‘I forgave my son’s killer’

Gloria feels sympathy – not hate – towards the man who took her beloved son’s life

Nobody ever had a bad word to say about Gloria Steensen’s son Bruce. A lovable larrikin, the 53-year-old public servant had the knack of making friends wherever he went.

Gloria, who’s in her 70s, was his biggest fan. “He had a cheeky charm,” she remembers. “People were drawn to him.”

Along with his two sisters, Bruce enjoyed an idyllic childhood. After leaving school, he became a risk-management expert, and although there were long-term partners, Bruce never married or had children.

At 53, Bruce retired, bought a motor caravan and dreamed of travelling Australia with his partner Sonya.

Then at 6am one Saturday in February 2014, Sonya phoned Gloria. “She said we had to get to Nambour Hospital – Bruce was on life support,” Gloria says.

After visiting a friend on the Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Bruce and Sonya were walking along the Mooloolaba Esplanade and saw a young man, Jesse James Patrick, abusing a taxi driver.

“C’mon, mate – just let it go,” Bruce said, trying to defuse

the situation. Alcohol-fuelled 21-year-old Jesse then punched Bruce in the face and he went down, hitting his head on the concrete. His injuries were catastrophic. Bruce was brain dead and Gloria’s family made the only decision possible, to turn off his life support.

‘At the funeral, I felt sorrow for Jesse’s mum’

“It was the hardest day of my life,” she recalls.

Police arrested Jesse and he was charged with Bruce’s murder.

Gloria emerged from her grief with compassion for her son’s killer and started a campaign to stop the tide of street violence.

She called it Just Let It Go (Stop The Violence) – named in honour of Bruce’s last words.

And then Gloria did something extraordinary. “Talking to the crowd at Bruce’s funeral, I felt sorrow for Jesse’s mum,” she says. “She had to face the community knowingknowin knowing the son she loved had done this awful thing. thing

“So I asked everyone to keep her in their thoughts as she must be suffering, too.”

That powerful statement turned out to be the words that set Gloria free.

SHOWING COMPASSION

In 2015, with a desire to see good come from tragedy, Gloria – with her husband John – threw all her efforts into their Just Let It Go (Stop The Violence) campaign.

But perhaps her biggest achievement is the compassion she has extended to Jesse and his family.

During a Brisbane Supreme Court hearing in March

2016, where the charge had been downgraded from murder tomanslaughter to manslaughter, Gloria saw Jesse for the first time.

“He was just a boy,” she sighs. “I didn’t feel hate. I felt sympathy.” Jesse was sentenced to eight years and was eligible for parole after serving at least half his term. He was granted parole, and on his release he was deported to his native New Zealand. Sadly, Gloria recently lost her husband, too. Now she is even more determined to make a difference with her campaign, which John was involved in as much as she is. “If my campaign saves just one life, then Bruce’s death was not in vain,” she says.