Hannah Clarke’s text reveals her desperate effort to stay alive
As Australia grieves for murdered mum Hannah Clarke, a new text message has emerged showing her frustration after her protection order against her estranged husband Rowan Baxter had been downgraded.
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Murdered mum Hannah Clarke revealed her frustration that a court had downgraded her protection order against her estranged husband, in a worried text message to a friend last month.
Despite being stalked daily, Ms Clarke’s domestic violence order (DVO) was watered down from no contact in January to allow her husband within as little as 100 metres of her. This was later lessened to just 20 metres, her friends and family said.
The revelations come as a groundswell of national grief for Ms Clarke and her children has sparked a push to do more to tackle domestic violence, including demands that courts act more quickly against dangerous ex partners who breach protection orders.
In a separate incident, Queensland Police yesterday charged a 40-year-old man with murder after he allegedly stabbed to death a 49-year-old woman in a Townsville unit in a domestic violence attack.
Police in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, also charged a 29-year-old man for contravening a DVO and allegedly strangling and beating a 28-year-old woman that he was holding captive in a unit on Friday night.
Ms Clarke confirmed to friends she feared for her safety and had mapped “safe houses” in the surrounding suburbs to which she could run to in an emergency, Rowan Baxter’s cousin Sandra Taylor said.
“I honestly thought he was going to put a bomb under her car,” Ms Taylor, 45, said.
In her final heartbreaking Instagram post last Saturday, Ms Clarke shared her joy and relief that she was finally free to restart her life with her children.
At SeaWorld on the Gold Coast with her children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4 and Trey, 3, her brother Nat and parents, Ms Clarke wrote: “BEST day EVER!!! Worked so hard over the last few months to make this possible for them. So glad you loved it my babies!!”
Ms Clarke’s DVO conditions were lifted despite Baxter stalking her as she got coffee “every day” and following her around Carindale shopping centre, the young mum said.
Baxter ambushed and murdered Ms Clarke and her children last Wednesday as she drove them to school in Camp Hill, in Brisbane’s south east.
In a text message to a friend on January 20, Ms Clarke shared her disappointment in having to fight to increase the DVO conditions, despite Baxter having fled to New South Wales with Laianah on Boxing Day.
“I have to go back to court and had to drop off an application today to get the DVO conditions changed as he keeps turning up where I am,” Ms Clarke, 31, said in the text message.
“He got the DVO adjourned and when they did that they took off the no contact and made it just 100m from my home so technically he’s not doing anything wrong … hence why we need it changed!”
In the horrific act that has sickened the nation, Baxter poured petrol over his wife and children in their car seats and brutally burned them to death before killing himself with a kitchen knife into his chest.
Ms Clarke died overnight last Wednesday in the Brisbane Royal Women’s Hospital with 97 per cent burns to her body.
Even the female police officer who helped Ms Clarke lodge her DVO last December warned that it would do little to shield her, Ms Clarke’s parents said to the Nine Network.
The murders highlighted the flimsiness of procedures meant to protect victims, anti-domestic violence campaigners said.
Police confirmed they had attended several cases of domestic violence involving Baxter and that a court order was breached last month. Baxter was not due to face court until April.
“DVOs are not worth the paper they are written on,” family violence activist Phil Cleary said.
“We failed Hannah. This rates as one of the worst examples of red flags flying and yet we did not act.”
Karyn Walsh, chief executive officer of Micah Projects which operates the Brisbane Domestic Violence Service, confirmed they had helped Ms Clarke to escape her abusive marriage.
“We know Hannah. We can’t go into detail because there is a review,” Ms Walsh said.
She said the courts needed to respond faster when a protection order had been breached.
“When they breach a domestic violence order, there should be quicker access to the criminal courts,” she said.
“When someone commits a crime – if it’s stalking or psychological or coercive behaviour – they must be charged.”
On average, one woman a week is murdered by a current or former partner, according to Our Watch.
“While the tragic murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children have become the very public face of the issue of family violence, the sad truth is that their murders are just the tip of the iceberg,” Our Watch Chief Executive Officer, Patty Kinnersly said.
Ms Taylor, who grew up with Baxter on the same street in New Zealand, said Baxter suffered sexual and physical abuse as a child.
She said Baxter had cheated on his first partner with whom he had an adult son and that Hannah, who was 19 at the time she met him, was chosen from his mistresses as she was innocent and naive.
“Hannah’s DVO should have meant that if he breached it, he should have been deported back to New Zealand,” Ms Taylor said.
Since leaving her husband on December 6, friends said Ms Clarke had grown stronger and happier in her independence, which had in turn enraged Baxter.
“I’ve been the bravest I’ve ever been and left a horrible DV relationship,” she texted a friend last month.
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On her Instagram page, she posted a tribute to her daughter, saying: “I am in control of my life and there is nothing I can’t achieve. My girls will grow up being strong women who understand their worth.”
Other posts feature photographs of her smiling proudly beside Laianah on her first day of Prep with Aaliyah, who was starting Year 2. “Have the best year ever,” Ms Clarke wrote last month.
There are photos of a beaming Laianah dressed as Ana from Frozen for book week and pictures of Ms Clarke training her blonde daughters for the “2029 CrossFit Games”.
In a Mother’s Day post last year, Ms Clarke wrote for her love for her children.
“My Crazies. You drive me absolutely nuts and because of the three of you I’m lucky to get an hour of deep sleep a night,” she wrote. “I have saggy skin, stretch marks, wrinkles and I even found a few grey hairs. But being your mum is by far my BEST accomplishment to date! Wouldn’t trade you for the world (most days).”
On September 1 last year she posted a Father’s Day tribute to Baxter, which a friend said gave an insight into her desperate attempts to overlook his emotional, financial and sexual abuse for the sake for their children.
“They are super lucky to have a dad who enjoy’s spending so much time with them!” she wrote to Baxter.
“They love you more than you’ll ever know.”
For 24-hour support phone Queensland’s DVConnect on 1800 811 811 or MensLine on 1800 600 636, NSW’s Domestic Violence Line on 1800 656 463 or the national hotline 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).
Originally published as Hannah Clarke’s text reveals her desperate effort to stay alive