Kelly Thompson believed three weeks before her death that her former partner, Wayne Wood, might kill her, an inquest heard on Friday.
An intervention order registrar, Claudia Henriquez, told the Victoria coroner’s court on Friday how Thompson came into Werribee court on 23 January 2014 hoping to formalise an interim intervention order she had taken out earlier that month to prevent Wood from coming to her home.
Wood stabbed Thompson to death at her home in the Melbourne suburb of Point Cook at some time between 9 February and 10 February last year. He then killed himself.
During the first part of the inquest at the court, the evidence has largely focused on the four months before her death. Wood’s behaviour escalated in October 2013 when the couple flew overseas to explore business opportunities for an import/ export venture. They broke up after the trip.
During this trip, Wood attempted to strangle Thompson, locked her in a hotel room, and physically attacked hotel patrons who approached her, the court heard.
Henriquez said Thompson wrote in response to a question on a form about why she was seeking the order: “Because he is jealous and possessive and he won’t leave me alone, and I believe he may kill me.”
“She wanted him out of her life,” Henriquez said.
“She had written, ‘He tried to strangle me. We had an argument and when I went to leave the house he would let me leave, so he strangled me twice.’ ”
Henriquez told the court that Thompson had noticed her wedding ring, and said, “When you get married or form a relationship with a person, you never think you’ll end up in this position.”
Over the past week, the coroner, Ian Gray, has heard from Thompson’s family, friends and staff from the legal services who represented her, who described the steps she took to protect herself from Wood.
The court heard that Wood had breached the interim intervention orders multiple times.
On Thursday, a friend of Thompson’s, Darlene Tohini, told the court that each time, police demanded substantial evidence from Thompson to prove an intervention order breach had occurred.
As a result, Tohini said Thompson told her she felt like she had to be “her own detective”, she said. Thompson had phoned police 38 times after the intervention order was first issued, the court heard. Wood was never arrested.
The court also heard that in the hours before Thompson died, a neighbour, Norman Paskin, rang police to say he saw Wood acting strangely outside Thompson’s home and that he suspected Wood was breaching an intervention order, yet police did not attend.
A senior solicitor with Shine lawyers, Paula Shelton, is representing the Thompson family pro-bono, and told Guardian Australia that the first week of the inquest had been harrowing for them.
“It’s emotional,” she said. “It has been gruelling for them hearing the material that’s come out.
“There are things that they’re hearing for the first time. Their ultimate aim is for no other family to go through what they’re going through. The system must be reformed to protect women, and to inform women to protect themselves.
“Because what is becoming apparent is that Kelly had a false sense of security around the protection that an intervention order in fact could offer her.”
Thompson’s family have been sitting in the front row of the inquest every day.
On Wednesday, Thompson’s mother, Wendy Thompson, told the court that after her daughter died she was told by a detective that an intervention order was “just a piece of paper”.
A photo of her daughter sat on the witness stand in front of her as she shared her evidence.
“Somewhere in my subconscious I just refused to believe that I’m never going to see Kelly again, to the point whereI’m still questioning how this could have happened,” she said.
“It was unavoidable and preventable. I’m so angry we’re going through all of this because I believe it didn’t need to happen.”
The inquest will continue in September, when detectives and police who liaised with Thompson and investigated her subsequent death will give evidence.
