Paul Thijssen hated Lilie James. He hated that she had rejected him, that he could not control her, that she threatened the perfectly curated image of himself he wanted to project. And so he killed her with a hammer in the bathroom of the sports centre at St Andrew’s Cathedral school, where they both worked. He stepped through his meticulous, brutal plan calmly, never appearing frazzled or manic. She was only 21 years old.
And then, as detailed this week at the coronial inquest into both deaths, 23-year-old Thijssen travelled to Vaucluse, in Sydney’s east, and took his own life.
Thijssen’s failed attempts at controlling the narrative around his short-lived, tumultuous relationship with James had shaken him. He had made concerted efforts to control, manipulate and gaslight the young water polo coach.
What emerged at the inquest was a disturbing portrait of contemporary coercive control, of fragile masculinity turned violent, and of the ways abusive relationships can remain hidden.
An unravelling relationship
In August 2023, James told her father that she had started seeing a boy called Paul, a colleague at St Andrews, in Sydney’s CBD.
She worked at the school as a water polo and swimming coach, and was popular with staff and students. She was always active, coaching and playing water polo and netball.
Thijssen was from the Netherlands, initially coming to Australia with his parents between 2015 and 2017. He attended St Andrew’s and became sports captain and prefect at the school. After he graduated he returned to Australia several times on working holiday visas.
But those visas can only be issued three times to an individual. And in 2023, Thijssen was on his third and final iteration of the visa. New South Wales police found Thijssen had lied in his previous visa applications, embellishing his role at St Andrews to meet visa requirements that require applicants to work in specified fields.
Counsel assisting the NSW coroner, Jennifer Single SC, explained to the court that this formed part of the web of “stressors” in Thijssen’s life, which also included a long term lie about his studies.
He had convinced his family and friends that he was enrolled to study a masters of teaching at the University of Sydney, when no record of his study there exists.
Thijssen had been in a relationship with someone else before James, where he had stalked and intimidated his partner, hacked into her Snapchat account and punched a tree above her head when she tried to break up with him.
And when James walked into his life, it became evident he employed a similar set of tactics, including tracking her location on Snapchat, and berating and intimidating her.
In one instance, CCTV footage showed Thijssen shoving and cornering James as he aggressively spoke to her on school grounds, days before she was killed.
A 21st birthday party on Friday 20 October that James attended along with a former partner, was a potential trigger for Thijssen. At a separate dinner with his friends, Thijssen appeared “stressed” and continued to check James’s location.
James attempted to break off the relationship that night, but Thijissen insisted they talk again on Monday. Days later, he would murder her.
The attack
In the final days of James’s life, Thijssen travelled from his apartment in Zetland to her home in Kogarah Bay seven times. On each occasion, he would spend a short time in his rented car, before returning, without any evidence he had contacted James.
Police found evidence that he took photos of the cars parked in James’s street, and marked the photos with notes on who owned the cars.
On Wednesday 25 October, CCTV footage shows Thijissen meticulously planning his attack, including locking the doors to the gym and practising the assault several times.
In her final moments, James was unaware of what Thijssen planned to do, smiling and interacting with him normally. She was due at a water polo match that night, and went into the bathroom at the school’s sports centre to change into her swimmers.
Thijssen is seen waiting outside the bathroom, hammer in hand, for two minutes, before lunging forward and into the toilet.
He exits the bathroom more than an hour later and messages James’s dad from her phone, asking him to “come to the school” and pick her up.
James suffered 25 blunt force injuries to her neck and head. She had broken bones and abrasions on her hands and arms consistent with defensive injuries. There was no evidence of sexual assault.
Thijssen then left the school, drove to Vaucluse and called triple-zero to tell the operator there was a body in the school’s bathroom.
Days later, his naked body was recovered at the bottom of the cliffs at Diamond Bay Reserve. On top of the cliffs, police found a backpack containing an old phone and some clothing.
How this could happen
Experts say the violence was a result of Thijssen’s fragile sense of self, that he was a man who covered up his sense of inadequacy with lies and manipulation.
Dr Katie Seidler, a clinical and forensic psychologist, told the court he covered up his sense of inadequacy by “projecting an image of perfection, and having it all together, and being the great guy that was competent in everything”.
Thijssen had, in Seidler’s assessment, made the decision to kill James in the face of his collapsing facade. She said Thijssen was afraid James would challenge his framing of their breakup, and believed the only way he could re-establish control was to kill her.
Sitting alongside Seidler was Dr Danny Sullivan, a forensic psychiatrist, who said James was “setting the narrative” in deciding to end the relationship.
“She was stating what she wanted and didn’t want. I think deep inside he was very wounded, potentially humiliated that he was not attractive enough to her,” Sullivan said.
Both said his behaviour was coercive, a view supported by the director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, Kate Fitz-Gibbon, who said Thijssen’s use of social media was an example of “technology-facilitated abuse”.
“Monitoring through a range of different platforms, including different social media products, is well recognised as a form of digital coercive control,” she said.
It all adds up to the increasingly complex and troubling world of abuse and coercion amid the social media age, and among young people, she said.
Telling the court about examples of abusers using various devices and services to track and abuse their partners, the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said one in four 10 to 17-year-olds had “experienced some form of tracking monitoring and harassment”.
Witnesses said authorities face a mammoth task to address attitudes about abuse among young people, a point highlighted in an emotional address made by James’s parents.
They told the court of the importance of “teaching boys how to accept and value a woman’s opinions and choices and accept rejection”. Failure to do that, they said, means “we may be setting them up for failure. Or, in our case, a moment of time we will never recover from”.
“To Lilie, we can promise you one thing: we will forever love you and never forget you.”