[3] He grew up in a modest house out on the swamplands south of Wollongong, within walking distance of the Port Kembla steelworks that was built in the 1920s and which employed his truck-driving father through the Depression and beyond.
[3] In October 1996, Franca Arena asked in state parliament whether Arkell was the person known to the Wood Royal Commission as W1 in allegations involving paedophilia.
[6][7] Arkell's head had been smashed in with a bedside lamp, an electric cord was wrapped tightly around his neck, and tie-pins protruded from his eyes and cheeks.
At his trial Valera attempted to run a homosexual advance defence, giving evidence that Arkell had seduced him and that they had been in a sexual relationship for more than a year.
Valera also testified that he had been a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of his own father, Jack Van Krevel, from the age of seven.