Simon Knight’s mother has called it a last-ditch effort to find what happened to her gay son.
The NSW Government will front a $100,000 reward for information about Knight’s disappearance on 21 July 2005.
The then 32-year-old suffered from depression but had stopped taking medication. He was last seen at a Surry Hills hotel and had spent the night with an escort from a Kings Cross escort agency.
An inquest was held into Mr Knight’s disappearance in July last year and Deputy State Coroner Dillon was unable to confirm whether Mr Knight was dead, Police Minister Tony Kelly said this week.
Mr Knight’s family deserve to know what happened to their loved one and I hope the community will do what it can to assist police with their inquiries.
His mother, Robyn Conlan, said the case wasn’t taken seriously enough at the time.
"He was 32, gay, taking drugs at the time fairly heavily, and they disappear all the time", she told Sydney Star Observer. "We were very angry, because it was my ex-husband and myself who found where he had stayed the night and the escort that he was with."
After fighting to obtain the police brief, Conlan and Knight’s father, Robert, found police had described their son as "a prostitute -” the first they learned of it.
He just disappeared. He left the house he was sharing, with his bicycle and his camera and withdrew $500 from the bank and went to this hotel, obviously tried to get this particular escort. But there were conflicting stories about the escort and his friend.
She hoped someone might have further information that the reward could entice.
Meanwhile, the mother of 26-year-old Chris Matthews approached Sydney Star Observer saying her son who went missing on 10 January this year on Western Australia’s Vasse Hwy may have been trying to resolve his sexuality.
Homicide Survivors Support After Murder Group founder Peter Rolfe tries to support families like those of Knight and recent Narrabeen beat manslaughter victim Gerard Flemming. Rolfe’s business partner Steve Dempsey was murdered at a beat.
One of the worst things about these cases is how it gets picked up by [the media], it can be tough on the families, he said. Dempsey’s murderer was given life, but Rolfe was concerned the jury took four days to reach a guilty decision. The juries can be biased, he said.
Provocation [as a legal defence] has been removed, but you’ve still got people’s minds. I can only say I’m grateful that there aren’t that many gay murders happening now.
info: Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
$250,000 reward
for info on missing Sydney man
Fergus Hunter
SMH
Police have announced a $250,000 reward for information on missing Redfern man Simon Knight, who disappeared 15 years ago without a trace.
The NSW government increased the reward from $100,000 after police inquiries hit a dead end, with no leads into what happened to Mr Knight after he was last seen on Crown St in Surry Hills on July 21, 2005.
Mr Knight's parents have lost hope that their son is alive but police are keeping an open mind into the disappearance, viewing the circumstances as suspicious.
South Sydney Police Area Commander, Superintendent Andrew Holland, urged anyone with information to come forward.
"We believe there are people in the community who have vital information about Mr Knight’s movements on the day he was last seen, and possibly, his whereabouts – information that could help us solve this case," Superintendent Holland said.
Police Minister David Elliott said even seemingly insignificant information could be useful.
"No parent should live with the pain of not knowing if their child is safe, or where they are, or what harm might have come their way," Mr Elliott said.
Mr Knight, who was aged 32 at the time and working as a chef, was reported missing after he failed to arrive for his shift at a cafe in Newtown.
He did not use his bank account after going missing and the bike he was riding was never located, fuelling police concerns for his safety.
"Basically he has disappeared off the face of the earth," Superintendent Holland said.
Mr Knight's mother, Robyn Conlan, said the hardest thing was not knowing what had happened to her son.
"Our son has been missing for over 15 years and his father, sister, brother and I need to know what happened to him," she said.
Simon's father, Bob Knight, said he was hopeful the increased reward would lead to new information.
A coronial inquest held in 2008 found it was unlikely Mr Knight had died and a reward of $100,000 was announced at the time.
At the time of his disappearance, Simon was described as being 183cm tall, with blue eyes, a fair complexion, red hair and facial hair. When he was last seen, he was likely wearing a green T-shirt and blue jeans.
Anyone with information can contact South Sydney Police Area Command or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
A Sydney chef
checked out of a Surry Hills hotel. He
was never seen again
Josefine Ganko
SMH
When Sydney chef Simon Knight didn’t show up for his shift at a Newtown cafe, his colleagues immediately suspected something was wrong.
The absence was out of character for the friendly 32-year-old who was well liked by his colleagues. They reported him missing straight away.
Earlier the same day, Knight checked out of a Surry Hills motel that police believe he was living in, and vanished without a trace.
Exactly 20 years have passed since that day, and in a mystery that has perplexed police and devastated Knight’s family, detectives are no closer to figuring out what happened to him.
Knight was travelling on a bicycle when he went missing, and had withdrawn only $500 from his bank account. He never used the account again, and the “top-of-the-range” bike was never recovered. An avid photographer, Knight also had a Sony Cyber-shot camera in his possession.
“Basically, he has disappeared off the face of the earth,” NSW Police Superintendent Andrew Holland said in 2020.
Knight had just begun studying horticulture when he disappeared, his father Bob Knight said as he recalled their final conversation the week before he vanished.
“He was very passionate about gardening and horticulture, and he wanted a career change, so he was very happy about that,” Bob Knight said through tears at a press conference on Monday.
Knight had a wide circle of friends, regularly frequenting the Crown and Oxford Street bar scene.
“He loved the lifestyle [in Surry Hills], especially with the chef-ing, and he was in the gay community, and he was very happy there,” Bob Knight said.
“He was fun… a bit of the fun went with him [when he disappeared],” Knight’s sister Francis said.