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Man charged over Family Law Court bombings

ABC

ABC

Sydney man Leonard John Warwick has been charged on Wednesday with more than 30 offences, including four murder charges, over a string of unsolved shootings and bombings that became known as the Family Law Court murders.

Detectives arrested the 69-year-old former firefighter in Campbelltown on Wednesday morning in connection with the crimes committed three decades ago.

“This arrest resulted from a tenacious, very persistent investigation that goes back to early 2012 but in reality goes back 30 years to the 1980s,” Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas told reporters.

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He praised the work of the unsolved homicide team.

“The evidence that we’ve gathered includes significant new evidence, historic evidence that has been enhanced using technology that was probably not available 30 years ago.”

Dozens of police, including the public order and riot squad, are at Warwick’s semi-rural home in Douglas Park on Sydney’s southwestern fringe.

ABC

The remains of the Jehovah’s Witness church hall following the bombing. Photo: ABC

Officers are conducting a line search across Warwick’s sloping backyard while the PolAir helicopter hovers above.

Investigators are also combing through his home and garage and some neighbours have spilled onto the street to watch the search unfold.

The street has been blocked by police and only residents are being allowed through.

The dramatic developments come more than three decades after the series of bombings and shootings, including targeting judges and the Family Law Court in Parramatta.

In 2012, homicide squad detectives began investigating the series of attacks between 1980 and 1985.

Justice David Opas was shot dead at his Sydney home in June 1980 and in the same year, Stephen Blanchard was shot dead at his Revesby home.

Four years later, a bomb blew apart the home of Justice Richard Gee but luckily no one was injured.

In the same year a bomb detonated at Justice Ray Watson’s home, killing his wife Pearl.

Also in 1984, a bomb went off at the Family Law Court in Parramatta, but no one was injured.

AAP

Police at the Douglas Park property. Photo: AAP

The following year, a bomb was found under the bonnet of a car at Northmead.

A Jehovah’s Witness hall in Casula was bombed in 1985, with Graham Wykes dying from the explosion and 13 others injured.

Superintendent Mick Willing, from the homicide squad, said the bombings and murders were crimes against the legal system.

“These crimes are not only crimes against individuals, they were crimes against our society,” he said.

“They impacted on the entire country.”

He said it was a significant day for the victims and their families.

“These crimes instilled a great deal of fear, particularly for those people who worked in and around the family law courts around that time. With today’s arrest we can’t forget the people who lost their lives,” he said.

“The Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant, is grateful that police have at last made an arrest after so long without any resolution of these crimes,” the Family Court of Australia said in a statement.

“She said that it would be inappropriate to make any further comment until the judicial process has been concluded.”

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