It has been five years since John Herron received a letter from then-Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews following the murder of his 25-year-old daughter.
It read: “We’ve just got to do better.”
Mr Herron’s daughter Courtney, was approached by Henry Hammond on May 24, 2019, and asked for a cigarette. They got chatting, shared a meal together and later that night went to a gathering with Courtney’s friends.
At the end of the night, in the early hours of May 25, Hammond beat her to death with a tree branch inside Royal Park just north of the Melbourne CBD.
He then dragged her body into a clearing and tried to cover up his vile act with leaves and branches. He placed a large piece of concrete on her head.
Courtney’s body was found hours later by dog walkers.
In 2021, Hammond was found not guilty of murder due to his schizophrenia diagnosis and he was ordered to complete a 25-year custodial supervision order at Thomas Embling Hospital, a psychiatric facility.
It’s been five years since his little girl was suddenly taken from him and Mr Herron said there isn’t a day that goes past where he doesn’t think about where Courtney would be in her life if she were still here. At the time of her death, she was an aspiring social worker.
“The thing with grief is it goes through stages,” Mr Herron told news.com.au.
“The first six months you’re in denial and hoping it’s a nightmare. A year-and-a-half after that you’re in a daze.”
He returned to work as a lawyer a week after Courtney was killed, something he says isn’t uncommon for people in his position. But, thankfully, he was surrounded by supportive people and it was a good distraction.
“I’ve got young children so I have to keep going and shield them from adverse publicity. Those are the stages. It never goes away. I’d say that after four years maybe you can process what has happened,” he said.
Mr Herron threw his anger and heartbreak at trying to hold the Victorian justice system to account as his daughter’s killer was on a community corrections order for pulling a knife on his ex-girlfriend when he committed the unspeakable act.
He also felt like he had to actively fight for information about Hammond’s criminal background.
It’s why at the last Victorian state election he ran as a candidate for the Justice Party.
“My daughter would have wanted me to fight for her and other female victims of crime to ensure both her killer and others are not allowed to perpetrate these crimes in the first place, and to level appropriate punishment and treatment, so Victorian society can again be a functioning democracy,” he said at the time, according The Guardian.
He didn’t win the seat and eventually decided that fighting for justice publicly had become too much. Now, he helps families just like his own navigate the legal system.
That hasn’t stopped his anger, however, at the repeated violence against women in Australia with 36 women’s lives lost to male violence in 2024.
“The thing that really hit me recently was the Bondi Junction Westfield stabbings because the killer was identical when it came to the mental health aspect,” he said, referring to both Hammond and Joel Cauchi having schizophrenia.
“Everyone thought it was terrorism but it was someone with mental health issues with a knife. Now, that gets categorised but I think, from my aspect, the fact that it happened again. But my daughter’s killer was far more serious insofar as he was on the police radar and they just let him go on a rampage.
“That’s frustrating that it just keeps occurring.”
He said it was also frustrating that the death of one person does not get as much attention from the media as what happened in Bondi did.
“I see that continuously,” he said.
“But as far as Courtney goes, she didn’t get justice. But what’s justice? The number one thing all these girls would say is ‘I don’t want the killer out doing it again’.”
Following the public outcry at what happened in Bondi and the high amount of women murdered in April, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared violence against women a “national crisis”.
The government announced it would invest $925m over five years to help women escape violent relationships and introduce new legislation to ban deepfake pornography as part of a suite of measures in a bid to combat gendered violence.
The National Cabinet meeting was something Mr Herron didn’t even watch.
“I know it’s pointless. When Courtney died, Daniel Andrews wrote to me and said ‘sorry for your loss. It’s all about men’s behaviour and we’ve just got to do better’,” he said.
“Now what’s changed in five years? Zip, nothing.
“Almost all these women are killed by someone on bail. Someone that’s on the radar of police,” he said.
“These people are in the attention of authorities and theft’re let out more frequently than they were before and they kill more often.”
He said in his work as a lawyer he deals with family violence cases and it is “absolute mayhem” at the moment.
“I help[ed a family where their daughter was run down by a domestic violence perpetrator and she called the police to help her with three broken ribs. They charged her and not the perpetrator.
“Do you think that’s uncommon? Because I see it all the time.”
He said core issues like that need to be addressed because women are going to the police as a first line of help, despite worries it may inflame their abuser, and they’re not getting help.
Mr Herron knows he can never have Courtney back. But he will not stop fighting in her name so that no one ever forgets who she was and the person she could have become.