The parents of murdered water polo coach Lilie James have described their devastation in an emotional statement to the coronial inquest into her death.
Peta and Jamie James also stressed the importance of teaching young boys to “respect and value a woman’s opinion and choices” and warned not doing so could have tragic consequences.
“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 body was found with serious head injuries in a gymnasium bathroom in October 2023 at St Andrew’s Cathedral school, where she worked as a water polo coach.
Her parents 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 court heard Paul Thijssen had attempted to control, manipulate and gaslight James as she tried to leave their short relationship in the days before he murdered her with a hammer.
Police immediately began a search for 23-year-old Thijssen, who worked at the school as a sports coach and after-hours coordinator. His body was found in the ocean below cliffs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs days later.
The court had previously heard that Thijssen stalked James and meticulously planned her murder after tensions between the two escalated amid the breakdown of their short casual relationship.
In its third day, the inquest heard from the director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, Kate Fitz-Gibbon, and the manager of the NSW domestic violence death review team, Anna Butler, who both were certain that Thijssen had exercised coercive control over James.
“She was trying to set boundaries in terms of the relationship, and was trying to extricate herself from the relationship,” Butler said.
“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 as the seven instances of physical stalking in the days before James was killed, as well as footage of Thijssen aggressively arguing with her on school grounds.
Fitz-Gibbon said Thijssen’s digital stalking, which included tracking James’s location via apps such as Snapchat, was an example 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 said.
Fitz-Gibbon suggested Thijssen’s loss of “control over many aspects of his life” was a likely “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 exposure of a fake Snapchat account created by Thijssen in the days before James’s murder as a key moment. Thijssen created the account in the name of an acquaintance he was flirting with, outside of his relationship with James.
The account was uncovered by James and a friend, and put 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 has discovered,” Fitz-Gibbon told the inquest.
“Humiliation is a particularly challenging emotion for someone who is trying to control the aspects of their lives to face.”
The court had previously heard there could have been several stressors in Thijssen’s life in the lead-up to the deaths, including the state of his work visa.
Thijssen was raised in the Netherlands and had initially come to Australia with his parents between 2015 and 2017. He became sports captain and prefect at St Andrew’s.
He had returned several times to Australia before the attack. The court also heard earlier in the week that when another former girlfriend attempted to break things 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 crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
