THE WOMEN OF A DESERVE BETTER
After a record number of deaths, there is anger, grief and despair across the country
Molly Ticehurst was a brave mum who doted on her son. In turn, he knew he was loved and was at the centre of her world. But Molly’s son will now grow up without her because, in the early hours of April 22, the 28-year-old was found dead inside her home in Forbes, NSW. Her ex-partner has been charged with her murder.
“I can’t put into words the e ect Molly had on everyone’s life. She was a beautiful person. Her mum was her best friend, she was so close to her dad and her son was her world from the moment he was born,” Molly’s close friend Jacinda Acheson, 41, tells Woman’s Day.
MOLLY’S LAW
Only three weeks before Molly’s death, the same man was charged with stalking and rape. Despite police opposition, a registrar in Dubbo granted him bail and issued an apprehended violence order (AVO). e AVO banned the man from going within 100 metres of Molly’s home, the childcare centre where she worked or Forbes.
But the apprehended violence order apparently made no di erence.
“Only three weeks before [she died], Molly had the courage to tell police what she’d been going through,” says Jacinda. “e police did everything they could to protect Molly, but the rst time he fronted court in Dubbo, a female registrar allowed him bail.”
Two weeks later, the man fronted court again and was bailed again.
“If these perpetrators are given bail, they must be electronically monitored so police can see when they break the conditions of their AVO. If this had been in place for Molly, I think she’d still be here,” says Jacinda.
Molly’s family and friends are now calling for “Molly’s Law” – a system that ensures authorities and victims know the whereabouts of bailed perpetrators facing domestic violence charges.
“How else can victims feel safe if they don’t know where these monsters are?” says Jacinda.
As the number of women killed by partners or ex-partners continues to rise, grieving families, friends and communities across Australia are saying enough is enough and taking to the streets to protest.
In the rst four months of this year, 28 women were killed by violence, according to research by Counting Dead Women Australia, a national register that has veri ed and kept count since 2012. is is a sharp increase compared to the same time last year.
e Australian government has announced $952.2 million will be spent
‘Society is outraged and that is a hopeful sign of change’
over the next ve years to establish the Leaving Violence Program. e program includes a $5000 package of cash, goods and services to help victim-survivors eeing violent relationships.
Janet Jukes, CEO of Refuge Victoria, says the investment is welcome but more crisis accommodation is needed. e organisation is on the frontlines of women escaping some of the worst family violence.
In an average year, Refuge Victoria supports more than 600 women and children, but a lack of beds means about 70 per cent of women assessed as high-risk return to the homes they escape.
“e women who come to us need to hide from someone who is pursuing them – they need help so they aren’t killed or harmed. It’s hugely concerning that we don’t have enough refuge beds,” says Janet.
As well as providing secure accommodation, the service helps women “clean” their phones and electronic devices so they can’t be traced by a violent ex.
After decades in the eld, Janet hopes the growing focus on the number of violent deaths will achieve change.
“Society is outraged and that is a hopeful sign of change,” she says.
BROKEN SYSTEM
Dr Vincent Hurley passionately voiced his outrage when he appeared on the ABC’S Q+A. e criminologist, EX-NSW police o cer and long-time advocate for stronger measures to end domestic violence, says toxic politics are costing lives.
He says the attitudes of police towards domestic violence have vastly improved since he was an o cer in the early 1980s, but the legal system is letting down women and children.
“In the 1980s, if someone committed an armed hold-up, whether someone was physically injured or not, the o ender had no presumption for bail. Why can’t we do that for men with a history of crimes of domestic violence?” he says.
“I’d like to see perpetrators unable to apply to have their bail reviewed for a week, so women have breathing space to get out of danger. If a perpetrator is then released, they should be referred to a service like the Salvos or Uniting Church so they can vent, cool down and get a reality check. e latest government funding is welcome but it’s a drop in the ocean.”
Jacinda says a weak and broken justice system is letting down women like Molly.
“Molly won’t see her little boy’s weekend football games, his rst try of the season, she won’t celebrate his birthdays and she won’t be there on his wedding day,” she says.
“When Molly was brave enough to ask for help, she was killed. Our bail laws and justice system have
Molly’s blood on their hands. e system utterly failed her.”
When 16-year-old Angela Barker gradually regained consciousness, she thought she must have been in a car crash. It was the only explanation she could nd for why she was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by her tearful parents, Helen and Ian, unable to move anything but her eyelids.
But horrendously, what had left Anj, from Victoria, with such life-altering injuries had nothing to do with a car.
e teenager’s 20-year-old ex-boyfriend was responsible, and after beating her to near death in the grounds of her school, Anj had been unresponsive, in hospital for nine months.
“e attack was so brutal my doctors didn’t think I’d survive, and if I did, I would remain in a vegetative state for the rest of my life,” Anj, now 38, tells Woman’s Day.
LIFELONG IMPACT
Incredibly, she proved everyone wrong, but it would take 15 months before she could even unfurl her limbs, three years before she said her rst word, “Mum,” and nine years to walk with the aid of a frame.
e e ects, over two decades later, she says, “are daily and unending”.
“When I nally understood what had happened,” Anj goes on, “I was enraged that the person who was supposed to love me tried to end my life.”
It’s a feeling women, and families of the women no longer here, continue to feel in their own domestic violence experiences 22 years on. “e struggles still seem the same,” says Anj. “I think women are more knowledgeable on what is [gendered] violence now, but leaving is very scary when you hear in the media what happens to those wanting to leave.”
FROM CONTROL TO VIOLENCE
Anj’s attack had happened at exactly this dangerous time. She’d been in a two-year relationship with the attacker she prefers not to name for her own safety.
eir relationship had deteriorated from one of control, where he never allowed Anj out of his sight, to one of violence, strangling and bashing Anj and once even threatening to chop her head o with an axe.
“I knew I was experiencing some type of abuse, though I did not know that it was classi ed domestic violence,” she says now.
It meant that when she broke up with him, Anj didn’t realise the danger she was in, and when she went to meet him on March 7, 2002, thinking they could remain friends, she had no idea what was coming.
“I’ve had ashbacks of him strangling me and bashing my head on the steel bench, stamping on the side of my face, breaking my jaw,” she says.
Horri cally, he choked her so violently her vocal cords were severed. As he walked away from Anj’s broken body, leaving her with blood and brain uid pouring from her right ear, he told a passer-by, “You can f**king look after it now.”
He later turned himself in to police. But while Anj’s injuries meant a “lifelong sentence”, she says he got o with “minimal consequences”, something that continues to fuel her anger.
Having served the minimum sevenand-a-half years of his jail sentence, he was released at age 28. “I live with an acquired brain injury, rely on a wheelchair for mobility, and require continuous physical, speech and psychology therapy,” says Anj.
“e impact extends to my family and friends, whose lives have been irrevocably changed as well.”
But despite her physical and emotional struggles, Anj’s legacy is something to be very proud of. Over the years she has advocated for awareness and education of domestic violence prevention in Australia, receiving prestigious awards for her tireless campaigning, including Victoria’s Young Australian of the Year and, in 2019, the Order of Australia Medal.
‘The attack was so brutal, doctors didn’t think I’d survive’
“I think the involvement of the women who have endured signi cant domestic violence is critical in e ecting change,” says Anj. “Without people taking a stand, and declaring enough is enough, it will be much harder to create awareness and show the real-life implications of standing still and doing nothing.”
In recent years Anj has found ful lment in her personal life too, and she recently became engaged to her boyfriend, Phillip Rogash, 44. “Phillip is a wonderful man who I met through a family friend,” she
says. “We are hoping to build a house and plan to get married soon.”
ADVOCATING FOR CHANGE
But while Anj has found her happy-everafter, she’ll never stop advocating. “We need signi cant changes in our culture and to establish strict penalties for those who commit domestic violence, while also enacting laws that make women feel safer in Australia.
“Judges and magistrates need to update themselves on the life-shattering e ects domestic violence has and keep killers away from their victims and out of the home,” she says.
“It’s crucial we address this issue with the urgency it deserves, which includes politicians stepping up. It has been ignored for too long.”