Tragic tale of two lost sons

He said his final goodbye to his son Pip at his funeral in Maitland yesterday, fighting back tears as he saw the coffin in the back of the hearse.

Five hundred people  gathered  to bid farewell to the 21-year-old Bolwarra Heights man who brightened the lives of almost everyone he met.

Mr Manley said there was sadness among the crowd, and he knows the pain well. 

Twenty-three years ago, Mr Manley had to say goodbye to his son Harry after he died  at 22 months in the family’s doctor surgery in Sydney.

He said words could not describe the pain he felt after Harry died on November 29, 1990, but that pain was far worse when he was charged with his son’s murder five months later.

He was 37, and he knew he was innocent.

Mr Manley endured a five-week trial in 1993 – the year Pip was born, and was able to be with him until he was found guilty of murder and given a 12-year sentence at Goulburn’s maximum security prison.

“Unlike Pip, I wasn’t allowed to grieve properly for Harry ... I wasn’t allowed to grieve naturally ... how can you grieve for your son when you’re the one being accused of murdering him,” Mr Manley said.

A statement Mr Manley made to police about going into Harry’s room in the early hours of November 28 to comfort him because he was crying was the catalyst for police proving that he killed his son, he said.

Medical experts gave evidence on behalf of the prosecutor saying that Harry had received a blow to the abdomen 36 to  48 hours before his death – during the time frame when Mr Manley went into his son’s room – and as a result died from peritonitis.

These experts also said there were marks on Harry’s face in post-mortem photographs that looked like an adult handprint.

“I told police I had gone into my son’s room in the early hours of the morning to comfort him, to lie down with him, because he was crying,” he said.

“I was the one who normally got up to my children.

“We thought the police were investigating different scenarios for how Harry could have died, like a bicycle, a trampoline, an accidental sort of thing.

“We had no idea police were investigating me.”

Mr Manley kept a prison diary  every day.

“It was like a letter to home, a letter to my family, it was my way of communicating with them even though I couldn’t,” he said.

“After a while you become immune to the world, cut off from society, cut off from your family and you feel like an inmate – you’re living like an inmate.”

Mr Manley appealed against the conviction, but did not attend any of the court proceedings.

He was acquitted in 1994,  with the judges saying the original verdict was ‘‘unsafe and unsatisfactory’’ and that expert evidence about bruising  was unreliable.

Mr Manley walked out of Goulburn jail, saying farewell to the inmates  who  had become a second family.

“If I get cleared, if I get proven innocent, which I am, I want to walk from jail a free man not from some holding cell,” he said of his thoughts before the appeal. 

“Even though I had faith and hope, I didn’t go to the appeal because you think ‘I’m never going to get out of here, they’ve got me and they’re not going to let me go’.”

Mr Manley remembered when Pip, his wife Mary, and daughter April came to visit him in prison for the first time. Pip was 22 months old.

 “I remember him being so quiet and not saying anything, and I looked at him and said to myself, ‘Heck you’re the same age as Harry was when he died’,” he said.

“I’d lost a son, and we had conceived a son, and here I am in prison. He is the same age as Harry and I can’t spend time with him apart from one hour every weekend or every second weekend. It was very cruel.”

Mr Manley spoke about Harry in his eulogy yesterday and said he prayed that Harry and Pip were together in heaven.

“I pray that Harry is up there with Pip in heaven and Pip is teaching Harry some crazy dance moves,” he said.

Pip’s guitar and Maitland Grossmann High School Year 12 jersey had been placed on his coffin.

His younger brother Giles sang and played Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven on the guitar because the songwriter had lost a son.

“It was very moving because you could hear the emotion in his voice,” Mr Manley said.

A multi-media presentation of photos of Pip’s life was shown, and a clip of his dancing was played.

“The whole auditorium was full, people were standing, people were outside the building, it was incredible,” Mr Manley said.

“There were a lot of young people, mainly Pip’s age.

“They all came up to me and said it was a moving service and they got a sense of who Pip was at the service.

“Even six detectives turned up ... They said they’d gotten to know Pip through talking to his friends and Facebook posts and wanted to be at the funeral.”

Mary and Giles also gave moving eulogies, Mr Manley said.

Pip’s friend Richie Hillery and Giles will build a wooden tribute to put where Pip was found on Belmore Road in Lorn.

The Unity Nightclub in Newcastle, where Pip worked, has raised $800 at a tribute night and that money will be used to buy Giles a guitar so he can play music like he used to do with his brother.

Mr Manley said he would always remember Pip’s loving ways and take on board the life lessons his son had taught him.

“I’ll miss his fun-loving nature, his dancing, his quirkiness, his spontaneity, his love of people,” he said. 

“He loved his friends his whole life and that’s taught me the importance of friends. Pip’s taught me not to be judgmental of anyone, he made friends easily and he saw good in everyone. People respected Pip because he wasn’t judgmental, he accepted you for who you were and he wanted to be accepted for who he was.

“He might not have been mainstream or traditional, but you had to respect Pip because he was so steadfast in his loyalty and friendship. 

“He wasn’t into materialism, he never had any money  and he just didn’t care, he just wanted to meet friends and talk to them. He  loved his music and dancing.

“So many people have come up to me and said, ‘I only met Pip once but he had such an effect on me and made me laugh’, and I think that’s what I’ll remember about Pip more than everything else – he created his own magic with everyone he met.”