The dad and mom of murdered water polo coach Lilie James have described their devastation in an emotional assertion to the coronial inquest into her loss of life.
Peta and Jamie James additionally harassed the significance of educating younger boys to “respect and value a woman’s opinion and choices” and warned not doing so might have tragic penalties.
“If we are not teaching boys how to accept and value a woman’s opinions and choices and accept rejection, we may be setting them up for failure. Or, in our case, a moment of time we will never recover from.
“That night will stay with us forever. It was absolutely devastating. We have lost a wonderful daughter that we are so proud of.
“To Lilie, we can promise you one thing: we will forever love you and never forget you.”
James’s physique was discovered with critical head accidents in a gymnasium toilet in October 2023 at St Andrew’s Cathedral faculty, the place she labored as a water polo coach.
Her dad and mom described her as “beautiful, independent, intelligent, loyal, extremely active, with a wicked sense of humour and a smile that could light up a room”.
The courtroom heard Paul Thijssen had tried to regulate, manipulate and gaslight James as she tried to depart their brief relationship within the days earlier than he murdered her with a hammer.
Police instantly started a seek for 23-year-old Thijssen, who labored on the faculty as a sports activities coach and after-hours coordinator. His physique was discovered within the ocean under cliffs in Sydney’s jap suburbs days later.
The courtroom had beforehand heard that Thijssen stalked James and meticulously deliberate her homicide after tensions between the 2 escalated amid the breakdown of their brief informal relationship.
One its third day, the inquest heard from the director of the Monash Gender and Household Violence Prevention Centre, Kate Fitz-Gibbon, and the supervisor of the NSW home violence loss of life assessment crew, Anna Butler, who had been sure that Thijssen had exercised coercive management over James.
“She was trying to set boundaries in terms of the relationship and was trying to extricate herself from the relationship,” Butler stated.
“And he partook in behaviours that denied her autonomy and agency in attempting to leave. He utilised manipulative and emotionally abusive tactics to erase her sense of self. He gaslit her and used derogatory language as she attempted to push back against his control.”
Butler referenced behaviour such because the seven situations of bodily stalking within the days earlier than James was killed, in addition to footage of Thijssen aggressively arguing together with her on faculty grounds.
Fitz-Gibbon stated Thijssen’s digital stalking, which included monitoring James’s location through apps similar to Snapchat, was an instance of “technology-facilitated abuse”.
“Monitoring through a range of different platforms, including different social media products, is well recognised as a form of digital coercive control,” she stated.
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Fitz-Gibbon urged Thijssen’s lack of “control over many aspects of his life” was a possible “trigger point” – “where a perpetrator moves from beyond managing and trying to obtain or retain control within a relationship and moves to that post-separation escalation”.
She pointed to the publicity of a faux Snapchat account created by Thijssen within the days earlier than James’s homicide as a key second. Thijssen created the account within the identify of an acquaintance he was flirting with exterior of his relationship with James.
James and a pal of hers uncovered the account and confirmed it to Thijssen, who falsely claimed that the acquaintance had created the account to stalk him.
“He moves to a stage where he has lost control of so many aspects of his life. And we see that around the lies, around education. We see that around the visa challenges that he is facing, around the Snapchat account that he sets up and [is] discovered,” Fitz-Gibbon advised the inquest.
“Humiliation is a particularly challenging emotion for someone who is trying to control the aspects of their lives to face.”
The courtroom had beforehand heard there might have been a number of stressors in Thijssen’s life within the lead-up to the deaths, together with the state of his work visa.
Thijssen was raised within the Netherlands and initially got here to Australia together with his dad and mom between 2015 and 2017. He turned sports activities captain and prefect at St Andrew’s.
He had returned a number of occasions to Australia earlier than the assault. The courtroom additionally heard earlier within the week that when one other former girlfriend tried to interrupt issues off with Thijssen, he had stalked and intimidated her, hacked into her Snapchat account and punched a tree above her head.
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In Australia, the disaster assist service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the nationwide household violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Different worldwide helplines could be discovered through www.befrienders.org
