Murderer Alicia Schiller abandons IVF bid

Convicted murderer Alicia Schiller has abandoned her bid to leave jail to undergo fertility treatment.

A convicted murder has abandoned her plans to leave prison to undergo IVF treatment.

Alicia Schiller, who is in her 30s, was jailed for 16 years in 2017 after stabbing mother-of-three Tyrelle Evertsen-Mostert to death over $50.

Last week it was revealed that Schiller had been given permission to leave her maximum security prison, Victoria’s Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, for the fertility treatment.

Schiller was jailed for 16 years in 2017 after murderering a mother-of-three.

The news sparked huge public backlash after it was revealed that the child would be raised behind bars for the first five years, with critics also objecting to the cost of caring for the child in prison.

Schiller planned to pay for the IVF using a windfall from a property sale.

Now it has emerged that Schiller has abandoned her baby plan.

“She has withdrawn her application,” a source told the Herald Sun.

Schiller was found guilty of murder after stabbing Ms Evertsen-Mostert, her housemate, three times while under the influence of ice, having discovered the mum-of-three had taken $50 from her room to buy drugs.

Last week Victoria’s public hospitals said they would not treat Schiller, and the state’s IVF providers will also not help her have a baby.

Both Melbourne IVF and Monash IVF told the Herald Sun they would not provide their services to Schiller.

Schiller planned to pay for treatment using money from the sale of a property. Picture: Mark Stewart

A Melbourne IVF spokesperson said the clinic does not “believe it is appropriate” to offer its services to the convicted murderer “if requested given she is currently in prison serving a very long jail term”.

While a Monash IVF spokesperson referred to a 2020 law in Victoria that stipulates fertility treatment can be refused if a clinic believes the child to be conceived may be at risk of abuse or neglect.

The “welfare and interests of persons born or to be born as a result of procedures” are considered “paramount” under the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act, which covers private and public IVF services.

Despite concern, Schiller’s case could see other maximum-security prisoners seek IVF while serving lengthy sentences, the state government voted down a bill proposed by the Opposition on Thursday to strip prisoners of the right to do so.

Speaking to The Project on Wednesday, Greg Barns SC of the Australian Lawyers Alliance argued Schiller “has a human right to family”.

“You don’t lose that right simply because you’re in prison,” he told the program.

“We are increasing the opportunity for women to give birth and be with their children in prison because that improves rehabilitation.

“The bottom line is, if you are in prison it’s the deprivation of liberty that’s the punishment. You have a right to the same level of healthcare as anyone else in the community.

“That’s the way it’s been for a long, long time and that’s the way it should be.”

But Ms Evertsen-Mostert’s parents-in-law, Jim and Yvonne Gentle, said the “cold-blooded murderer” had lost the privilege of being a mother.

The couple’s grandson, the youngest of the victim’s children, was inside her Geelong home at the time of his mother’s violent death, then aged four.

“I don’t think that a person that’s been convicted of such a horrific crime as she was convicted of, and did, has those rights,” Ms Gentle told The Project.

“It should be a punishment. You shouldn’t be able to escape for a better position in prison, which I think would probably be the reason that she’s doing it.”