‘WHERE'S THE JUSTICE FOR MY GIRL?’
JOHN HERRON IS DETERMINED TO GIVE COURTNEY A VOICE AFTER HER LIFE WAS TRAGICALLY CUT SHORT
Last month, John Herron should have been celebrating his precious daughter Courtney’s 27th birthday with her. Instead, the father-ofthree watched helplessly as the man who confessed to brutally bludgeoning his eldest child to death was cleared of murder. Henry Hammond, 28, was homeless when he killed aspiring social worker Courtney with a tree branch, before hiding her body in Melbourne’s Royal Park very early on May 25, 2019.
Courtney’s injuries were so severe, the mortician struggled to put her broken body back together before she was buried – leaving her family unable to see her to say their final farewells.
But last month, Hammond was found not guilty of murder because of mental impairment, with the court ruling he was in the grips of a schizophrenic relapse. He was ordered to spend 25 years in a psychiatric hospital.
John, 60, a powerful advocate against genderbased violence, says he fears Hammond, who is originally from Sydney but was living nomadically in Victoria, will apply for a review and be granted release within five years – free to kill again.
“Where is the justice for my daughter?” says John, a criminal lawyer. “The police estimate Courtney died in several minutes, but Hammond kept beating her for 50 minutes. Her murder trial
took less time, yet he will never be convicted and will probably be let out of the facility on day trips in three year’s time – it’s just devastating.”
Courtney met Hammond the day before her murder and treated him to dinner at a restaurant, where security footage shows them bantering away happily.
Afterwards, they took drugs together and a witness sleeping in the park heard Courtney say, ‘Are you going to kill me?’ before he struck her in the face with a branch.
Hammond claims Courtney had hurt him in a past life and he was finally able to get his “revenge” on her during the attack.
While John, from Riddells Creek, VIC, says Courtney struggled with substance abuse issues in the years before her death, she was seeking treatment and was a vibrant and very intelligent girl who could’ve overcome anything.
“The impact of losing a child on your family and extended family is just enormous,” explains John, who was recently diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. “I’ll be passing places we’ve been together or hear a song and my grief is triggered. My mind keeps racing in some crazy hope that she will return one day and this is all a bad dream.”
John and Courtney’s brother, Christopher, 23, believe they suffered a “second death” when they learned Hammond should have been in prison the night he killed Courtney.
“THIS IS ABOUT MORE THAN THE DEATH OF MY DAUGHTER”
Hammond was jailed for assaulting, strangling and threatening to kill a former partner, telling police he believed the 42-year-old was trying to steal his soul.
Despite being sentenced to 10 months behind bars, he was released early, back to the streets, after an appeal. Five weeks later, Courtney was dead.
Given his daughter’s body was moved a considerable distance and put under sticks and branches to help conceal it, John says he cannot accept Hammond didn’t know what he was doing.
He strongly believes there needs to be an overhaul of the judicial system’s mental impairment processes to prevent further tragic deaths in other families.
“Almost all of the violent killers of women in Victoria – Jill Meagher, Eurydice Dixon, Aiia Maasarwe and Courtney Herron – were committed by men who should not have been on the streets,” says John.
“This is about more than just the death of my daughter – I know Courtney wouldn’t want this to happen again to another woman, so I’m giving her a voice.”