{"id":26441,"date":"2023-10-30T05:33:58","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T09:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=26441"},"modified":"2023-10-30T05:33:58","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T09:33:58","slug":"lilie-james-murder-at-elite-school-horrifies-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/10\/30\/lilie-james-murder-at-elite-school-horrifies-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Lilie James: Murder at elite school horrifies Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Thursday October 26, as Australia woke to the news a body had been found inside the bathroom of an elite Sydney private school, horror rippled around the country.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Police had turned up at St Andrew’s Cathedral School just before midnight, after a chilling triple-zero call.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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There they encountered a “confronting scene” – 21-year-old water polo coach Lilie James, dead, with extensive head injuries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Detectives believe she was murdered – allegedly with a hammer – hours earlier, according to local media who have cited anonymous sources.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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CCTV had reportedly captured her colleague, 24-year-old hockey coach Paul Thijssen, entering the bathroom after her. Thijssen, who also made the call to authorities, later emerged alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Though police have made no public comments about a potential motive, local media have reported Ms James had recently ended a relationship with Thijssen. They had been seeing each other for only five weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Thijssen had vanished after calling in the tip-off from Vaucluse, and police launched a major manhunt focused on the cliffside suburb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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There they found items “associated with the homicide” – allegedly the murder weapon – in a bin, and on Friday morning, a body which was later confirmed to be Thijssen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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‘Stolen from us’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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As friends and family reckoned with the death of Ms James, they remembered her as kind friend and an avid sportswoman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Along with water polo, she loved dancing and swimming, doing both competitively as a teenager. And she had been studying a sports business degree at university, working at the school on the side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“She was vibrant, outgoing, and very much loved by her family and friends,” Ms James’s family said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We are devastated and heartbroken.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms James was “stolen from us”, family friend Daniel Makovec wrote in a fundraising appeal for the family.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We will be grieving this loss forever,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"St<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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St Andrew’s Cathedral School is right in the heart of Sydney (Image: Google Maps)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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In a note to parents, the head of St Andrew’s Cathedral School said she was deeply concerned for all involved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“The horrors of evil do not, and will not, define our community, that is my oath,” Julie McGonigle said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Thijssen, a Dutch national, was a former sports captain at the school before he became a staff member.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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New South Wales Premier Chris Minns too sent his condolences to Ms James’s family, describing her death as a “horrible, horrible crime”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“[It is] one of the worst that I’ve seen in my public life, and I can only imagine what [the] family is going through right now,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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An ‘insidious’ problem<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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The case has reignited conversation about how Australia has long struggled to move the needle on what is often called an “epidemic” of domestic violence in the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms James is the 41st Australian woman this year to die allegedly as a result of gendered violence,\u00a0according to the Counting Dead Women project<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the past 10 days alone, three women – South Australian Krystal Marshall, an unnamed Canberra woman and Ms James – have all allegedly been killed by men they knew. All were inside their own homes or workplace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gendered violence reform campaigner Tarang Chawla – whose sister was murdered by her partner in 2015 – said Ms James’s death is a “tragic reminder of the dark, insidious reality of men’s violence against women”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I look at the photos of Lilie and I remember my own 23-year-old sister Niki and how I felt after she was murdered,” he wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Lilie, I’m sorry we failed you.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And while the nation grieves, urgent questions are again being asked about how to keep women safe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Australia has had a National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children since 2010, but the statistics show the rates of violence remain stubbornly high.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A new 10-year plan was introduced last year<\/a>\u00a0– this time with actionable targets. It places emphasis on early intervention, improving police and justice responses, creating more emergency housing and increasing the trauma support available to victim survivors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But CEO of Full Stop Australia, Karen Bevan, says it is concerning “cultural attitudes towards gender equality and violence against women” that underpin Australia’s domestic violence scourge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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According to a recent survey, while\u00a0more than 90% of Australians recognise violence against women is a problem<\/a>\u00a0in the country, just under half say it is a problem in their own suburb or town.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The same study also found around four in 10 Australians wrongly believe men and women are equally likely to commit domestic violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms Bevan says that addressing “myths and misconceptions” of how and why violence against women occurs and greater “community understanding” is key.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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NSW Minister for Domestic Violence Prevention, Jodie Harrison, has also appealed for the community to better call out “inappropriate behaviour” in the wake of Ms James’s death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“That’s really the start of a lack of safety for women and children,” she told Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It’s up to every single one of us. Government can fund programs but unless individuals take responsibility for themselves, that government funding will be wasted.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But advocates say more funding and\u00a0measures to track progress are also needed.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“For all the violence elsewhere that we condemn, Australia has a problem that we urgently need to fix,” Mr Chawla said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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