The sadness in that home, which was bought for a family of four but now houses just three, is palpable.

The grief over the loss of Brett and Belinda’s 17-year-old son Jack, who was stabbed and killed in the streets of Surfers, is so heavy that it’s little wonder they sometimes feel like they’re suffocating beneath its weight.

And it’s why when I walk out their front door and get in my car, ready to drive back to my own home with my own two beautiful and healthy children, I can’t help but feel grateful for my own good fortune.

Following that sense of relief is a surge of both guilt and helplessness: I wish so much I could do something to reduce their pain, even as I’m so thankful to escape it.

The irony, of course, is that they are the ones who are reducing the risk of my own children one day being hurt.

Rather than being paralysed by their grief, the Beasleys are driven by it - forming the Jack Beasley Foundation to help reduce knife crime.

Their efforts are a major reason that Queensland Police have been conducting a knife-wanding trial on the streets of our city.

And for that, Gold Coast Acting Chief Superintendent Rhys Wildman is grateful.

Because it’s working.

Launched on April 30 last year, police seized two weapons in the first weekend of the wanding trial in Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach.

Almost 3500 tests and eight months later, a total of 72 weapons have been recovered, with 56 people charged.

“That number is well below expectations,” says Acting Chief Superintendent Wildman.

“It’s not just the number of weapons that have rapidly reduced, it’s the reduction in knife-related offences during this trial. It’s working.

“We’re seeing a cultural shift … the young ones are getting it. Knives are not worth it.”

That’s a shift that bucks the international trend, with knife-related crime increasing around the world.

While it’s wonderful that we are leading this change, it does make me wonder why this took us so long.

After all, when the risk of carrying a knife is far greater than the risk of not … the result is as predictable as it is phenomenal.

Indeed, Supt Wildman says being able to search anyone at any time has been a game changer.

“We have had wands for a few years, they were purchased for the Surfers Paradise station some time ago, but officers needed to have reasonable suspicion a person was carrying a weapon to use them,” he says.

“Having a wand doesn’t add a lot of value without the ability to use it.

“But to be able to randomly select people is a real game changer, and we have not had one complaint regarding the police use of wanding powers.”

It’s just a tragedy that it took the Beasleys’ loss to make this city’s gain.

But thanks to them, this city is forging its own path to safer streets.

And they’re only just getting started.

With the one-year wanding trial wrapping up this May, when the results will then be analysed by Griffith University, the Beasleys want to see it extended and expanded - particularly on public transportation.

Supt Wildman says the trial already includes a sunset clause to allow its extension.

“Right now, wanding is limited to the Safe Night precincts,” he says. “If the public would like to see that expanded, there will be an opportunity to provide feedback as part of the trial.”

It’s the least we can do. Not just for our city and ourselves but the Beasleys.

Any relief we can give them is just a fraction of what their loss has given us.

Confronting your child’s accused killers

Belinda Beasley lies awake at night, dreaming of what she will say to her son’s accused killers.

Two years after her living nightmare began, when her 17-year-old son Jack was stabbed on the streets of Surfers Paradise, she is now just months away from finally confronting the youths who are charged with murdering her son.

For the first time, in court, she will see their faces.

“At night I just stare at the ceiling, trying to figure out what the hell I would say to them,” says Belinda, sitting beside husband Brett in the backyard of their Parkwood home.

“How do I make them understand how our lives have been ruined?

On December 13, 2019 at 8pm, Jack and a group of friends stepped off a tram in Surfers.

Police allege five youths from nearby Logan City, then aged between 15 and 18, fought briefly with Jack and his companions near an IGA supermarket on Surfers Paradise Boulevard in an apparently random attack, before a 15-year-old produced a hunting-style knife, stabbing Jack in the heart and his best friend in the chest and back.

Jack, with a single stab wound that ripped a five-centimetre perforation at the base of his heart, bled to death in the operating theatre later that night.

All five of the Logan group have been charged with murder and committed for trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court in May.

By then, it will be two and a half years between Jack’s death and his family’s day in court. That's 30 months full of agony, despair and doubt. Three Christmases endured without their baby boy.

In fact, Christmas is the worst time of all for the Beasleys. Not only do they desperately miss their child, but his death came just 12 days before that precious family holiday, his funeral just two days before and his ashes delivered to their too-empty home on Christmas Eve.

“On the night that families are gathered together, they’re going to church together or watching a Christmas movie, we received Jack’s remains,” says Brett.

“Let that sink in for a moment … to hold the ashes of your child on Christmas Eve, that’s the definition of pain.”

Indeed, of all the middle-of-the-night questions that Belinda torments herself with, there is one she never asks: how her family will ever get over this loss. Because she already knows the answer. They never will.

Instead, they focus on it.

In 2020, Belinda and Brett began the Jack Beasley Foundation, seeking to educate children about the perils of knife violence for both victims and perpetrators, advocating for police wanding and supporting change for the juvenile justice system.

Their efforts have already helped to implement an ongoing 12-month trial of portable metal-detecting wands by Gold Coast police, with 3496 tests since April 30 last year with 72 weapons located and 56 people charged with weapons offences.

In the first three months of the trial, all of those detected with weapons – including knives, homemade shivs, machetes, small axes, sharpened screwdrivers and scissors, a meat cleaver and a set of knuckledusters – were young males, with an average age of 23.

They have a list of schools scheduled to visit in the coming months … and they know that their son’s upcoming case will shine a devastating light on the youth justice system.

For Brett and Belinda, it’s a necessary evil they must endure.

“I can’t say too much about the youths arrested because they’re all protected,” says Brett.

“It’s just more proof that the juvenile justice system is broken. The law should be that if you are charged with an offence like murder, grievous bodily harm, attempted murder or manslaughter you should be remanded in custody. And you should be charged as an adult from the age of 16. That’s old enough to know not to take a life.

“But we’ve already been warned to prepare for the charges to be downgraded, from murder to manslaughter.

“Our whole family has a sentence for life because Jack lost his.

“Our only hope is that this will light that fire under other people to join with us and push for change. Don’t let Jack’s death be in vain. Don’t let the system break more people.”

Belinda says while the trial will be an exercise in endurance, the family, including Jack’s older brother Mitch, continue to take action with their words.

Their school-based education program teaches students about the dangers, repercussions and the snowball effect a single act of knife violence can have on the lives of so many.

“The education program is for years seven to 12, we presented our first one in August and we have 10 schools booked in now,” says Belinda.

“Some schools are wary of booking it in because they don’t want to acknowledge that knives are a problem, but they are. Just because you think it’s not happening on your campus, your students are still exposed. All we want to do is educate these kids before it becomes a problem. It’s all about prevention.

“In the video we created, we talk to Mitch and his friends, as well as Jack’s friends, and we show how life was … and how life is now. We show the aftermath of his death, it’s very candid and emotional.

“The students really pay attention, especially to Mitch and the other young speakers – they relate to them.

“Quite often the teachers and even principal will walk out in tears, but it’s something people have to experience emotionally to really grasp just how huge the effects of this sort of violence (are).”

Belinda says the trauma of Jack’s death has affected a huge circle of people, well beyond the Beasleys themselves.

“It’s not just us, it’s his friends, it’s the police, the ambos, the doctors and nurses at the hospital,” she says.

“After he died, I got a message from the Gold Coast University Hospital cardiac ward saying just how much his death affected him. They tried so incredibly hard to save him.

“I remember the moment they told us he was gone, they just said ‘I’m sorry’. And you know but you don’t know.

“You’re just in a fog. Then Mitch arrived at the hospital, and we had to tell him … he just dropped to the ground, to his knees. It was horrible.

“But we still couldn’t go in and see Jack. We couldn’t see him for five days because they had to do an autopsy … but I wouldn’t want to have seen him that way anyway.

“When I could finally go see him … to see your dead son laying on the bed. You never get it out of your head.

“I went back and saw him three times, you just never want it to be the last time … the last time to see him, even though he’s already gone.

“These are the things I want those kids in court to understand. But no one understands a parent’s grief, no one wants to understand it … and I understand that.”

When it comes to prevention, the Beasleys are determined that education is only the start.

On a practical level, they are pushing for the permanent adoption and expansion of police wanding, as well as dedicated transit police.

“CCTV on trams and trains is great to catch someone after the crime has occurred, but random wanding is what would prevent it,” says Brett.

“Before this, police had to have reasonable cause to search people. Now they can wand at random, and it’s working.

“We need transit cops or at least tram workers with wanding powers as well because the light rail is coming further down the Coast. There’s nothing wrong with public transportation but the government has the responsibility to make it safe.

“The fact is that metal detection saves lives.”

As the weeks count down to May, Belinda’s sleepless nights will continue as she contemplates what she would say to the youths charged with murdering her boy.

But she knows that, no matter the words she cannot find, her voice will not be silenced.

“We have to be Jack’s voice now,” she says.

“As hard as it is, I will keep talking, I will keep his memory alive.

“I’ve read about too many victims that are now forgotten, their stories are fading away if their parents aren’t out there shouting about it. It’s exhausting, but I owe it to Jack.

“I owe it to my funny boy. Jack was a real practical joker, he could be a real little s--- but in the best way. He had the best smile. He loved his sport – his footy, his Oz tag, shooting hoops. He loved his brother.

“He was a great kid and we had a great relationship. He was a real cuddler and I’ll never stop missing that.

“All he wanted was to get his license and to turn 18, he had his party all planned out but he never made it.

“People keep saying to us, I don’t know how you do it … but what else can you do? What option do we have but to survive?”

And what else can you say? There are no words.

You can follow the Jack Beasley Foundation on Facebook or for more information about the education program, email info@jackbeasleyfoundation.org