He became a member of St Marys Pistol Club, this photograph taken for his club ID card. Photo / NSW Coroner's Court
He became a member of St Marys Pistol Club, this photograph taken for his club ID card. Photo / NSW Coroner's Court
Australian dad John Edwards wrote to Ku-ring-gai Pistol Club begging them to speed up his path to membership "in the spirit of Xmas" as he sought a licence for the gun he would eventually use to murder his two children, it can be revealed.
Days earlier, he had spun a manipulative lie to club secretary David Dean about why he had previously been refused a licence, telling him that years ago his Russian ex-wife had secretly fallen pregnant and taken out an AVO against him to stay in Australia.
"In the same breath," Dean said of the December 2016 conversation, "he said that his current wife was so supportive in him taking up shooting again that she was going to purchase rifles as a gift."
In fact Edwards' current wife, Olga, was living in fear with kids Jack, 15, and Jennifer, 13, after leaving her husband in March 2016.
John Edwards lied that his wife Olga was going to buy him rifles as a gift. In fact she had left him after he was violent to their children. Photo / Sipplied
She did so after years of Edwards' controlling behaviour and violence towards the children, in particular Jack, who had taken to sleeping with a cricket bat in his room.
He would go on to shoot dead Jack and Jennifer with a legally acquired Glock pistol on July 5, 2018, and kill himself soon after. Olga took her own life five months later.
Ku-ring-gai Pistol Club (KPC) president Neville "Drew" Thornton told an inquest into the deaths last year he had immediately clocked Edwards as a "pushy" personality when he approached the club in December 2016.
Dean said the same: "My immediate impression of John Edwards was that he was pushy and aggressive and wanted to expedite the whole process and he couldn't understand why we would roll over and make it happen."
Knowing he had failed at first impressions, Edwards attempted to undo the damage in a letter he handed to Thornton on December 13, 2016.
The contents of what he wrote can be revealed in full for the first time, providing new insight into how manipulative and determined he was.
"I am aware that my becoming a member of your club hinges ultimately upon your personal goodwill and invitation," Edwards wrote.
"So I would really like to clear up an issue pertaining to a perception you seem to have taken about me, ie, that I am 'pushing' to join.
"I humbly request that you interpret my actions in another way, ie, I am merely keen to join your club."
Edwards went on to describe himself as "a retired person with a lot of time on my hands" who was just trying to speed up "an already lengthy process and save you some work as well".
"All that I ask, in the spirit of Xmas, that you at least submit my P650 from your club asap so that it can be processed along with my P650 from the rifle club."
A P650 form allows an unlicensed person to shoot supervised at ranges if they do not have an adverse personal history.
They are usually processed by gun clubs, but Edwards needed to go through the Firearms Registry as he had previously been denied a licence and needed a special permit to undertake safety training.
He became a member of St Marys Pistol Club, this photograph taken for his club ID card. Photo / NSW Coroner's Court
Jack and Jennifer Edwards were murdered in West Pennant Hills in July 2018. Photo / Supplied
He was granted one for KPC, but the club denied him membership in March 2017. Officials made the call after an email discussion in which Dean described Edwards as a "right PITA", meaning pain in the arse.
This led Edwards to pen another beseeching letter, this time to the Firearms Registry, in a bid to change his permit. He "didn't get along with" Thornton and felt there were "cliques" at KPC, he wrote.
Registry staff agreed to alter his permit so he could do safety training at St Marys Pistol Club, where officials had no idea Edwards had been refused membership at KPC.
In mid-2017 he was granted rifle and pistol licences and in April 2018 bought the Glock.
State coroner Teresa O'Sullivan lashed the gun registry in her inquest findings, saying Edwards' lengthy and obvious history of family violence meant he should never have gotten the permits or licences.
Gun club officials, many of them volunteers, did not have access to this history.
Despite the numerous red flags Edwards threw up at KPC, officials were under no obligation to tell the registry unless they felt Edwards presented a risk to public safety, which they did not.
These are among the gaps Edwards so adroitly exploited to get away with family violence and obtain the guns he used to kill Jack and Jennifer.
Magistrate O'Sullivan recommended the NSW government dump the P650 scheme and introduce a system with registry oversight and change the law to require gun clubs to tell the registry if they refuse a person membership.
She also recommended the current requirement that pistol clubs report people they perceive as a public safety threat be widened to include all gun clubs and people who raise risk concerns.
A spokesman for Police Minister David Elliott said the NSW government and police force would "carefully review" Magistrate O'Sullivan's recommendations when asked if they would commit to these gun reforms.
The spokesman said the Firearms Registry had undergone an "extensive restructure" in the wake of Jack and Jennifer's deaths.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE - DO YOU NEED HELP?
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