The grieving parents of slain NSW woman Molly Ticehurst have revealed she was promised help to “intruder-proof” her home just two weeks before she was allegedly killed there by her former partner.
Ms Ticehurst’s battered body was discovered by emergency services personnel in the early hours of April 22 at her property in the central west town of Forbes.
Her ex-boyfriend, Daniel Billings, has been charged with her murder and is awaiting trial.
Fifteen days prior, the 29-year-old had been released on bail, charged with a raft of sexual and domestic violence offences against the mum-of-one, including allegations that he’d raped her three times. An interim apprehended domestic violence order had also been made banning Billings from contacting Ms Ticehurst, going within one kilometre of her home, work and other places.
At the same time, Ms Ticehurst told her parents she had been contacted by a caseworker from Housing Plus, a not-for-profit company that provides housing and domestic violence services across NSW, on April 8, and again on April 12, with assurances of an impending security upgrade to her home.
In an interview with The Guardian published on Thursday, Tony and Kate Ticehurst said their daughter had been promised the installation of barriers on her windows, automatic lights and surveillance cameras at her home. Nothing had been installed to make her safer when, 14 days after the first call with Housing Plus, her body was found following a welfare check.
All the provider gave her, Tony said, was “false hope”.
A Housing Plus spokesperson said the provider is conducting an investigation into its services’ interactions with Ms Ticehurst.
Her family are now calling for funding to be cut to Housing Plus, and for an urgent review of NSW’s Saving Home Leaving Violence (SHLV) scheme.
“If they had done something, she could have still been here,” Kate told The Guardian.
“If they promise to help you and don’t help you, it’s neglect. They should have had it done that week.”
Tony said the NSW Government and the provider had “failed” his daughter, who was less fearful to be home alone once she’d been told safety measures would be installed.
“We talked about it and I asked if she was happy and she said ‘Yeah I am. I’ve already had people ring me up and say they can help me. They can intruder-proof my house’,” he recalled of a conversation he had with Ms Ticehurst in early April.
“She was all happy that they were going to help her and then nothing … False hope they gave her.”
Established in 2006, SHLV was designed to enable victim-survivors to remain in their homes after reporting violence by improving security. It was expanded statewide last month, and received a $48 million funding investment through the state government’s $230 million emergency package to support victim-survivors of domestic violence – of which Ms Ticehurst’s death was the catalyst.
In a statement at the time, NSW Premier Chris Minns said the funding was an acknowledgment that “too many lives have been lost and too many families have been broken because of domestic and family violence”.
“It is a blight in our communities, and it is a problem that deserves our government’s concerted attention and response. We cannot accept the status quo,” he said.
“This funding announcement is an important step to doing better, to recognising that domestic violence supports need to be applied not just from a crisis response perspective, but with an eye to disrupting the cycle of domestic and family violence early and permanently.”
NSW Minister for Women Jodie Harrison was asked on Wednesday by Orange MP Phil Donato if the SHLV’s expanded rollout would include “an urgent time frame within which (security) upgrades to properties must be completed”.
At present, the likes of Housing Plus deliver “security upgrades for high-risk clients … as soon as suitable contractors are available”, according to the government.
Ms Harrison, who is also the Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, said the program saw “services leverage their relationships with providers to be able to install security upgrades urgently”.
A 2022 evaluation of SHLV found it had been “successful in achieving housing stability and enhanced wellbeing for women and children affected by domestic and family violence”, she said.