00:00As you're aware, yesterday morning a bushwalker found human remains on an area...
00:05...of a dry, rocky riverbed in the Arthur River near the Philosopher Falls area.
00:10That bushwalker was a previously registered volunteer with a...
00:15...search party, a privately organised search party through IFW Global that was involved...
00:20...in searching that area in December last year and were involved in locating a mobile phone.
00:25That was confirmed as belonging to missing Belgian tourist, Céline Crenin.
00:30I haven't spoken personally with that bushwalker from yesterday, but my understanding is that...
00:35...he was there yesterday acting independently and on his own and that is not an uncommon thing...
00:40...as many of the people who volunteered their services to try and help locate Céline.
00:45...have done so a number of times for a number of hours over the past three years.
00:50What I am really pleased about...
00:55...was that during that collaboration with IFW Global we were able to offer some advice...
01:00...to the volunteers and whilst that search wasn't led by us and we had...
01:05...no control over who was involved in that search...
01:07...were able just to share some advice and that advice was...
01:10...for mainly around two main reasons. First of all that if anything was located...
01:15...either during those searches or outside of those...
01:17...then it was handled appropriately so that we can manage...
01:20...those items in accordance with our requirements under the Coroner's Act.
01:24The second...
01:25...and perhaps probably the more important reason arguably is the sensitivity...
01:29...that might be needed.
01:30...if items were discovered just to protect the dignity of those items and obviously...
01:35...look after family and loved ones that may have been involved.
01:40...rather pleasingly the bushwalker involved did exactly what we would have expected them.
01:45...to do. He identified that the remains or the bones were what they were.
01:50He took some photographs of them. He recorded the exact location on a GPS.
01:55...coordinates and then he moved out of the area where he got coverage...
01:59...and then shared those in.
02:00...and then shared those images and the advice we have testimony in place.
02:02...
02:05...around the same time that we started deploying our resources to the area...
02:08...we then shared those images...
02:10...with a state pathologist and the pathologist confirmed that the remains were affected.
02:15....and these images started by teh...
02:16....so we continued to recognise...
02:18.... socialism...
02:20Adam Jordan...
02:21Adam Jordan...
02:22Adam Jordan...
02:24These cameras Coltesy...
02:25...and you do not fire to the...
02:26So you do not fire to do not your tocone.
02:27All of thisfy...
02:28The cameras...
02:29That's a joke.
02:31iffewential...
02:32Who else have movie enemies?
02:33No one copyright?
02:34It's written a joke...
02:35No one is really distant...
02:36How do you mean byénom say,
02:38Why do you have sympathy?
02:39Be once as a joke...
02:40the migrants that this town is our cast...
02:41...or we toim...
02:43...auch is in a argument...
02:44of that riverbank. As a result of that, our Forensics Officer has located an additional fibre.
02:49Items, which we believe could be human remains, but that's yet to be confirmed by a report.
02:54Now, I'd like to be really clear.
02:59That we are looking into the matter of the human remains as a completely...
03:04...separate investigation at this point. And the reason we do that is because it's...
03:09...unconfirmed what the identity of that person is, and that's going to...
03:14...a significant amount of time coming. The other thing is, there was nothing else at that area.
03:19Yesterday, that indicated the identity. So no clothing, no other items.
03:24And the reason I'm sharing that with you is because there is no doubt that the...
03:29...proximity of those bones is close enough to the area where Selene Cremaire went missing.
03:34That we are considering a possibility that the remains are those of Selene.
03:39But again, to make it very clear, that is not confirmed, and it is something that will have to come through free.
03:44We are considering the remains of testing. Because of that association...
03:49...we wanted to ensure that Selene's mum, Ariane, was advised of this find prior to it.
03:54...becoming mainstream through media sources. So our family liaison contacted her.
03:59...yesterday to discuss it with her. She was very grateful of the news.
04:03And as you can imagine...
04:04...and she was quite keen to hear the timeline that it might take for the testing of those.
04:09...human remains to determine an identity, if we can determine an identity.
04:14So, I'm going to share a little bit of the high-level background of that with you, bearing in mind...
04:19...forensic expertise is not my area of expertise, but I'm able to provide a high-level...
04:24...overview of how that looks. And that's simply so that everybody out there understands that there is a process to...
04:29...and it does take time to actually work through these steps as the investigation.
04:34...and I'm going to share with you one of the bones that was found. And I'm doing that so that you...
04:39...understand the need for the delay in this process. But sometimes when we hear specific...
04:44...about these things that can dehumanise it a little bit, I just would ask everybody that they understand that...
04:49...sharing information like this can have an impact on people, especially the family of this person...
04:53...who has been found.
04:54So I just ask that you do it excessively.
04:56But one of the bones we did find was a lower jaw bone.
04:59And I'm sharing that because it is a necessary part of that process to conduct some testing.
05:04...for dental records and dental matches. So as I understand it, the process now will be...
05:09...the bones will be sent to a pathologist. They will conduct a report and a review.
05:14They will then go to an anthropologist for a similar process. The bones will then go to an...
05:19...oontologist who will conduct those dental comparisons with records that we are currently in the process.
05:24...obtaining through Ariane from Pozen. And the last part of that...
05:29...the chain is my understanding that the bones then get sent to Forensic Science Services Tasmania.
05:34...for DNA testing. And as you can imagine, each one of those steps takes time.
05:39...and it could take several weeks before we actually have any answers.
05:44...to completely understand and acknowledge that this discovery might be very distressing.
05:49...of Saline's family, particularly her mum, her friends, and in fact the whole community...
05:52...have been invested in this matter for...
05:54...several years. And we also acknowledge that there is a significant interest from the public for the results.
05:59...in this particular case. What I can say to you is that everybody involved in this is invested.
06:04...and they will be working as fast as practicable to achieve those answers for you.
06:09...as soon as we get them, as soon as it's validated and confirmed, and we are able to release it.
06:14...then we'll share the information with you.
06:18Before I take questions...
06:19...I just want to go into what efforts we are now moving towards in and around the area of the...
06:24...river where the remains were discovered. We are planning to return tomorrow.
06:28Search and Rescue are working at...
06:29...at the moment, conducting planning. They are most likely going to send six...
06:34...experts to conduct searching of that river. We will be using the helicopter again.
06:39...and simply due to the time it takes to get in there. It enables us to get people in there more efficiently...
06:43...and spend more...
06:44...or time on the ground searching. They are going to be inserted approximately four to five hundred metres down...
06:49...of where the remains were located. And they will effectively then walk up the river.
06:54...and what is effectively a line search looking into the water. At this stage there's no plans to do any...
06:59...perge searches or any diving. My advice is that the river is quite low. The level is quite low.
07:04There's no need for swift water rescue equipment and they can simply wade through and go through that system.
07:09I also need to caveat that by saying that that's weather dependent and if...
07:14...the helicopter can't fly, then what we will do is continually reassess it...
07:17...and the first available opportunity we have.
07:19...we will be utilized at that very hot pressure.
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