Newcastle family tells inquest the pain of not knowing what happened to Jayden Penno-Tompsett after he went missing at Charters Towers a living hell

Three years after the then 22-year-old vanished outside the remote Far North Queensland town of Charters Towers, his mother Rachel Penno told a Cairns-based inquest on Thursday she would never recover from losing her only child.

On the eve of Mother's Day, Ms Penno delivered a tearful statement to the court remembering her son as a kind, caring, loving spirit, with a huge heart.

She described the absence of Jayden's body and the not knowing as unbearable, and said she had suffered relentless physical and mental pain.

"Losing Jay has been like a knife wound to my heart, my insides have been torn out," Ms Penno said. "I will never recover and I'm waiting for the day I can finally rest and see my boy again."

Ms Penno, who has been a fierce advocate for uncovering the truth about what happened to Jayden, described how he loved motorbikes and dreamed of one day owning a property so he could build a race track.

She described a young man who dreamed big, worked hard and was generous to a fault. "From the time he was born he had the biggest, cheekiest smile that melted even the hardest of hearts," she said.

With their hopes continually raised, then dashed again, Ms Penno said the past three years since Jayden disappeared had taken a huge toll on everyone who loved him.

"Since the day my only child went missing, life as I knew it ceased to exist," she said. "My only mission is to find Jay and bring him home to his loved ones. I pray this inquest brings the answers I've been searching for. There will never be closure for me, but I hope it will bring some healing and closure to all those who love Jay."

She said the trauma of the disappearance and its aftermath had forever changed so many lives. "I stand before you all with a heavy heart, a broken woman," she said.

INQUEST:

Queensland Coroner Nerida Wilson will bring down her findings on Friday morning, she is tasked with determining whether Jayden is dead, and if so, when and how he died.

Jayden's father Brendan Tompsett, who lives in Western Australia, described the not knowing as the "worst nightmare". "I've stitched my heart together with tears every single day... that will never stop because there is no closure on this," he said.

"I think we all know what happened, but there is always hope. Last time I laid eyes on him he was pushing me away at the airport because I wouldn't stop hugging him."

Mr Tompsett said Jayden was his "biggest achievement'' and encouraged him to be a better person. He said Jayden could "light up a room" and "he had this thing, where he could connect with people".

"I truly believe he would not have left another person in that position," he said referring to the fact that Jayden was last seen on foot on a searingly hot Summer's day outside Charters Towers. "I truly believe he would not have left another person."

Jayden's extended family urged people to see him as more than the sum of his final few days. "We think during this process, and within some of the media, the emphasis has been on drug use, and he has been portrayed not in the best light," the family statement said.

"He was much more than that. No matter what, he was a human being who was fiercely loved by many people, and given the opportunity, would have found his way."

Coroner Wilson apologised to the family for the focus of the inquest to date. "We reduce people and actions to that which is truly not representative of the totality of the person and I'm aware of that," she said.

She described Jayden's disappearance as among the "extremely rare and extremely difficult" 1 per cent of missing persons cases where a loved one is not found. "It's the hope that hurts," she said.

Earlier in the day, the inquest heard that Lucas Tattersall, the Newcastle man who was the last person to see Jayden alive, cleaned his car and attempted to sell it when he arrived in Cairns a few days after Jayden went missing.

Mr Tattersall, who was accompanied by his mother at the inquest, said he didn't want to drive back to Newcastle alone, so cleaned and vaccuumed the car in an attempt to sell the Nissan Pulsar at a car yard in Cairns.

Mr Tattersall, who was travelling with Jayden to a New Year's Eve party in Cairns in December 2017, said the drive up to Queensland "kinda scared the shit out of me".

He told the inquest that on the way to Charters Towers, the men ran over a dead kangaroo before Jayden went missing on January 31.

Mr Tattersall said by the time he got to Cairns the car stunk of "burnt oil" and dead kangaroo. "It was revolting, the smell," he said. "I tried to sell the car at a caryard. I didn't want to drive home alone." The court heard he was hoping to get enough money for an airfare back to Newcastle, but couldn't sell the car because it was registered in NSW.

In a third day of revelations, Mr Tattersall also admitted that he had previously threatened Jayden over a drug debt.

He said a "fair while" before the Cairns trip Jayden bought drugs from him and didn't pay.

"I told my mate and he threatened Jayden," he said. "There was no follow through, we sorted it out and Jayden gave me the money a few days later. It resolved itself."

Under cross examination from Jayden's mother's barrister, Alex Raeburn, Mr Tattersall agreed that his memory of the events when Jayden disappeared was "cloudy" due to him taking several ecstasy pills and MDMA powder.

But he detailed to the court that in the hours before the disappearance, Jayden got out of the car and lost a large bag of methamphetamines, or ice, that he had bought on credit and the pair were driving frantically around Charters Towers for hours trying to find it.

"This is where is gets weird," Mr Tattersall said. "I think because of the sleep deprivation all the streets started to look the same to him.

"We kept driving around and pulling up at every street... We couldn't even find the street where we were. The more times we got out of the car and couldn't find it, the more he got agitated."

Mr Tattersall, who said he does not smoke ice, said Jayden had been smoking heavily in the days before their arrival in Charters Towers. "Then we got to a dirt road and he started thinking it was going to be out this way," he said. "He was doing head miles. He was doing head circles."

The court heard Jayden asked Mr Tattersall if he had the drugs and the pair got into an argument. "He was trying to turn it towards me, and that's when I blew up and said it's not my fault you lost the crap," he said.

Mr Tattersall said he remembered little about the specifics of exactly where they were when Jayden stormed off and sat under a tree in a paddock. "He said he wanted to be left alone," Mr Tattersall told the court. "He said, 'I just need to sit down and think about what the f--- is going on and figure out what the f--- I'm going to do'. So I just went back to the car."

That was the last time he saw Jayden. Mr Tattersall said he serached on foot for a while and it "started to get real hot, like I needed to get water". He then drove around for hours, but was unable to find Jayden and went on to Cairns. Jayden was not reported missing until three days later.

In an emotional state, Mr Tattersall asked the court if anyone had ever thought about how he feels. "It was my mate who went missing and the finger gets pointed at me," he said.

But Coroner Wilson interrupted him and said that Jayden's family was not at the inquest for "those type of statements". She instructed Mr Tattersall to just answer the questions put to him.

In closing submissions, counsel assisting the coroner Joseph Crawfoot said Mr Tattersall's evidence was "largely consistent with the independent data we have".

He said the mystery disappearance revolved around drug and alcohol use that affected people's judgment, fears of getting in trouble with the police, a view that it was not out of character for Jayden to walk off after an argument and later return and a "complete lack of awareness about Charters Towers and the conditions Jayden might have been in there".

"Whatever moral failing Mr Tattersall may have, there was no act that contributed to the cause of Jayden's death," he said. He urged the coroner to find Jayden, who had no water, had walked off and perished in the harsh conditions.

Mr Raeburn, barrister for the family, said despite initial concerns about the police investigation, Ms Penno now accepts it was comprehensive and significant resources were employed to find Jayden.

He said she stil maintains there are some avenues of investigation that could be continued and the family called for a reward in an effort to open new lines of inquiry.

Ms Penno urged Coroner Wilson against a finding that Jayden's death was due to misadventure or suicide.

"She maintains her view Jayden has met with foul play," Mr Raeburn said.

"There was no physical evidence in the vast area that was searched that he was there."

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