When independent children's lawyer Debbie Morton met Jack and Jennifer Edwards in December 2016, she didn't hear them allege their father John Edwards had hit them.
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"I can recall that neither one of them said they were afraid of him and I can recall Jack was pretty keen (to see his father) and Jennifer was a bit more ambivalent," she told the NSW Coroners Court on Thursday.
That recollection jarred with other evidence about how the children felt about the father who murdered them in July 2018, the children's inquest was told.
Counsel assisting Kate Richardson SC said the lawyer's comments appeared surprising given the children told "every therapist, family consultant ... at least four or five health professionals" their father was violent to them.
But Ms Morton, the Sydney lawyer tasked to advocate for Jack and Jennifer's best interests during family court proceedings, stood by her recollection despite being unable to find her handwritten record of the meeting.
The court was told Ms Morton advocated for the children to see Edwards for a few hours every Saturday.
"I wouldn't have ... if they'd indicated to me that it wasn't in their best interests," she said.
Reading from a transcript of the December 2016 court hearing, Ms Richardson said the children's lawyer made out the police had attributed allegations of violence as "heavy-handed parenting".
Ms Morton told the judge that she took family violence seriously but had no concerns "on what I've seen".
When Ms Richardson stated there was nothing on the police file up to December 2016 that mentioned "heavy-handed parenting", Ms Morton was adamant she must have read it on the police file.
"They aren't words I would use," she said, denying they could have come via Edwards or his lawyer.
She accepted she didn't specifically tell the family law judge about her contrasting conversation with the children or that the family therapist had reservations about continuing therapy while allegations of family violence were in play.
The inquest heard interim orders made on December 22, 2016, called for the children to visit their father every Saturday for two to three hours.
That was breached repeatedly in the next few months, except when a therapist took them to a meeting for 15 minutes.
Asked if that wasn't the teenagers "voting with their feet", Ms Morton said their mother Olga wasn't taking them to the changeover point.
State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan is examining the lead-up to Edwards' violent slaughter of his children, including family law and gun registration issues.
Poorly recorded police reports and incomplete pictures of Edwards' propensity for domestic violence meant he was still able to apply for, and acquire, five guns in 2017 and 2018.
One of the matters on Edwards' police record as of December 2016 detailed an estranged adult daughter's 2011 allegations that he'd tracked her down and - stepping out from behind a tree at her child's preschool - tried to enter her car.
Scared to return home, the woman said she drove to her partner's work and stayed there until 5pm when he could accompany her home.
The allegations, which also included the woman saying Edwards abused her as a child, were attached to a restraining order application dropped when the woman moved to Europe.
Ms Morton initially characterised the allegations as a man "wanting to see his grandchild".
"The complaint wasn't that he caused any physical harm, just that he was an annoyance," she said.
But after the entire narrative was read out in court, she accepted that was not a reasonable conclusion.
Australian Associated Press
