Tara’s mother hears the worst

“There lay Tara in hospital. Motionless, bandaged, bruised, black and blue, broken and swollen . . . a shadow of her beauty.

“And then I was told the words a parent should never have to hear in a life time ‘the magnitude of Tara’s injuries are fatal and she is not going to make it’. “Tara was dying.” As Tara Brown’s mother, Natalie Hinton, read these words from her victim impact statement in the Brisbane Supreme Court yesterday, there was barely a dry eye in the room. She shook, her voice shook — but she delivered a powerful statement metres away from the man who had just admitted beating Brown to death.

“I am the mother of Tara Brown, deceased. I speak with extreme fondness of my daughter. She was a lover, loving and loved.

“She was a lover of life. From a very young age Tara would explore and seek fun, push herself to the limits, give anything a go. The world was her oyster.”

Hinton, who was born and raised in New Zealand, said when Patea entered her daughter’s life she saw “a cycle of domestic violence unravel”.

“She feared him, which increased my fear of him,” she said. “He tried to make her life hell with abuse and repulsive threats until the day he murdered her.”

Hinton said Patea was “a monster” and when he killed Brown her “whole world caved in around” her.

“I still find it hard to believe she is gone.” — Anna Leask