‘So proud of you’: heartbroken father’s moving tribute to murdered daughter Lilie James

Three weeks after sports coach Lilie James was brutally murdered at an elite Sydney school, her family had to say goodbye to the light of their lives.

Lilie James’ family at her funeral in Sydney’s south. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Lilie James was full of light. Those who love her all say it, that she lit up the room with a joyful energy that drew people to her because this was a young woman who ­others liked to be around.

She illuminated a path for girls she taught to dance or coached in swimming and water polo and it’s not only her family who say this. She was an amazing role model, other parents said. A coach who cared, according to her students. A good mate to her friends. Kind, loyal, vibrant.

At her funeral on Friday, the focus was on Lilie’s light because the darkness of the 21-year-old’s final minutes – bludgeoned to death in a private school bathroom by a colleague she’d briefly dated – doesn’t diminish the other minutes, months and years of a full and happy life centred on her friends and tight-knit family.

More than three weeks after her murder at the elite St Andrew’s Cathedral School in inner Sydney, up to 500 mourners led by her dad Jamie, mum Peta and younger brother Max gathered at her alma mater, Danebank Anglican School for Girls, in the city’s south to celebrate Lilie’s life.

They came wearing bright colours and clutching flowers, to remember how she lived not how she died. Her killer sought ultimate control but he doesn’t get to control the memories Lilie built with others. He can’t take those.

Funeral service for murder victim Lilie James. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Mr James made it clear in a family statement released after Lilie’s funeral, which was attended by NSW Premier Chris Minns, “This day is all about her”.

“Lilie James we are so proud of you and thank you for sharing a wonderful and jam-packed 21 and a half years together,” he said.

In a moving tribute, Mr James described his daughter as an independent, vibrant young woman who was always on the go and lived each day to the full.

“On top of working and studying, Lilie loved coaching and playing water polo. She loved to dance. Even with her busy schedule, she always still made time to support her brother Max, her friends and her family.’’

Mr James went on to thank the community for their thoughts, prayers, messages and the great memories they’d since shared with her family. He and Max were among the pallbearers for the white, flower-laden coffin.

Lilie's father James and brother Max watch on as her mother Peta hugs a mourner. Picture: Britta Campion

While her death is mourned, even by strangers moved to contribute more than $30,000 to a GoFundMe page set up by a friend to assist her family, memories of her murderer Paul Thijssen, a former student and prefect at St Andrew’s, have been publicly wiped.

Thijssen, 24, is believed to have savagely attacked Lilie with a hammer before jumping from a cliff at Vaucluse in Sydney’s east, taking with him the answer to the question that will haunt her family forever. Why?

The pair were both sports coaches at St Andrew’s – he in cricket and hockey, she in water polo. They’d had a brief relationship of about five weeks’ duration and it is understood Lilie had recently ended it.

Just as he was rejected in life, so too has he been shunned in death. No big funeral service for him. No glowing tributes. Friends now publicly disavow Thijssen; websites and social media posts have been selectively edited to delete references to a young man once lauded for his sporting and leadership roles.

It is understood his parents, Dutch nationals Stef and Esther Thijssen, chose not to have their only child’s body repatriated home to The Netherlands. He was cremated in Sydney.

The family of three moved to Sydney in 2015, when Thijssen completed his senior years at St Andrews. He later returned to the school, this time employed as a sports co-ordinator and coach.

Lilie James was studying a bachelor of management in sports business at the University of Technology Sydney and worked four days a week coaching swimming and water polo.

Lilie James. Picture: Facebook

She had just finished a coaching session and was returning equipment to St Andrew’s when she encountered Thijssen in the gymnasium about 7pm on October 25.

By all reports, he’d gone to work that day with murder on his mind. Sydney’s Daily Telegraph reported that he purchased a hammer at a hardware store that morning and rented a car that would serve as a getaway.

Following the attack, which left Lilie with severe head injuries, it is understood he used her phone to text her father and later called triple-0 to report a female body in the bathroom at the school.

CCTV showed Thijssen later pacing the clifftop area in Vaucluse before he jumped off a cliff to his death.

The murder, in a workplace, left those who knew both young coaches in shock.

Head of School at St Andrew’s Julie McGonigle said the school community was in utter confusion because they knew both the victim and the attacker.

“Our beautiful Ms James, a ray of light, and Mr Thijssen, whose actions are completely incongruent with who we knew,” she told students at a school assembly.

She said Lilie was adored by all who knew her.

“She was full of vitality, energy, enthusiasm and a natural fit in our community,” Ms McGonigle said.

“There are no words for what has occurred. It is like entering a foreign land which possesses no word.’’

Order of service cover for the funeral of Lilie James.

Lilie’s death occurred in a particularly dark 10-day period in Australia when four other women were allegedly killed by men known to them: Alice McShera, 34, in WA; Analyn Osias, 46, in Victoria; Thi Thuy Huong Nguyen, 65, in Canberra; Krystal Marshall, 38, in South Australia.

In these cases, four men now face murder charges. Grieving families will, at least, have the small comfort of a day in court.

Lilie James’s family will never have that chance. They will never have the opportunity to look Paul Thijssen in the eye and ask, why?

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