Lilie James: School-grounds killer Paul Thijssens stalked another ex-lover

Having murdered an ex-lover, hockey coach Paul Thijssens went to a clifftop and clutched a handmade memento from another woman who dared to dump him.

An inquest into the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old sports assistant bludgeoned to death by Thijssens on the grounds of a Sydney private school, is examining the Dutchman’s history of stalking and controlling behaviour before the attack in October 2023.

The inquest is due to resume on Wednesday and has heard Thijssens had previously dated an 18-year-old Sydney woman over eight months in 2021.

The relationship’s initial signs were positive, with the woman known as Freya giving him a bundle of handmade vouchers before an anniversary and her parents noting Thijssens as a polite, friendly and respectful man.

But the parents’ concerns grew as Thijssens would check up on the teenager and become “annoyed if she did not answer straight away”.

He had earlier pressured her to share her iPhone and Snapchat location.

He asked her to marry him, having earlier been warned by Freya she would not have sex with him before marriage.

In evidence to the inquest, Freya described the increasingly strained relationship as “suffocating” and “felt Paul was trying to pressure ... and control” her. This was despite Thijssens being based in the Netherlands in late-2021.

The woman recalled her parents “lost it” when Thijssens suggested she travel to the Netherlands or meet him in Singapore.

She made a move to end the relationship in December, causing Thijssen to immediately apply for a work-holiday visa with fraudulent documents and turn up unannounced at her church that Sunday.

Told the relationship was over, he punched a tree next to her head, telling her “I can’t punch the one thing I want to”.

He was later seen twice outside her home, including early one morning when Freya got a glass of water, looked out a kitchen window and saw Thijssen’s face.

He later appeared remorseful during a meeting with Freya’s father, counsel assisting the coroner Jennifer Single SC said, describing no further contact after that.

But Ms Single underlined the relationship’s apparent importance to Thijssen, who took the handmade vouchers to the spot where he killed himself in Sydney’s eastern suburbs after murdering Ms James.

“Paul still had these vouchers two years after his relationship with Freya,” she told the inquest on Tuesday.

“The fact they were found 10 metres away from his backpack (left at the clifftop) leads to an inference he was looking at them before his death.

“We submit these held special significance for him.”

The inquest has been told how Thijssen stalked Ms James for days before he murdered her in a “calculated, premeditated” attack at the school where they both worked.

Domestic violence experts are due to give evidence on Wednesday or Thursday.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) / Lifeline 13 11 14 / beyondblue 1300 22 4636.