Lilie James family to sue St Andrew’s Cathedral School, lawyers sceptical

The parents of murdered water polo coach Lilie James will seek to sue St Andrew’s Cathedral School - but some of the top legal minds aren’t convinced they’ll have a case.

The parents of murdered water polo coach Lilie James are looking to sue St Andrew’s Cathedral School for gross negligence and a breach in its duty of care to her as an employee but workplace lawyers are sceptical they will be successful.

Ms James, 21, was killed by colleague and former boyfriend Paul Thijssen in a bathroom of the elite private school on October 25 while the pair was at the campus after hours returning sports equipment from an earlier training session.

According to The Daily Telegraph, Jamie and Peta James are seeking legal advice about pursuing the school for compensation, and to establish how Thijssen was able to kill their daughter inside the school without anyone hearing or seeing it.

It is understood a significant part of the James’ legal action will centre around the lack of night time security.

Lilie James was a water polo coach at St Andrew’s Cathedral school. Picture: Facebook

The funeral booklet for Lilie James. Picture: Supplied

“There is a lot of anger there and a lot of unanswered questions for Jamie and Peta,” a close family friend told the publication.

“They, like the rest of us, want to know how this was able to happen inside a school of all places... (The school) had a duty of care to protect Lilie as an employee.”

Police believe the murder of Lilie James was premeditated and calculated, not an impulsive act.

Thijssen armed himself with two hammers, one of which may have come from a school store room.

A close friend of Dutch-born Thijssen said it was the role of the former St Andrew’s student turned sports department worker to collect, catalogue and put away sports equipment after training, when the school’s many teams returned to the high-rise CBD campus after practice.

Lawyers sceptical

But employment law specialist Chris McArdle told news.com.au he believed the family had “very little case”.

He said the test would be whether it was “foreseeable and reasonable”.

“Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the employer has a duty to ensure as far as reasonably practical the safety of persons at work,” he said.

Father Jamie (far left) and brother Max (second from right) were pallbearers at the funeral. Picture: Jeremy Piper

“Given she was in the course of work, the obligation of the employer was to provide a safe place to work ‘as far as reasonably practicable’”

“Was it reasonably practical for the employer to ensure safety in the workplace at that time?”

He said ‘reasonably’ was only inserted into the Act in 2011, making it much harder to prosecute cases.

Mr McArdle concluded it would have been difficult for the school to prevent the tragedy.

“This was domestic violence,” he said. “This woman wouldn’t go out with him. He was a spurned suitor.”

Mr McArdle said the question was: Would a reasonable person think some other security in place other than swipe cards could have prevented the tragedy?

Comparisons to Stephanie Scott murder

In 2021, the family of Stephanie Scott successfully sued the NSW Education Department after the beloved teacher was murdered at Leeton High School in the Riverina when she went to prepare lessons ahead of taking leave for her upcoming wedding on a weekend in April 2015.

School cleaner Vincent Stanford was arrested four days later and Ms Scott’s burnt body was found by police in the Cocoparra National Park, about 70km from Leeton, five days after her disappearance.

While details of the settlement remain confidential the family hoped it would lead to change with more stringent screening procedures for employees at public institutions.

Stephanie Scott was killed at Leeton High School in 2015. Picture: Supplied

Stephanie’s family successfully sued the Department of Education. Picture: Supplied

The lawyer who represented the Scott family, John Potter, told news.com.au the two cases were markedly different.

“There was no indications that Paul Thijssen has a history of violent behaviour of which the school would have been aware,” he said.

“In fact the available evidence is to the contrary. It appears clear that this was a random act of violence by a person without a prior history.

“That is where this case differs significantly from the Scott case as in that case the perpetrator did have a history of both violence and strange behaviour.”

Mr Potter said the only remedy the family of Lilie James would have would be the death benefit under the Workers Compensation Act.

The Act provides compensation for the dependants, or estate, of a worker who dies as a result of a workplace injury or illness.

Thijssen was a former prefect and sports captain of St Andrew’s Cathedral school.

Former St Andrew’s Cathedral School principal, John Collier described him as “an absolute delight” and “a fine student” in a much-maligned newsletter this month to students at his current school Shore.

“What is chilling about the tragedy which unfolded at St Andrew’s, the shock and grief of which will cascade for a long time, is that the young man concerned was, in everybody’s estimation, an absolute delight,” Dr Collier wrote.

“He appeared to be just like the best of us. An hour before he committed the atrocity, he was speaking in a relaxed, friendly mode with staff at that school.

“He was not a monster; rather, in the last five hours of his life, he committed a monstrous act which was in complete contradiction to what everyone who knew him observed in the rest of his short life.”

[e-mail] with Natalie Brown, Georgina Noak