Brisbane car fire: The violent obsessive men who control, kill women

There is a danger time for women when they leave obsessive controlling men when they are at the greatest risk.

They call it the “danger time”, when women in relationships with obsessive, controlling men are at greatest risk of harm being done to themselves, their children and anyone they love.

It’s when the woman summons the courage to leave the obsessive controller, removing her children to safety, that she enters the danger time.

That can last for 12 months or more with an ex-partner festering with rage and loss of control over what he regards his “possessions” - his wife and children.

And the tragic case of Hannah Clarke and her three children, terrifyingly burnt to death by her vengeful husband after fleeing his clutches, is a textbook example of this horrifying statistic, experts say.

Hannah Clarke left abusive, controlling Rowan Baxter on December 5.

Eleven weeks later he ambushed her as she was preparing to take her children to school, pouring fuel into the car in which their children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4 and Trey, 3, were sitting and setting it alight. The children died in the inferno that followed. Hannah Clarke was on fire when she escaped the vehicle and died in hospital the same night.

“Domestic violence is about power and control,” women’s domestic violence adviser An Le told news.com.au.

“And when someone wants to leave, the person thinks… how dare you take that power away from me.

“Sometimes he’s already threatened to kill the kids and she’s scared he will do that.

As Hannah Clarke (above with her three children) tragically found, leaving an abusive controlling man put her in the ‘danger time’ of being murdered.

Rowan Baxter pretended to a loving husband and father, but in truth he was an abusive controller who murdered wife Hannah, son Trey (pictured, bottom) and his daughters.

“Domestic violence (DV) is not necessarily physical, women will say ‘oh he never hit me’, but it is about financial, sexual or psychological abuse and control.

“Controlling what they wear, what they do, where they go, who their friends are, who they see, when they see them.

“Using a joint bank account as a tracking device to see where the woman has been, and if she’s gone back to the same place.

“Stalking her online via social media using an account under any name.

“Belittling the woman, embedding her with self doubt about how she looks or if she is ‘stupid’.

“The aim is complete control of her and isolation from her family or friends.”

And then if she wants to leave or does leave?

It has emerged Baxter would punish Hannah and daughters Laianah and Aaliyah by refusing their weekly outing to the beach if Hannah refused him sex.

RELATED: Father ‘threatened to kill child from previous relationship if ex left him'

“Punishment. Women live in fear all the time that he can find out where she is.

And as more details emerge about the abusive controlling relationship Hannah Clarke endured for 11 years with husband Rowan Baxter, it seems she ticked every box in the DV handbook.

Fortunately most women manage to escape controlling men, albeit psychologically, financially and emotionally hurt, but with their own and their children’s lives.

But Ms Le, program controller at Bonnie Support Services in southwestern Sydney, which in 2019 saw 898 new DV clients, said Ms Clarke’s case leading up to her tragic end had all the usual signs.

Control

Ms Clarke’s parents described Baxter as a “master manipulator” who controlled every aspect of her life, the Daily Mail reported.

He had been emotionally abusive since the start of the pair’s relationship 11 years ago, when Hannah was just 20.

Baxter ‘believed he owned as possessions’ his wife and children (pictured, above with a family member.

Ms Clarke’s friend Manja Whaley said Baxter “believed he owned his children and wife, that they were objects to be controlled”.

She said this was exemplified by Boxing Day last year when, on a contact visit, he took his four-year-old daughter Laianah away from her distressed siblings and Ms Clarke, saying “I told you, this is your fault”.

RELATED: Man who pledged to love wife killed her and three kids after they fled

He effectively kidnapped the child for four days, which Ms Whaley, herself a DV worker for 10 years, described as “not love”.

“This is coercive control — the act of threats, intimidation, assault and humiliation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish or frighten their victim.”

Controlling via social media

According to Ms Whaley, Baxter constantly checked Hannah Clarke via Facebook and accused her of cheating on him.

Sexual abuse

He made her have sex with him daily and if she refused he punished her by restricting her movements or the children’s.

Hannah Clarke and her children’s terrifying death (above) in Brisbane is a tragic example of the ‘danger time’ for partners of controlling men. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen.

An Le says many women in controlling relationships are often forced to have sex and that it was a form of physical abuse.

Many however were confused about their rights: they had to be informed that even in a marriage it is against the law to force someone to have sex.

RELATED: Hannah Clarke was ‘excited’ for new life

Punishment and social isolation

When Hannah didn’t have sex with him, he would punish not her and the children. She wouldn’t be allowed to go to the gym, which was her passion and only outlet.

The children would be denied their regular Sunday family outing to the beach.

Belittling or cowing into submission

Hannah would get dressed and as she was be picking up her clothes he would say things to her like, “Look at your stomach, that’s just disgusting”.

Narcissist Rowan Baxter used classic belittling tactics, telling his wife she was unattractive. Above Hannah Clarke with Baxter and their children.

Social isolation

Hannah’s father Lloyd Clarke said Baxter “ruined her relationship with everyone, even tried to get her away from us.

“We’d go down to the coast and if they turned up and saw us there, they would go to another beach.”

He ‘never hit her’, just meted out emotional, financial, sexual abuse

A haunting echo of the DV victims Ms Le counsels, Hannah Clarke “had never thought of being in a domestic violent relationship” because, she explained “he never hit me”.

Ms Whaley said she and Hannah “talked about the different types of violence including financial abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and you experienced all of them”.

RELATED: Hero tradies first on scene speak out about horror car fire

Threatening to kill her or her children

Ms Clarke told Ms Whaley how early on their relationship, Baxter had informed her “really matter of fact … what he had told his ex-partner with whom he had a child”.

She said Baxter said he had told his ex “that if she was to leave him he would take the child and end his own life and that of the child”.

In early January, a Brisbane court enforced a domestic violence order against Baxter for kidnapping Laianah and taking her interstate.

Hannah Clarke (above with her children) was a ‘devoted mother … a supermum’ a friend said.

The order had a condition restraining Baxter from coming within 50m of Ms Clarke, which was in force when he ambushed and killed her and the children, and then fatally stabbed himself.

It has emerged that Baxter was also jealous of Ms Clarke, a crossfit trainer, because of her sporting success and “had a chip on his shoulder because he didn’t make it as an NRL player”.

An Le said many observers were often puzzled as to why women stayed with obsessive controlling men or how they got involved with them in the first place.

But she said that sometimes it was safer – for herself and her children – to stay with the man, and that the descent into an abusive relationship was “slow. and often subtle”.

Ms Le painted a picture of how what might seem a normal romance to start with gradually turns into a controlling and intimidating relationship and escalates into a pathological end stage.

“Domestic violence is a build-up,” she said, “they wear women down over years and years.”

Hannah Clarke expressed (above) in a text message she believed she was safe after leaving her abusive marriage.

1. The charm phase

The romance is new and the signs you are with a controller are there, but the obsessive narcissist for can be charming.

And his intense obsession is with you, so it seems as if the man is just very much in love.

His need to know where you are every moment of the day is flattering, but beware.

2. The control begins

You get a joint account and they will start checking every statement to see where you have been going,

Your card for that account is his tracking device.

If he sends you more than a dozen texts each day, or it is 20 to 30, that is unhealthy.

If this manifests itself in his asking where you are and who you are with, that is not respecting your personal freedom.

3. The isolation phase

Ms Le says this can begin innocently enough.

He might ask you not to go out with your friends but stay home with him because he’s feeling sick.

If you are out with friend he might demand you be home at a particular time.

Hannah Clarke details in a message how Baxter kidnapped their daughter and took off until the police intervened.

He will start on the destruction of your social network, including seeing your family, sabotaging plans with “sickness” or by getting angry and starting a fight.

If friends come over, he may be moody or unfriendly, and when you are alone he will start chipping away at the characters of your closest mates.

”After the tenth or twentieth time a friend asks you out and you say no, people don’t keep up the friendship,” Ms Le said.

4. Denigration

“Belittling … is a very calculated technique,” An Le said.

“These men plant the seed of doubt and the wear down her self esteem.”
When it escalates to a fight, a “honeymoon period” will follow with flowers and an apology “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, I will change, give me another chance.

“Then the violence escalates again.”

Tributes at the crime scene Hannah Clarke and her children were murdered on Wednesday. Picture: Liam Kidston

Just as Rowan Baxter told Hannah Clarke “it’s your fault” all controllers blame the victim.

“You are responsible” for whatever he is upset about and he may give her the silent treatment or fly into a rage.

Indeed his anger, his excuse for starting a screaming fight is her fault, because she went out with her friends, she looked at another man.

He might tell her she dresses like “a slut” or that she is cheating on him, but the essential message is that she is “worthless”.

5. Submission

By whatever method, the man is now in full control.

During this time he might be making her have sex every day.

Some women just submit, others fight.

But he’s ‘the boss’ and it’s her job to keep him happy and attended to.

He will be checking on her constantly and won’t brook any objection or he will lose his temper.

She tiptoes around him.

Apart from social media and her bank card, he may check through the messages and emails on her phone.

He may demand the home is obsessively neat and it’s her job to keep it so.

6. Danger and punishment

Women who manage to escape an abusive relationship are the ones we mostly don’t hear about and they suffer the lingering trauma out of plain sight.

It’s only the utterly tragic ones which make news.

Bonnie Support Services has a “Staying Safe” page on its website about “the safest time to leave” an abusive or controlling partner.

It has a checklist of items for a woman to take when she leaves, but also says “If the time is right to leave, just go – even if you have not had time to prepare.

CCTV of Simon Gittany assaulting Lisa Harnum after he found she was leaving him: 69 seconds later he murdered her.

“Never tell the person you fear you are thinking of leaving. Be cautious.

“Let selected [people] know … arrange a code word you can use on the phone to tell them you are in danger.

“Keep the code word a secret.

“If you have a pet that you can’t take with you, contact the RSPCA or other animal shelter.”

Because pets left at home can be killed by the partner your leaving, just to hurt you.

Some other tragic cases of domestic violence in which the controlling man has killed their ex-partners, children or loved ones include:

LISA HARNUM

On a Saturday morning in July 2011, Canadian born ballet dancer Lisa Harnum fell to her death from the 15th floor balcony of the high rise apartment she shared with boyfriend Simon Gittany.

Gittany insisted she had jumped off in an act of suicide.

As his murder trial, the court heard Ms Harnum had effectively become Simon Gittany’s slave.

The failed shoe salesman told his fiancee what to wear, who to see and where to go.

He also told her not to gaze in the direction of other men, not to see her friends when she was overseas, to refrain from wearing high heels, revealing clothing, or wearing her hair out and not to confess her sins to a priest.

When Lisa Harnum (above) tried to leave Simon Gittany he flew into a rage and threw her to her death off a 15th floor balcony.

Controlling narcissist and failed shoe salesman Simon Gittany (above with then girlfriend Rachel Louise) is serving 18 years for killing his former girlfriend.

He monitored her text messages through a computer program.

“Please don’t let any guy talk to you … your eyes should only gaze on me, the one,” reads one text Mr Gittany sent Ms Harnum in 2010, the year before she died.

“Who the f*** do you think you are walking around the house like you own it or coming and going without my permission?” reads another text.

And when he learned of Ms Harnum’s plans to leave him, Gittany went “berserk” and “apoplectic” with rage.

RELATED: Simon Gittany’s life behind bars

On the morning of her death, Ms Harnum was heard banging on the neighbour’s door, shouting: “Please help me, help me, God help me”.

Just 69 seconds before Ms Harnum’s death, Gittany was captured on CCTV physically restraining her and dragging her back inside the unit she had tried to flee.

He then dragged her out to the balcony and threw her to her death.

Gittany is serving a maximum 26 years for murder, with an earliest release date after 18 years of 2031 by which time he will be aged 58.

Murdered by their father, Jai, Bailey and Tyler Farquharson who he killed on Father's Day by driving them into a dam.

THE FARQUHARSON CHILDREN

On the evening of September 4, 2005, Robert Farquharson was returning his children to his estranged wife, Cindy Gambino, after a Father’s Day access visit.

Farquharson had not dealt well with the separation and was bitter about Ms Gambino having custody, despite his access visits.

At around 7pm, he drove his white Commodore with his three young sons, aged ten, seven and two in the back across a highway and into a dam near the Victorian town of Winchelsea.

The boys all drowned.

A CFA diver is helped from the dam after searching for the three boys near Winchelsea.

Robert Farquharson (centre) at court was jailed for at least 33 years. Picture: Craig Borrow.

Farquharson survived and later claimed he had lost consciousness due to a coughing fit.

Farquharson was found guilty of murdering his sons and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 33 years.

THE POULSON FAMILY

Just after 1.30 on the afternoon of Friday September 30, 2003, Ingrid Poulson arrived on a scene of unimaginable horror.

The location was her father’s property in Wilberforce, 60km northwest of Sydney where he was minding her two children, four-year-old Malee and Bas, who was almost two.

Ms Poulson was in the back of a police car when it pulled in to check on the children and arrest her estranged husband. They were three minutes too late.

Lying in the driveway were four people, and blood all over the ground.

Ms Poulson’s 60-year-old father, Peter, was already dead.

Ingrid Poulson is comforted at the funeral of her father, Peter Poulson, and her children Sebastian and Marilyn Kongsom, in 2003. Picture: Scott Hornby.

Malee was just four when stabbed by her father.

Sebastian ‘Bas’ Kongsom was just 23 months old.

Bas and Malee’s tractor and galoshes and Peter Poulson’s RFS helmet on their coffins at the funeral. Picture: Scott Hornby.

Near him, Marilyn ‘Malee’ Kongsom was dead, so too was her son Sebastian ‘Bas’ Kongsom, who was only 23 months old.

Ms Poulson’s estranged husband, Prithak Kongsom was in the act of raising a 30cm knife to again stab his son when police shot Kongsom.

Kongsom died four hours later in Windsor Hospital from self-inflicted stab wounds rather than the policeman’s bullets.

Five days after the tragedy, under a brilliant blue sky in the Blue Mountains a funeral was held among gum trees at Springwood Memorial Gardens cemetery Peter Poulson and Malee and Bas Kongsom.

In Ingrid Poulson’s eulogy, which was read out by her mother Ingrid, she said “I have lost part of myself, but I will never lose the love you gave me.

“I thank you for giving me so much joy.”

[e-mail]