In his spare time, he has been going through the places where Jenkins was last seen and has also met federal and state politicians to seek better ties between Adelaide and George Town.

The two cities will celebrate 50 years of their sister-city relationship next year.

Pangallo, an elected member of the SA legislative council (the upper house of the state parliament), said he was here at his own expense out of responsibility to his constituents.

“As a former journalist for 46 years, I sought to correct wrongs, to be a watchdog for the underdogs. The Jenkinses are very much the underdogs here. After all, Mrs Jenkins and her family are my constituents.

“When they sought my help, I listened to their story. I felt they deserve all the help they can get and I will go out of my way to do it,” he said.

Pangallo said that when he first heard about the family’s plight, he felt that they were treated “appallingly”.

“Even in our own country, the matter didn’t get the attention it deserved at first,” he said. “Had Mrs Jenkins been a blonde, attractive woman in her mid-20s, who had been banged up abroad on some kind of drug charges, they would have got more attention than what she got.”

He speculated that racism might have tempered Australian media interest in the story. “But it didn’t to me. I just saw that a terrible injustice has been committed to Mrs Jenkins and the family, because nobody cared enough to try and take up the fight,” he said.

Pangallo said he was moved by Jenkins’ son, Greg, who had spent a lot of money searching for her here without much assistance from the police.

He said he was convinced that Jenkins was murdered. Based on the events at the inquest, he felt the police made “amateurish mistakes” in their investigation.

“It seemed to me, what value do you put on a person’s life? What if it was my mother? I would want to see some sort of justice. That’s why this has motivated me a lot,” he said.

He compared the inquest to a 2014 inquest in South Australia into a freak accident involving a Malaysian child, Adelene Leong, eight, who was flung out at a high-energy ride at a fairground while holidaying in Adelaide with her family.

Last month, a South Australian coroner called the incident inexcusable and preventable.

Pangallo said the South Australia government initiated a number of inquiries over the past eight years and the inquest went into a great deal of detail to find out who was at fault.

“The South Australian government worked hard to ensure that the family was well represented and they were able to get a fair go in determining her cause of death,” he said.