<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>Warning: This story contains the name and images of a deceased Indigenous person.</span></strong></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Mark Haines' siblings have spent every day of the last 37 years desperately missing their beloved older brother.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Mark, a happy and unassuming Gomeroi teenager who loved playing footy, </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/tamworth-nsw--mark-haines-four-decades-of-questions-over-teens-train-track-death/753f8542-4c4b-43ac-b2cb-4737ae39d2e7" rel="" target="" title="was found dead on train tracks outside Tamworth, NSW, in January 1988"><span>was found dead on train tracks outside Tamworth, NSW, in January 1988</span></a><span>.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/super-funds-hit-in-apparent-cyber-attack/bb29f397-c409-4ff7-8a3a-f9603e06e4ce" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>Super customers lose 'low hundreds of thousands' of dollars in cyber attack</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>An inquest re-examining the 17-year-old's death has given his siblings Lorna and Ron Haines very little comfort.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"After 37 years they still don't feel like they have answers for what happened to Mark," National Justice Project lawyer Karina Hawtrey told reporters outside the NSW Coroners Court in Sydney on Friday.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Lorna Haines looked to the sky and began to weep as her lawyer described the depths of the family's torment.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/national/tamworth-mystery-death-four-decades-of-torment-after-teens-train-track-death/d5fb62af-ce4c-4084-bc86-4cc6235cbdff" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"They want to know the truth about what happened to him, how he ended up on those tracks in Tamworth," Hawtrey said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Heavy rain was falling before dawn on January 16, when a train crew spotted Mr Haines' body lying in the middle of the tracks.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A folded blanket or towel was under his head, with cardboard boxes surrounding him.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/tayla-spies-missing-in-queensland-hilux-found-police-say/3871c2f7-a322-406d-a4a1-91fa4ff0bdfb" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>Human remains found in search for missing Queensland mum</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Police found a stolen white Torana next to the rail line, which appeared to have crashed and rolled.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>An initial police investigation ruled Mark lay on the tracks either deliberately or in a dazed state after the car crash, something his family has never believed.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A coroner handed down an open finding after an inquest in 1988 and 1989.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Mark's uncle Don Craigie has long pursued rumours that several Tamworth locals had something to do with his nephew's death or knew more about it.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Weeks of hearings have only agitated those theories, as many witnesses pointed towards other people, were unable to recall key details or denied any involvement.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Craigie said investigators failed to take the family's suspicions of foul play seriously and police racism hindered any progress in the case.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"That train would still be there if it was a white boy," Craigie told the inquest on Friday.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"They would have turned that train engine over."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/tony-mokbel-bail-hearing-decision-outcome-melbourne-court/5d0eecd8-75d4-4e32-ad48-5c1ea2123efe" rel="" target="_blank" title=""><strong><span>Victorian crime figure Tony Mokbel's bail granted</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A senior police officer, Chief Superintendent Alan Donnelly, openly dismissed him when they spoke at a Tamworth betting shop, Craigie said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"He said to me 'Don, you never know what a 17-year-old boy would do, you never know what a 17-year-old Aboriginal boy would do'," he said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Donnelly died in 2023.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Matthew Varley, the barrister representing NSW Police, showed Craigie a series of newspaper articles in which investigators appealed for more information in the years after Mark's death.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Police also interviewed several people over the following decade, pursuing leads Craigie gave them, according to documents before the inquest.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>But Craigie said police have treated deaths of non-Indigenous people very differently.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"I've seen a few deaths around Tamworth and they've pulled out all the stops," Craigie said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"And then there was others they did not pay too much attention to.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We want to know how our boy died."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The inquest, which opened in April 2024, was due to conclude, but further hearings have been scheduled before Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>Support is available by calling 13YARN 13 92 76 or Lifeline 13 11 14.</span></strong></div></div>