A husband has admitted to ‘violence’ against his own wife in a bid to prevent other men from becoming monsters.
Actor and singer Toby Francis revealed he would frequently break household items during domestic arguments with his wife Lauren in a confronting open letter posted to Facebook on Thursday.
The open letter was written in response to the murder of Hannah Clarke and her three children, aged three to six, after they were burned to death in a horrific murder-suicide perpetrated by her monster ex-husband Rowan Baxter in Brisbane on Wednesday.
In the letter, Mr Francis recalls speaking to a friend who warned him that punching walls, smashing plates and breaking brooms would escalate into physical violence against his own wife and children.
‘He told me, in no uncertain terms, that what I was doing was violence that would one day turn into me pushing Lauren, which would one day turn into me punching Lauren, which would one day turn into me hitting our kids,’ Mr Francis wrote.
‘And it might stop there but maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe one day it would turn into the kind of thing we have seen happen just recently where a man set a car alight with his children and their mother inside.’
Actor and singer Toby Francis (right) revealed he would frequently break household items during domestic arguments with his wife Lauren (left) in a confronting open letter posted to Facebook on Thursday
The beginning of Toby Francis’ open letter posted to Facebook on Thursday
Mr Francis said he was initially resistant to his friend’s accusation because he thought that he was a ‘good man’.
‘I would never – and have never – hit or physically hurt my partner. I was not the kind of man that would commit domestic violence, let alone murder someone,’ he wrote.
‘Let alone a woman, let alone my partner. I was just the kind of person who needed to break a rake now and then when Lauren and I couldn’t resolve a fight. That was all it was. Just a plate or two. Or a hole in the wall.’
The actor said he then began researching domestic violence and was ‘gobsmacked’ to find that domestic violence often escalates and ends with murder.
‘Objects are placeholders for the people we aren’t allowed to hit. And one day, those placeholders don’t do the job anymore and a push makes its way into the argument,’ Mr Francis wrote.
‘Just a push. It’s not a big deal, you rationalise, and you’re sorry. And it won’t happen again, you say. And you don’t want it to happen again, you know.
‘Because, of course you don’t. You are a good man. A good man who doesn’t hit his partner, doesn’t beat his kids, wouldn’t cover the car in petrol and set them alight.’
In the letter, Mr Francis recalls speaking to a friend who warned him that punching walls, smashing plates and breaking brooms would escalate into physical violence against his own wife and children
Mr Francis said men make ‘excuses’ for escalating violent behaviour.
‘Every time it happens again you make an excuse that if she hadn’t done what she had done or said what she had said, you wouldn’t have done what you did,’ he wrote.
‘Because you’re a good man. You know you are. I mean, come on, let’s not make a big deal out of it, you just broke a plate.
‘You just punched a wall. You only pushed her back, hit her once, burned her and your children alive in a car.’
He then said ‘we must end the myth of the good man’.
‘It isn’t only bad men who are susceptible to perpetrating domestic violence. Good men are only a couple of hundred incremental changes away from being bad men,’ he wrote.
‘Which is why good men don’t think they can become bad men and bad men don’t think they’ve changed.’
The open letter was written in response to the murder of Hannah Clarke and her three children, aged three to six, after they were burned to death in a horrific murder-suicide perpetrated by her monster ex-husband Rowan Baxter in Brisbane on Wednesday
Mr Francis said he got professional help to stop his violent behaviour and was diagnosed with ADHD in his late 20s, which helped him understand his reactions.
The actor and singer said he was ‘ashamed’ of his behaviour and questioned whether he should write about it online, but did so to help warn other men.
‘If any man is reading this and feels ashamed that they do the same thing then I hope you know I felt ashamed too. I still feel ashamed about it,’ he wrote.
‘I questioned writing this because I wondered if people I knew would be ashamed of me or if their opinion would change. Even though I never hit or hurt anyone. They were just plates.
‘I feel ashamed because admitting that what I did was what all abusive husbands once did would mean admitting that maybe one day I could hit a woman, hurt our kids, end up as ‘not a good man’.
‘If you are ashamed, so was I. But that shame is healthy.’
The end of the open letter that he posted to Facebook on Thursday