Domestic violence survivor calls for change in emotional interview with Ally Langdon
Domestic violence is a national shame in Australia and again over summer, too many women died in this country at the hands of a former or current partner.
Kim O’Reilly is a survivor and is now speaking out to call for urgent change to our parole process after her former boyfriend was recently released from prison.
“I feel let down,” O’Reilly told A Current Affair host Ally Langdon.
“It’s been a real hard and unfortunate situation, but a far too common one.”
O’Reilly was attacked and left for dead by her then boyfriend, country footballer Jake Frecker.
She was beaten in the early hours of January 17, 2019, with Frecker breaking her eye socket and teeth.
He repeatedly punched O’Reilly in the face, the eye and the jaw and her screams and cries were so loud neighbours called police.
When interviewed by police, Frecker initially denied the assault and said O’Reilly fell.
“When the police arrived that night … he grabbed his phone, put it in his pocket and said, ‘Tell them that you fell over’,” O’Reilly said.
“Then he threatened me and said, ‘You’re going to tell them that you fell over?’ And I said, ‘Yes’.
“Then the police came in and could clearly see that I hadn’t fallen over. The damage was done to my left side of my face.
“And he said that I’d fell over on the driveway and the concrete.”
After he was pressed by authorities, Frecker changed his story.
“I do remember hitting her once in the bottom half of her face, in the jaw,” he said during an interview with police.
O’Reilly is forever grateful the police believed her and that her neighbours called for help.
“I just always constantly think about what he would have done if they didn’t come,” she said.
She said she now struggles everyday and has panic attacks and nightmares.
“I don’t sleep, I have anxiety and PTSD and I didn’t have any of this before,” O’Reilly said.
After serving under four years of his six year sentence, Frecker was out on parole from January 17.
O’Reilly said she was told the news of his parole when she got a call from the victims register and believes “the way it’s done with a phone call is … very unfair”.
Frecker’s release date was the anniversary of the brutal assault.
“That will forever be his day that he got freedom and not the day that he did the wrong thing,” O’Reilly said.
O’Reilly said she wasn’t consulted ahead of Frecker being granted parole.
“(I heard) nothing before he was eligible for parole from October and then until December, that’s when they made the decision,” she said.
O’Reilly is calling for change and wants victims to be present at parole hearings so authorities can see first-hand how victims are coping.
While victims can make an email submission to express fears and concerns, she said there is a “disconnect”.
“I think the disconnect of not having that personal conversation with someone in person or via video link or whatever, that the victim is comfortable with, really, you lose control over the feeling and emotion in the email,” O’Reilly said.
“If they got to speak to me and got to know me and understood what I go through on a daily basis … the decision would be very different.”
O’Reilly said she feels like she will now have to hide from Frecker for the rest of her life.
“No matter what anyone says to me about his rehabilitation, I know him and I know what he can do and I’m not willing to put myself in that situation where he’s able to get to me,” she said.
“He threatened me multiple times (that) if I had told the police what he did to me, that he would burn my family. He threatened me a lot.”
O’Reilly said despite living in fear, she’s never going to stop fighting for change.
“(I) feel like this happened to me to have this responsibility to talk, to be loud and just shine a light on the injustice on women,” she said.
