The man witnesses say may have murdered Annette Mason in 1989 says Queensland police bungled the investigation and he’s the victim of years of false claims.

December 4, 2018

A man whose name has been linked to the 1989 murder of a Queensland teen says police bungled the investigation and he’s also a victim after almost 30 years of false accusations and innuendo

Michael Laine, now 53, became a person-of-interest after Annette Mason, 15, was found raped and beaten to death in her bed in a house she shared with friends in Toowoomba.

Laine denies being involved in the murder and says he only met Annette a few times just prior to her death on November 19.

“I’ve copped 30 years of utter bull*** and torment from the coppers going around to everybody’s place, showing photos of Annette and bringing my name,” he told an inquest into her death on Tuesday.

“They’re the ones who f***** this investigation by having tunnel vision.

“My name has been thrown around the mud … one minute you weren’t a suspect and the next minute you are some suspect again. I don’t know if it was to get this inquest going or what,” he told counsel assisting Adrian Braithwaite.

“I feel sorry for Annette’s family. There is nothing I can do to give them what they want. And there’s none of this bulls*** about a code of silence – you’re dealing with a whole bunch of imbeciles,” he said of evidence given against him at the inquest.

People who spoke to police about the unsolved murder were considered at the time to be “dogs” who were breaking a code of silence, one witness told the inquest last week.

Several witnesses have told the inquest Laine was a violent man who threatened people he believed had given statements against him to investigators.

Earlier, witness Nathan Beningfield told the inquest Laine had bragged about murdering a girl during a drinking session about 10 years after Annette was killed.

“Conversation turned to Mick killing somebody … he liked to make himself look big showing off. He used to tell everybody how well he could fight, things like that,” he said.

“And he was boasting he killed somebody and got away with it a number of years ago, that he’d killed a girl … and that he’d bashed her with a piece of wood.”

Coroner Terry Ryan is investigating Annette’s death with new information, some 27 years after a first inquest failed to find sufficient evidence to pin down her killer.

At least five witnesses, including police, have already told the coroner that Allan McQueen, who is also known as Allan Gill, made a series of admissions regarding Annette’s abuse and her death.

He is also a person-of-interest to the inquest and was also allegedly seen with blood on his clothes about the time Annette was murdered.

The inquest continues.