Real life: domestic violence survivor Marlene Tighe bravely speaks out
Marlene Tighe suffered horrific injuries when she was savagely beaten with a hammer by her then partner. Today, after campaigning against domestic violence in Aboriginal communities, Marlene is seen by many as the indigenous Rosie Batty, writes Beverley H
MARLENE Tighe was at work when she saw a familiar stocky figure walking towards her. Her beautiful face lit up. It was her boyfriend, Shane Patten; he’d brought her flowers.
He often did that. He’d bring lunch sometimes as well and when she got home, he’d prepare dinner for her.
“You didn’t see things like that in a little Aboriginal community like ours,” Marlene says and smiles at the memory. It is a sweet lopsided smile, the result of the main nerves being severed on the left side of her face. Her once flawless cheeks are crisscrossed with scars and tears run constantly from her damaged left eye as she no longer has a tear duct.
The tears annoy her, not least because she doesn’t want to look like a victim. From unimaginable horror has come hope, as Marlene has become the indigenous woman’s Rosie Batty, speaking out about the terrible cycle of domestic violence in Aboriginal communities.
“This is the person I have always wanted to be, to have a voice and help my people,” Marlene says.
Her people need that voice. Aboriginal women are at least 35 times more likely to be hospitalised due to domestic violence than the rest
of the population. In the Northern Territory, the statistics could be as high as 80 times. “It’s a national crisis,” says Professor Marcia Langton, Chair of Indigenous Studies at Melbourne University. “A national emergency.”
Marlene, a Yuin-Kamilaroi woman, was living in Wallaga Lake on the NSW South Coast when Shane Patten, who was also known by the surname Heycox, entered her life. She’d had a brief ing with him 20 years previously and now he was messaging her on Facebook.
They exchanged news and, three months later, he surprised her by turning up at her door. He ended up moving in. “He was different to other boyfriends I’d had,” Marlene says. “He wasn’t a drunk and he was caring, always doing things for me.”
Six months later, an argument ared. “It was about nothing,” Marlene says. “But suddenly he gave me an uppercut and knocked me out.”
She came around in the shower, to nd Shane gently washing the blood from her face. “Then he laid me down on the bed and curled around me as if protecting me. He kept saying sorry. I loved him, so I didn’t leave him. I didn’t think he would do it again.”
Yet, over the next two years, Shane did do it again, ve times in all, each time erupting in terrifying ways. Often, he would punch himself before Marlene, hitting himself in the face so hard he drew blood. Twice, he did that in the car, forcing her to pull over and jump out.
The third time, she hid behind her house and called the police. For 10 minutes, she held the phone up so they could hear Shane screaming for her, but no one came.
Eventually, after Marlene had been chased through the bush and made it bleeding and breathless onto the road, she called an ambulance. She was sitting in the back when the police nally pulled up.
“They said there was nothing they could do. I had to get an AVO,” she recalls. Marlene was taken to hospital where she saw a counsellor. “I said I couldn’t handle what was going on at home with the violence,” she says. “He was like Jekyll and Hyde with his mood swings.”
Yet with no practical support, Marlene returned to Wallaga Lake. Her front door had been kicked in.
The last time was nearly literally the last time for anything for Marlene. Dr Robert Witherspoon, the maxillofacial surgeon at Canberra Hospital who rebuilt her shattered face, says he had never seen injuries so terrible.
If the blows Marlene sustained had been just a few centimetres higher, she would have died, the doctor says.
The brutal attack happened in September 2013. Shane was arguing again and Marlene had had enough. She told him to pack his things and leave. She had a good job with the Aboriginal Land Council, a string of quali cations, a loving family … she didn’t need this.
Next thing she knew, Shane had picked up a claw hammer and smashed it into her face.
Barely conscious, Marlene lay on the ground. She heard Shane screaming as he took off up the road, then her cousin Barry’s frantic cries. He told her later she had been making gurgling noises and as he leaned over to try to hear what she was saying, he saw her eye hanging out of its socket. Remarkably, Marlene managed to get herself back into her house.
“I sat up against the wall and felt very afraid. I thought, ‘This is it. I’m going to die.’ That’s the last thing I remember.”
She woke up in Canberra Hospital where she had spent three days in an induced coma. Her face was so swollen, she couldn’t breathe and she had been given a tracheotomy.
Her family surrounded her, including her daughter, Killara, who, thankfully, had been staying with relatives so saw none of the assault.
“Suddenly, I realised I was looking at everyone with one eye. They had to explain what had happened. It was devastating,” Marlene says.
“I wanted to know what I looked like, so I asked my sister to take a photo to show me.” Marlene was so shocked, she passed out. “I felt so vulnerable, overwhelmed. Shane had hurt me before, but I never thought he’d do this. I felt confused and guilty – like I should’ve known and was responsible for what he’d done.”
Over the next three weeks, 11 plates were inserted to reconstruct Marlene’s broken cheek, eye socket, nose and jaw. Her mouth had to be wired shut while her jaw healed. Her weight plummeted from 60 kilos to 45.
The pain, she says, was terrible. “At one point, they put me back to sleep because it was too bad to deal with.”
After being released from hospital, at rst she stayed with siblings, but with Shane in jail awaiting court, she eventually returned to her home.
“I walked in and there was all this blood on my wall and on the carpet. I found out later that there had been fragments of my bone on the carpet,
“Shane had hurt me before, but I never thought he’d do this.”
too, but the paramedics picked those up.” The smell of her blood as she cleaned up the mess was too much. She broke down and wept.
The aftermath of the violence occupied the next year. Marlene needed weekly counselling, regular hospital visits and meetings with the prosecutors. She suffered panic attacks and her mouth was so sore she struggled to eat or speak.
There were days she couldn’t stop crying. One of her greatest supporters was her younger brother, Dwayne Bannon-Harrison. Ironically, all the time Marlene was enduring domestic violence, he had been facilitating an awardwinning family violence program at the nearby South Coast Medical Service Aboriginal Corporation.
“Marlene never told me what was happening to her. She didn’t want to upset me and for me to react accordingly,” Dwayne says. He sighs. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but no one could’ve ever envisaged that happening.”
He was with his sister constantly while she was in hospital, performing traditional healing even while she was still in Intensive Care. Two months later, he had to quit his job. “I was dealing with the perpetrators of domestic violence and after what had happened to Marlene, it was too much.”
Dwayne was with his sister in 2014 when she went to court to hear Shane Anthony Patten, 39, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning grievous bodily harm. He was jailed for 12 years with a non-parole period of nine years.
Marlene bravely read a Victim Impact Statement. “She talked about the effect the assault had on Killara, the way she looks in the mirror and will never be the same. She told how she has to live life knowing people will stare at her. She’s a beautiful woman now, but she was very gorgeous before,” Dwayne recalls. With the court case over, Dwayne returned to the domestic violence arena and set up Bring Back The Warrior, using traditional indigenous culture to help men deal with their emotions and anger, and the choices they make as a result. As he travelled Australia, speaking at conferences, he thought a lot about his sister’s situation.
If she was a white woman, her case would have been front page news. As an Aboriginal woman, there was nothing. “I didn’t want her to be another black woman swept under the carpet,” he says.
When he heard about a forum organised by community worker Annie Vanderwyk of the Red Cross Aboriginal Strategy, aimed at helping women find ways to tackle domestic violence, he persuaded Marlene to speak.
Marlene agreed. “I thought if people saw my face and heard what happened, and what I had to suffer, it might open their eyes,” she says. “I hoped women would realise they have to leave and men would realise the damage that could be done.”
“I’ve never told my story before …” she told the assembled crowd.
Afterwards, she couldn’t believe the response. People told her how brave she was and she was invited to speak at other conventions and at meetings with politicians. Marlene would have smiled her thanks – except that, somehow, in the rebuilding of her face and fitting of a false eye, she had fallen through the net when it came to dental work and still had no teeth on one side of her face.
Among those who saw her was Sydney dentist Brian Phillips, who was so moved, he offered to provide free dentures, a bridge and repair work.
Today, Marlene, 39, is living with her extended family, working on a native food project on the South Coast. Killara, 18, is with her, the spitting image of her mum before the attack, but not the carefree teen she was. “I’m different to other girls my age,” Killara says. “They’re always looking for boys, talking to different boys. I’m much more wary.”
Marlene is proud of her daughter. She takes pride in her whole community, which is why she now plans to become a women’s refuge worker and help educate young people. “If they’re educated, the cycle will stop,” she says.
She smiles that beautiful lopsided smile again. “It was always my dream to come home and help my people, and now I have. Shane has not taken that from me. I am still Marlene.” If you or someone you know is at risk of domestic violence, phone 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or visit respect.gov.au.
“I thought if people heard what happened, it would open their eyes.”