Kelly Thompson was killed because of the jealousy and possessiveness of her ex-partner Wayne Wood and the failure by police to punish him for his escalating behaviour, her mother has said.
“Kelly’s death need never have happened,” Wendy Thompson told Victoria’s coroners court on Wednesday as the inquest into her daughter’s death began. “It was preventable.”
Wood killed Thompson at her home in the Melbourne suburb of Point Cook, at some point between 9 February and 10 February 2014. He then killed himself. At the time of her death she had an intervention order out against Wood that barred him from entering her home.
It was an order Wood had repeatedly ignored and breached in the weeks before the murder, Wendy Thompson told the coroner, Ian Gray, as she held back tears, a photo of her daughter on the witness stand in front of her.
“He was allowed to get away with it, with his offending, and it escalated,” she said. “Wayne was told by a magistrate [that] if he breached the order he would be arrested.
“When he continued to stalk Kelly, he didn’t even get a slap on the wrist. He should have been in jail for breaching the order. Kelly might still be alive.”
In the weeks leading up to the murder, the court heard, she had called police 38 times.
Her father, John, and older brother, Patrick, listened from the front row of the courtroom as Thompson read her witness statement and described her daughter as a “beautiful, sensitive and interesting young woman”.
The couple met at a party in Melbourne 2010, the court heard. At the time Thompson was living in Tasmania and Wood began to visit her there about once a fortnight.
At the end of 2011, she moved back to Melbourne and immediately moved in with Wood. “Kelly seemed happy,” her mother said.
Wood would have known that Thompson had been in a violent relationship while she was living in Tasmania because she was still suffering the consequences of that, the court heard. Her previous partner had taken out a $100,000 mortgage in her name, Wendy Thompson said.
“Kelly had to deal with this mortgage and the ongoing legacy up until her own murder,” she said.
“After Kelly ended that relationship in Tasmania she told me, ‘I will never, ever again allow somebody to touch me.’ She was adamant and strong she would never endure another abusive or violent relationship again.”
But by October 2013 it was evident to the family that something was wrong in her relationship with Wood, the court heard.
At this time, the couple had decided to establish an import-export business and were travelling overseas to explore business opportunities. In the leadup to a trip to China, Thompson seemed withdrawn, her mother said.
When they returned in December, Wendy Thompson said her daughter had slowly begun telling her about the abuse she had suffered at Wood’s hands, which had escalated while they were overseas.
“He had strangled her more than once and locked her in hotel room,” Thompson told the court. “When she was telling us this she tried to convey a sense she was now in control, but her voice was wavering. I’d never heard Kelly like that before.”
It wasn’t until 7 February last year that her family learned how frightened she had been, Thompson said, when she told them she had taken out an intervention order and that Wood had moved out. “I think she wanted to convey to us she had dealt with Wayne; she now she felt safe,” Thompson said.
Two days later when her family tried to phone her, the call went to her message bank, the court heard. She was found stabbed to death in her bed on 11 February.
There were several red flags that suggested Wood may kill her, the court heard, a major one being that she had just left him, a time when violence often escalates.
In the days after the murder suicide, a detective told Wendy Thompson that an intervention order was “just a piece of paper”, she told the court. Her husband had replied: “Well, it is if it’s not acted on.”
The family had felt invisible after the death, Thompson said. Information about the police investigation and the events leading up to the murder were often not relayed to them, she said. She and her husband had not been allowed to see their daughter’s body, which had compounded their grief.
“We wondered what damage had been done to Kelly to prevent us from being able to see her,” she said.
The family had not even known who was leading her murder investigation, she said. “We struggled to make sense of information at a time of intense grief and trauma.”
The inquest continues.
