Inquest into the deaths of Lilie James and Paul Thijssen
Deceased
Lilie Anne James; Paul Thomas Stephan Thijssen
Demographics
21; 23y, female; male
Date of death
2023-10-25
Finding date
2025-11-27
Cause of death
Lilie: multiple blunt force injuries to the head and neck. Paul: multiple blunt force injuries sustained from jumping/intentionally falling from cliff.
AI-generated summary
Lilie James, aged 21, was killed by Paul Thijssen, aged 23, a colleague at St Andrew's Cathedral School, using a hammer in a bathroom on 25 October 2023. Paul killed himself by jumping from a cliff at Diamond Bay Reserve hours later. The pair had a brief casual relationship lasting about 2 months, which Lilie ended on 20 October 2023. After rejection, Paul exhibited concerning behaviour including: technology-facilitated abuse (location tracking via Snapchat, creating a fake account), physical stalking on 7 occasions, and deliberate planning of the attack. The coroner found this was premeditated homicide in the context of domestic violence and gendered violence. No prior warning signs were evident to colleagues or friends. Critical lessons include: recognizing technology-facilitated abuse as coercive control; educating young people about healthy relationships; developing support services for young men; ensuring domestic violence screening tools incorporate stalking and technology abuse; and media responsibility in reporting intimate partner homicides.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Contributing factors
- Rejection of Paul by Lilie when she ended the relationship
- Paul's vulnerable and fragile sense of self and need for external validation
- Paul's pattern of coercive control and possessive behaviour from prior relationship
- Technology-facilitated abuse including location tracking and fake social media account
- Physical stalking of victim on 7 occasions in days preceding attack
- Access to hammer and victim in isolated location at school
- Premeditation and planning including practice runs on day of attack
- Normalization of controlling technology use in community perception
Coroner's recommendations
- Expand education and awareness programmes to help the community identify and respond to coercive controlling behaviours, with particular focus on emerging forms of technology-facilitated abuse
- Encourage individuals to critically review their technology use, including whether it is necessary or safe to share their location with others
- Develop targeted initiatives for 16 to 24-year-olds, delivered through further and higher education settings as well as workplaces, recognising this group's heightened vulnerability to technology-based abuse
- Develop respectful relationship information and advice services specifically for young men, alongside further research into effective strategies for engaging this group and promoting healthy relationship behaviours
- Media entities that report on intimate partner homicides should recognise that describing violence as being 'out of character', before the full facts are known, may reinforce unhelpful community stereotypes and fail to place such homicides in the context of prior coercive control
- Ensure domestic violence screening tools reflect the correlation between coercive control, including technology facilitated abuse and physical stalking, and the risk of intimate partner homicide
- Further education and information programs to raise community awareness about interpersonal relationship violence, gendered violence, intimate partner violence, coercive control, and technology facilitated abuse
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