Faye and Mark Leveson made a promise to their 20 year old son Matthew after he disappeared – presumed murdered — in 2007.
“We’ll be here until he’s found …. We’ll be here to the end,” said Mrs Leveson. “We made a promise to him nine years ago, nine long years … until we bring him home.”
Now, the determined couple, together with their two other sons, Jason and Peter, have been given access to the site where Matthew’s remains are believed to be buried.
Police are eight days into the search for Matthew’s body in Sydney’s Royal National Park, after his former boyfriend, 53-year-old Michael Atkins, confessed to police he had buried the body there in 2007.
If the search ends without a discovery, then the spotlight will fall back on Atkins, who was initially found not guilty in 2009 of Matthew’s murder but has since admitted he lied to police.
The NSW Attorney- General Gabrielle Upton agreed to grant Atkins immunity from prosecution if he revealed the location of Matthew’s body.
The agreement has no time limit, and can be reviewed by police to see if the conditions have been met. Without that protection, Atkins could face up to ten years in jail.
In the months before Matthew’s disappearance, Faye Leveson said she had noticed her “beautiful boy” had become guarded and that Atkins would “not let Matt out of his sight”, News Corp reported.
What she didn’t fully realise was that Atkins was heavily into the drug scene and a promiscuous man using her son to lure other lovers.
Days before he went missing, Matthew complained to a female friend that he did not want to have threesomes with his older lover who thought he was “God’s gift to men”.
“He wants me to pick up young boys when we are out and have a threesome,” Matthew told his friend at the NRMA call centre where they worked, according to evidence given during the 2009 trial.
Matthew was last seen leaving Sydney’s ARQ nightclub with Mr Atkins at about 2am.
Atkins bought a mattock and duct tape after Matthew disappeared, the inquest heard. Police found a receipt for the purchase, with Atkins’s fingerprint on the back, inside the younger man’s car, which had been abandoned near the park.
The inquest has been adjourned to March, when the former electrician may be forced to take the stand.
