976 — Mark changed his name by deed poll from Mark Spanswick to Mark Stewart. His parents did not know. They later assumed it related to his desertion from the Navy. The Inquiry found conflicting evidence about when the change occurred.

From around Christmas 1975 until 6 May 1976, Mark lived at a boarding house in Brisbane. He was eighteen years old. On 9 May 1976, he checked into room 3117 at the Hilton Hotel on George Street in Sydney, telling the receptionist he intended to stay for two nights. The receptionist, Patricia Cupitt, described him as slightly built, with long curly unruly shoulder-length fair hair, a commanding and self-confident manner, and what she called “well-educated Public School English”. She did not see him again.

The death site

The Fairy Bower headland — or more precisely, the clifftop area rising south of Shelley Beach in Manly — was by the mid-1970s a known beat: a location where men went to meet for consensual same-sex encounters. Police investigating Mark’s death in 1976 made no mention of this. The officer in charge, Senior Constable Keith Thoms, later told the Inquiry he had not been aware of the beat’s existence at the time — though he had been stationed at Manly for no more than twelve months. Evidence before the Inquiry showed that other Manly police officers were aware of it by at least 1977: a Manly Daily article from April of that year references a police beach patrol that had, among other things, “busted homosexual activities at North Head”.

The Inquiry noted that the location where Mark’s body was found — about 250 metres south of the Fairy Bower headland, on rocks at the base of a cliff — was within or very close to the area known to have been used as part of the beat. The terrain at the clifftop was described by attending police as dense bushland with rocky sections, small trails leading from the road to the cliff edge, no safety fence, and no obvious evidence of a prior presence. Mark was found face down on rocks about twenty feet from the cliff face.

The only property found on his body was a small piece of notepaper bearing a hotel name and telephone number in one corner, and the notation “7.20 11.5.76” written in biro. A men’s Seiko wristwatch was recovered about twenty-one feet further east of the body; it had stopped at “8.02 TUE 11”. No wallet was found on his body or in his hotel room, though $15.27 in cash was located with him. His shoes were off but still laced, in close proximity to the body.

The police investigation

At 11:00am on 11 May 1976 — one hour after the body was discovered by a local fisherman, Colin McGuire — Senior Constable Thoms and Constable Ronald Fyson attended the scene. An entry in the police occurrence record, made just five hours after the body was found, recorded “no suspicious circumstances”.

No photographs were taken of the body, its position on the rocks, or the personal effects found nearby. This was later acknowledged by the NSWPF to fall short of the investigative standards applicable in the 1970s. Detective Inspector Warren, giving evidence to the Inquiry in 2023, could offer no reason why photographs had not been taken.

The investigation’s primary focus was identification. Police circulated a description of the body, checked with the local Water Board and an employment office, and contacted Brisbane. Mark was not identified until the evening of 13 May 1976, when police searched room 3117 at the Hilton Hotel and found his passport.

The hotel question

One of the most significant — and unresolvable — questions in this case is which hotel’s name appeared on the handwritten notepaper found on Mark’s body.

The officer in charge recorded it as the “Chevron Hotel, Sydney”. The Chevron Hotel, at Macleay Street in Potts Point, was a well-known establishment whose downstairs bar — the Quarter Deck — was, in the words of historian Garry Wotherspoon, “a favoured drinking place for camps, not least because of the large number of young sailors among its patrons.” In evidence to the Inquiry, Wotherspoon recalled that the Quarter Deck attracted young sailors who “would go there for a free drink, a bit of sex later and then a bashing.”

However, subsequent evidence suggested the OIC had likely made an error — conflating the Chevron Hotel with the Hilton Hotel, where Mark had in fact been staying. The Chevron Hotel had previously been marketed as the “Chevron Hilton” under a failed management arrangement in the early 1960s; this may have seeded confusion. Multiple police references conflate the two hotels; a Report of Occurrence entry from 13 May 1976 refers to inquiries made at the “Sydney Hilton Hotel” on 11 May, which Counsel Assisting read as evidence that it was the Hilton’s number on the notepaper, not the Chevron’s.

On balance, the Inquiry accepted that the more likely explanation is that the OIC wrongly recorded the hotel name. But Sackar J declined to dismiss the alternative — that the notepaper did refer to the Chevron Hotel — and found that, if it had, it would have been a material matter for the Inquiry. The loss of the notepaper — never photographed, never recovered — makes this permanently unresolvable.

The failure had a direct downstream effect: Strike Force Parrabell, reviewing the case years later, conflated the two hotels four times in its Bias Crimes Indicators Form, treating them as the same establishment. This meant Parrabell never considered whether Mark may have visited the Quarter Deck Bar — and whether that connection might illuminate his death.

Parrabell and the inquiry review

Strike Force Parrabell conducted a documentary review of the case and answered all ten Bias Crimes Indicators Form indicators as “Insufficient Information”. The BCIF summary noted that because it could not be determined how Mark died, it was also impossible to determine whether bias motivation was involved. The case was categorised as “unsolved”.

The SCOI found the BCIF’s conflation of the two hotels was a significant error, and that Parrabell’s review was constrained in scope by the flawed documentation it inherited.

When the Inquiry commissioned an independent forensic review, Dr Linda Iles (December 2022) concurred with the original cause of death — multiple injuries consistent with a fall from approximately fifty metres — but found the original post-mortem report was insufficient to determine the manner of death. She noted the absence of any description of external injuries detailed enough to assess whether injuries had been inflicted before the fall, and observed that no further medical investigation could now resolve that question. The post-mortem had also tested only for alcohol (none detected), with no toxicology beyond that.

The Inquiry could not locate the Seiko wristwatch, the notepaper, the clothing, or any other physical exhibit. The NSWPF was unable to produce a record of their disposal. Assistant Commissioner Conroy conceded that this was “possibly indicative of a breach of a police policy or procedure”.

What remains open

Sackar J’s formal findings:

• Mark Stewart died on 10 or 11 May 1976 as a result of multiple injuries sustained in a fall from a height.
• The cause of that fall — accident, suicide, or foul play — cannot be determined.
• The Coroner’s secondary finding (that foul play could be ruled out) should not be adopted.
• There is objectively reason to suspect that LGBTIQ bias was a factor in his death.
• No recommendations were made arising from this case.

Relevant factors identified by the Inquiry as supporting the possibility of LGBTIQ involvement: his death in the vicinity of a known beat; the possibility of a connection to the Chevron Hotel and its Quarter Deck Bar; the notation on the notepaper suggesting a possible prearranged meeting; and — acknowledged as speculative — circumstances in his personal history that may be consistent with a young man navigating his sexuality in a hostile era.

Nothing more is known. His younger sister spoke with the Inquiry. His father died years before the SCOI was established. Every physical exhibit from 1976 is gone. The notepaper that might have answered the key question was never photographed.

Mark Stewart was eighteen years old. He had been in Sydney for perhaps four days. He knew the cliffs above Shelley Beach from childhood holidays. He was found face down on the rocks below, and within five hours police had concluded there was nothing suspicious.

Source: NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes (Sackar J, 2023), Vol. 2, Ch. 5, paras 5.96–5.281, pp. 219–252.