EXCLUSIVE
An upcoming 60 Minutes story about a young water polo coach bludgeoned to death by her ex-boyfriend at a Sydney private school is so distressing parents are being urged not to let their children watch it.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal the principal at St Andrew’s Cathedral School, where Lilie James was brutally murdered by fellow coach and former lover Paul Thijssen a year ago, has issued a severe warning about the confronting episode.
The popular 21-year-old’s ‘unrecognisable’ body was found with terrible head injuries in the elite inner-city school’s gym toilets just before midnight, on October 25, 2023, after her father received a text message asking him to come and pick her up.
Although the text was sent from Ms James’ phone, it is believed it was written by Thijssen in the moments after he savagely beat her to death with a hammer.
60 Minutes is set to air an interview with Ms James’ parents discussing the gruesome details of their daughter’s murder publicly for the first time this Sunday.
‘If you knew what he did that night, I think you’d understand why we … why we can’t forgive what he did,’ Ms James’ mother, Peta, tells 60 Minutes star reporter Tara Brown in an online clip promoting the story.
‘The monster followed her into the bathroom,’ her father, Jamie, says.
Lilie James was savagely bludgeoned to death by her former boyfriend in the gym toilets of an elite inner-city Sydney private school one year ago
Paul Thijssen then used his victim’s mobile phone to send a text message to her father, asking him to come to the school to pick her up
Brown questioned the couple about the text that led to the discovery of their daughter’s battered body.
‘Do you believe now that text message was from Lilie?’ she asked.
‘No. No,’ Mr James replies, before adding: ‘He can rot in hell.’
The program will air just days after the first anniversary of Ms James’ death.
Despite Lilie’s parents’ brave decision to discuss their daughter’s horrific murder, St Andrew’s head of school Julie McGonigle has advised parents against allowing their children to watch the interview.
‘We are aware that 60 Minutes is focusing on this story on Sunday evening,’ she wrote in an email to the school’s parents and caregivers on Thursday.
‘It is our strong advice that you keep your children from watching it.’
Lilie James, who was studying sports business at the University of Technology, has been described as ‘vibrant, outgoing and very much loved by her friends and family’
Dr McGonigle added she already had discussed the impact the anniversary of Ms James’ murder would likely have on members of the school community with students.
‘We continue to stand with the James family in their grief,’ she wrote in the email.
‘This one-year anniversary will be a challenging period for our community, especially as it falls during the HSC and IB examination period for many of those students most affected.
‘We are focused on supporting our students, staff, and families now, and into the future and are very grateful to the broader community for the deep care the School has received.
‘We are expecting there to be media attention over the next week.
Thijssen, who was also a sports coach at St Andrew’s, had been setting up desks in the school gymnasium for the students’ upcoming HSC examinations when Ms James agreed to come see him.
The couple had engaged in a brief romantic relationship that fizzled out after about five weeks and were meeting for a final exchange of belongings.
Paul Thijssen attended St Andrew’s for two years before graduating in 2017 and later being employed as a sports coach at the school
Lilie James was a popular water polo coach at St Andrew’s before she was murdered
CCTV footage from the school allegedly shows Ms James and her 24-year-old killer entering the gym’s bathroom, with Thijssen exiting alone more than an hour later.
Thijssen was again captured on CCTV, this time 12km away in the affluent eastern Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, about two hours later at 8.45pm.
He was seen parking his rented white Lexus near Diamond Bay Reserve, is perched on a rocky coastal clifftop, before dumping the hammer he used to killer Ms James in a nearby rubbish bin.
Thijssen then returned to his car and sat in it for two hours, before calling triple-0 to report his sickening crime.
Police traced the triple-0 call to the reserve, where they found an abandoned backpack containing some of Thijssen’s belongings but no sign of the killer.
His body was spotted two days later wedged into the rocks below the park by tradesmen working on a boardwalk along the reserve’s cliff edge.
Daily Mail Australia this week revealed parents and staff at St Andrew’s had been informed the school would not be considered ‘an interested party’ in the coronial inquest into the former couple’s deaths when it begins next March.
Thijssen drives his rented, white Lexus through Vaucluse, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, at 8.47pm after leaving Ms James’ battered body in the bathroom of the school gymnasium
Emergency services recover Thijssen’s body after it was spotted wedged in rocks beneath a clifftop park two days after he murdered Ms James
That is despite teachers and students having intimate knowledge and involvement with both of the young coaches in the lead-up to the murder, and school staff having assisted in the discovery of the horrific crime scene.
Dr McGonigle made the announcement in her latest Head of School Newsletter, saying ‘at this stage, the State Coroner does not consider St Andrew’s Cathedral School to have sufficient interest in this matter to be considered an interested party, pursuant to the Coroners Act’.
Mr James remember his daughter as an ‘independent, vibrant’ young woman who had always lived life to the fullest as she was farewelled during a moving memorial service in Sydney last November.
‘On top of working and studying, Lilie loved coaching and playing water polo. She loved to dance,’ he said.
‘Even with her busy schedule, she always still made time to support her brother Max, her friends and family.
‘We cannot thank the community enough for their thoughts, prayers, generosity and messages through this difficult time.
Lilie James is laid to rest after her father, Jamie, spoke about his immense pride in everything she accomplished before her short life was cruelly cut short
The gym where Thijssen was seen on CCTV following Ms James into the bathroom before later emerging on his own before driving to Vaucluse and plummeting to his death
‘From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for the many great memories we all share of Lilie.
‘Lilie James we are so proud of you and thank you for sharing a wonderful and jam-packed 21 years together.’
The school demolished the gymnasium bathroom where Ms James’ was killed in the wake of the horrific murder and installed a memorial to her young life.
Students at the school will mark the one-year anniversary of her death on Friday, and be given black armbands to wear in her memory at sporting events this weekend.
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