Bruce and Denise Morcombe
Australian child safety advocates
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bruce David Morcombe and Denise Marie Morcombe (née Beavis) are Australian child safety advocates. They are best known as the co-founders of the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, a non-profit organisation they established in 2005 following the abduction and murder of their 13-year-old son, Daniel Morcombe, in December 2003.[1][2]
Murder of son
Daniel Morcombe was abducted from a bus stop on the Sunshine Coast on 7 December 2003.[3] The circumstances surrounding his disappearance triggered a widespread search and lengthy police investigation, with Morcombe and his wife frequently appearing in the media appealing to the public for information.[4] Following the arrest of Brett Peter Cowan on 13 August 2011, some of Daniel Morcombe's remains were found at a search site at the Glasshouse Mountains on 21 August 2011.[3] His funeral was held on 7 December 2012 at Siena Catholic College.[5]
Child safety advocacy
They established the Daniel Morcombe Foundation in May 2005 to educate children about how to stay safe in both a physical environment as well as online.[1][2] This has included launching educational resources such as Foundation Red and holding events such as the Walk for Daniel which was inaugurated on the Sunshine Coast in 2005 and the Day for Daniel, a national awareness and fundraising day held on the last Friday of each October when all Australians are asked to wear red, to reflect the red shirt Daniel Morcombe was wearing when he went missing.[1][6] Bruce had openly advocated for a publicly accessible sex offender registry to allow members of the public to know which suburbs convicted sex offenders are living. The proposal garnered the support of the Federal Government, but met with reluctance among state governments which caused frustration for Morcombe.[7] In 2019, he described the proposal as comparable to crocodile signage found in Far North Queensland, stating: "One similarity I use when we were coming up north is every creek crossing you see there are signs, in multiple languages, warning not to swim here, you'll be eaten by a croc. We don't go out shooting crocs or punching them, but we've got an awareness program that says ‘look out, these guys live in the area'. Isn't that the same as a public sex offenders website? We are alerting the public to look out for these people. Predators need to be aware that we're watching."[8]
Bruce had occasionally commented on other high-profile missing persons cases involving children. He revealed in 2009 that he and his wife had been in contact with the family of missing British girl Madeleine McCann, who disappeared from Portugal in 2007.[9]
In 2015, he criticised the decision to stop the parents of William Tyrrell from speaking to the media to appeal for information relating to Tyrell's disappearance.[10]
Bruce formally appealed to the Western Australian state coroner in 2016 for an inquest to be held into the unsolved 1997 murder of 11-year-old Gerard Ross.[11] Morcombe said his interest in the Ross murder came about when he learned that a person of interest who was investigated as part of his son's murder was also questioned in relation to Gerard Ross' murder.[11]
In December 2021, Bruce called on Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to instigate an independent review of forensic evidence from the investigation of the murder of Shandee Blackburn.[12]
In 2021, Bruce appeared on the "Families of Missing Persons" edition of You Can't Ask That on ABC TV which first aired on 26 May 2021.[13]
Bruce was angered by the release of The Stranger in 2022, a film directed by Thomas M. Wright and starring Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris, which is based on the undercover police investigation which led to the arrest of Brett Peter Cowan.[14] Describing the film as a "terrible tale that glorifies a horrific incident", Morcombe asked people not to see the movie and instead donate the money they would have used to buy a movie ticket to donate to the Daniel Morcombe Foundation.[14]
Personal lives
Bruce and Denise Morcombe are members of the Roman Catholic Church.[15] They married in September 1983.[16] They have three children.[16]
Honours
In late 2011, they were jointly named as Queensland Australians of the Year, and as a result were nominated to become 2012 Australians of the Year, but lost to Geoffrey Rush.[17][18]
They were awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours in recognition of his service to the community relating to safety awareness programs for children.[19]
They were both named as the Sunshine Coast's Citizens of the Year at the local Australia Day awards in 2018.[20]
In 2020, they were named as a Queensland Great.[21]