Molly Ticehurst’s ex-boyfriend will not face a life sentence for her domestic violence murder, a crime which galvanised a national movement against gendered abuse.
Ticehurst, a ۲۸-year-old childcare educator, was found dead in her home at Forbes, in the New South Wales central-west, in the early hours of ۲۲ April ۲۰۲۴.
Her former boyfriend Daniel Billings broke into her bedroom and stabbed her ۱۵ times in a ferocious attack that lasted less than a minute.
Billings had been charged with several counts of raping Ticehurst and a string of domestic violence offences just over two weeks before the killing, but he was freed on bail by a local court registrar the next day.
During a mention in the NSW supreme court on Monday, Justice Natalie Adams told the legal parties she did not expect them to seek a life sentence.
Adams said there would likely be mitigating factors to consider when sentencing Billings, as there were in almost all cases.
“It’s difficult to identify what’s [legally] unique about this case,” she said.
But the judge said she was troubled with how to deal with expert evidence about Ticehurst’s police statement that she was repeatedly raped by Billings.
The sexual assault charges were dropped when Billings pleaded guilty to murder in November ۲۰۲۵ after ۱۸ months of legal negotiations.
Billings always denied raping Ticehurst and developed a dark obsession with clearing his name in the lead-up to the murder.
“If I’m going to do the time, I may as well do the crime,” he said in a conversation with a friend soon before the murder, according to a statement of agreed facts before the court.
Adams said she could not ignore the rape allegations, despite the charges being dropped, when it came to sentencing Billings for murder.
“It was him seeing the police facts that set him to spiral,” the judge said.
Acting out of spite over the allegations could push his crime into another serious category, she said.
“The sense of grievance about a perceived false allegation, there’s no getting around that,” Adams said.
“Whether it’s almost a public-justice type murder or domestic-violence type murder.”
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Adams said it was possible all the elements to satisfy the legal definition of sexual assault were in Ticehurst’s account to police.
Changes to consent laws in NSW, which included affirmative language in the legislation, meant it was a crime where both parties “feel they’re telling the truth”.
“The only witness who could have told us is dead,” the judge said.
Billings, who has been in custody in the supermax wing of Goulburn jail since he was charged, will face court in person.
He will hear victim impact statements from the Ticehurst family, along with expert evidence about his mental state at the time of the murder.
A series of videos he made before and after the murder are also expected to be played to court.
Ticehurst’s death became a flashpoint in the nation’s fight against domestic violence and led to legal changes in NSW, including tighter bail laws.
Billings, ۳۱, who has pleaded guilty to murder, is set to face court in Orange for a two-day sentence hearing from Thursday.
Adams has indicated she will sentence Billings later in September.
