Radio’s Neil Breen breaks down as he asks Hannah Clarke’s parents Sue and Lloyd how they keep going

A radio host has broken down while asking the parents of domestic violence victim Hannah Clarke about their emotional statements during the inquest into her death.

Neil Breen fought back tears as he interviewed Sue and Lloyd Clarke on 4BC on Friday morning, telling them southeast Queenslanders ‘almost can’t deal with this case’.

‘They’ve found it very difficult and we look at the pair of you… and we don’t know, um, how you’re still going?’ Breen said through a cracking voice. 

‘Gone to pieces now, Breenie,’ Lloyd Clarke responded.

‘A lot of good support keeps us standing, keeps us getting up everyday … it was something we had to do and we will never get over it, but we’ve got to keep moving and bring it to light and show people there are monsters out there.’

Hannah Clarke and her three children Laianah, Aaliyah and Trey were set alight in her car in the Brisbane suburb of Camp Hill in February 2019 in an act of domestic violence that shocked Australia

Sue and Lloyd Clarke speak to reporters as the coroner's inquest into the deaths of their daughter Hannah and three grandchildren Laianah, Aaliyah and Trey ended in Brisbane

Sue and Lloyd Clarke speak to reporters as the coroner’s inquest into the deaths of their daughter Hannah and three grandchildren Laianah, Aaliyah and Trey ended in Brisbane

Radio host Neil Breen broke down on 4BC while interviewing domestic violence victim Hannah Clarke's parents Sue and Lloyd following the coroners inquest into the deaths of their daughter and three grandchildren

Radio host Neil Breen broke down on 4BC while interviewing domestic violence victim Hannah Clarke’s parents Sue and Lloyd following the coroners inquest into the deaths of their daughter and three grandchildren

Mrs Clarke said she agreed with the claim that Hannah was never safe from the moment she met Baxter.

‘I think he was a monster, and every now and then monsters are born but I don’t want this to make women frightened to leave,’ she said.

‘A lot of them can be stopped.’

The Clarkes had just sat through a two-week coroner’s inquest into the horrific circumstances surrounding the death of their daughter Hannah Clarke and three grandchildren, Aaliyah, six, Laianah, four, and Trey, three, after Hannah’s ex-husband Rowan Baxter poured petrol on the family and set them alight at Camp Hill in Brisbane’s south in February, 2020. 

Mr and Mrs Clarke had read emotional victim impact statements to the inquest on its final day.

In his statement Mr Clarke said he and his wife were speaking for their daughter and their grandchildren ‘to demand justice and demand change so that other families may be steered away from the path we have walked the last few years.’

He posed a series of questions he believed Baxter’s children and his daughter would have asked him about his vile crime.  

‘Why would you hurt us daddy? Why would you take away our futures with all the promise and possibility? Why would you take away our laughter and our games and our reading and singing and playing? Why didn’t you love us like a father was supposed to?’ Mr Clarke read. 

‘Hannah would ask him, ‘why weren’t you a better man, a better father, a better husband? Why did you have to be such a coward and a bully? Why couldn’t you leave us alone to live our lives? Why did you always have to have the last manipulative vindictive word? 

'Why would you hurt us daddy? Why would you take away our futures with all the promise and possibility? Why didn’t you love us like a father was supposed to?' Lloyd Clarke wrote in his victim impact statement about the questions Rowan Baxter's children would ask him, pictured with ex-wife Hannah Clarke and their children Laianah, Aaliyah and Trey

‘Why would you hurt us daddy? Why would you take away our futures with all the promise and possibility? Why didn’t you love us like a father was supposed to?’ Lloyd Clarke wrote in his victim impact statement about the questions Rowan Baxter’s children would ask him, pictured with ex-wife Hannah Clarke and their children Laianah, Aaliyah and Trey

In her statement Mrs Clarke lamented the fact every single female blood relative had been taken from her ‘in an instant’.  

‘Not one day has passed without tears, there is no rest, no escape, every single day we spend in the shadow of that moment of what was done to our beautiful angels. We would give anything to be free of those memories and constant thoughts. 

‘Both of us have struggled with serious health issues, physical and mental.’

Both parents had given up working and Mrs Clarke said she had been unable to touch the room at their house where granddaughters Aaliyah and Laianah stayed.

'Our house once filled with the noise and laughter and chaos of young children is now very quiet,' Mrs Clarke wrote in her statement about her grandchildren Laianah, Aaliyah and Trey (pictured)

‘Our house once filled with the noise and laughter and chaos of young children is now very quiet,’ Mrs Clarke wrote in her statement about her grandchildren Laianah, Aaliyah and Trey (pictured)

‘Our house once filled with the noise and laughter and chaos of young children is now very quiet,’ Mrs Clarke’s statement read.

‘The girls’ room is as they left it that morning two years ago. I can’t bring myself to pack up their toys.

‘Holidays like Christmas and Mother’s Day are almost unbearable.

‘The hole in our family is gaping and will never be filled.’

Victim impact statement by Sue Clarke, the mother of domestic violence victim, Hannah 

Just over two years ago, our lives changed forever.

We will never be the same people we were before Hannah, Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey were taken from us.

There is not one part of our lives that has not been affected by their murders.

What we have suffered cost us so much in every sense of the word. Emotionally, physically, financially, our grief is still continuing.

We have trouble articulating the emotional and mental impacts of this crime. They are so overwhelming it seems impossible to find the words.

Not one day has passed without tears, there is no rest, no escape, every single day we spend in the shadow of that moment of what was done to our beautiful angels. We would give anything to be free of those memories and constant thoughts.

In an instant I had taken from me every single female blood relative.

While of course I love all my boys, a mother and a grandmother needs her daughters and granddaughters to be complete. We will never again be complete.

The father and daughter bond is different but equally special and Lloyd has lost his only daughter.

Both of us have struggled with serious health issues, physical and mental.

We have both spent innumerable hours with counselors and psychologists.

We both have had to give up working. The bewildering and shocking nature of our loss meant we were not able to perform our jobs as we did before.

Our son Nat and his family have also suffered the loss of a sister, a sister in law and aunt as well as nieces, a nephew and cousins.

They have found themselves thrust into the media and public spotlight, just as we have, and this has been confronting and challenging for all of us.

Our house once filled with the noise and laughter and chaos of young children is now very quiet.

The girls’ room is as they left it that morning two years ago. I can’t bring myself to pack up their toys.

Holidays like Christmas and Mother’s Day are almost unbearable.

The hole in our family is gaping and will never be filled.

We will never get to see the people the children will become. Trey didn’t even get to go to school. We won’t ever get to see them graduate, or marry or have children of their own.

Our hearts break that they were never given the chance to grow, excel and be happy.

Hannah, our beautiful girl had so much potential. She was regaining her sense of self and growing stronger. She had dreams of becoming a police officer and had commenced the process to join weeks before.

She was a bright light in our lives and though she has been stolen from us, we will work every day to ensure that light never goes out.

We have tried to salvage something positive from the ruins of so many lives through the Small Steps 4 Hannah Foundation and we will forever be grateful for the way Hannah’s friends have rallied around us and the public has embraced the foundation.

This inquest has been unthinkably confronting. We’ve had to relive the worst day of our lives in excruciating detail and we have heard details that perhaps were kept from us up to this point. But it has been an important exercise.

We will always have to live with what happened that day but we will not live in it. We have hope and a future.

The love we have lost will never be forgotten.

Hannah and the children are with us every day and in their names we will use everything we have learned from this inquest to keep the pressure for law reform and to keep the conversation going.

We want everyone to be able to spot the danger signs in their relationships and their friendships and even in themselves.

A better understanding of coercive control won’t change what we have suffered. It won’t bring back the love that’s disappeared from our lives, it won’t allow us to watch Hannah blossom into the strong, compassionate, successful woman she was determined to be.

It won’t help us see our grandchildren fulfil their potential.But we do hope that a community that stands up against coercive control will stop others suffering the same fate and we hope it will prevent other parents and families suffering as we have suffered and spending their lives pondering that bewildering, unanswerable question – why.

 

Mrs Clarke told Breen she agreed with the summation of counsel assisting the coroner, Jacoba Brasch QC, who yesterday told the inquest that Hannah was ‘the walking dead’ because of Baxter’s ‘murderous intent’.

His ‘calculated premeditated murder’ demonstrated he was ‘evil’, Ms Brasch told the inquest, and that Hannah’s death ‘was but a matter of time’. 

Counsel assisting the coroner, Jacoba Brasch QC, yesterday told the inquest that Hannah Clarke was 'the walking dead' because of Baxter's 'murderous intent'. Pictured: Hannah Clarke (left) argues with then-husband Rowan Baxter (in driver's seat) after they were pulled over for driving an unregistered vehicle in 2019

Counsel assisting the coroner, Jacoba Brasch QC, yesterday told the inquest that Hannah Clarke was ‘the walking dead’ because of Baxter’s ‘murderous intent’. Pictured: Hannah Clarke (left) argues with then-husband Rowan Baxter (in driver’s seat) after they were pulled over for driving an unregistered vehicle in 2019

Mr Clarke told 4BC one of the lessons from his daughter’s horrific death was that police officers and other domestic violence workers had ‘insufficient training’, particularly to recognise the coercive control Baxter exerted over Hannah in the lead-up to the murders. 

‘As a society we need to educate ourselves, look at the signs of coercive control,’ he said.

‘We need to put pressure on governments for more funding. we’ve found out in the past two weeks there’s insfficuient training and resources for them… we need specialised training and yearly training, too.

‘We need more professional people who know about domestic violence so junior officers and officers can check in with them when they see a red flag.’

Mr Clarke said more temporary housing was need for woman at risk of domestic violence.

During the course of the inquest examples of Baxter’s controlling behaviour were detailed, including blaming Ms Clarke when they were pulled over by the police for driving an unregistered vehicle.

In a call to a men’s helpline the day before he murdered his family, Baxter claimed Ms Clarke was the one ‘with the problem’ and that he was only seeking help for his behaviour because he had been ‘roped into it’.

‘At 42 I didn’t think I had to change, mate, but apparently I have to, because it’s going to help me out apparently,’ Baxter told the support worker. 

‘It’s almost like a game to put her in a better position for Family Court. And unfortunately, um, I’ve been roped into it, and now this DVO, temporary one’s hanging over my head…’ he complained.

Rowan Baxter is seen during a police interview when he was informed a police protection order had been taken out against him

Rowan Baxter is seen during a police interview when he was informed a police protection order had been taken out against him

The inquest also heard from the psychologist who wrote a ‘glowing’ reference for Baxter after treating him over six sessions.  

Vivian Jarrett agreed Baxter was a high risk of harming others at the inquest but had nevertheless written him a favourable reference in the weeks before the murders.  

Dr Jarrett said she’d been aware Baxter might be trying to ‘pull the wool’ over her eyes during their six sessions from December 2019, to create good evidence for the family court in a bid to regain access to his children.

But she did not detail those concerns in her notes.

Instead, she wrote the reference and provided police a statement a day after the family’s deaths saying Baxter was ‘level headed’ and ‘low risk’.

Chilling vision of Baxter buying a fuel jerry can, zip ties and a surface cleaner from a Brisbane Bunnings store two days before his attack on Ms Clarke and the children was also played at the inquest

Chilling vision of Baxter buying a fuel jerry can, zip ties and a surface cleaner from a Brisbane Bunnings store two days before his attack on Ms Clarke and the children was also played at the inquest

Chilling vision of Baxter buying a fuel jerry can, zip ties and a surface cleaner from a Brisbane Bunnings store two days before his attack on Ms Clarke and the children was also played at the inquest.

The following morning he bought fuel from a Caltex service station, as well as lollies and three Kinder Surprises.

That night he had a video call with his children where he sobbed the entire time.

The inquest heard Baxter may have been planning to murder Ms Clarke before absconding with his children, but the plan went awry when she stopped the car with the children inside to ask neighbours for help after Baxter had jumped in the vehicle and ordered her to ‘just drive’.  

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