Jack Edwards was so afraid of his father the 15-year-old kept a cricket bat in his bedroom, and his 13-year-old sister Jennifer was scared to turn her back to her father in case he hit her, an inquest into the children's death heard on Tuesday.
Edwards also menaced his children during a family holiday in Paris, slapping Jennifer and chasing Jack down a Parisian alleyway, hitting him so violently passersby were compelled to intervene.
Jennifer, Olga and Jack Edwards.
On July 5 2018, John Edwards, 67, gunned down his two children after stalking them at the rental home they had fled to with their mother, Olga, after years of violent control.
Edwards, who had a 30-year history of domestic violence well-documented by police, then returned to his own home and killed himself. Months later, 37-year-old Olga took her own life.
David Brown, the principal of the law firm where Olga worked as a solicitor, told the inquest his colleague was "a very very bright woman".
"She could absorb information. She handled quite significant cases and she was impressive," Mr Brown said.
Mr Brown, who was a mentor to Olga, supported her as her marriage deteriorated and she worried increasingly that her husband was turning his bullying behaviour towards their children.
“He was something of a bully," Mr Brown told the inquest.
“He was a man who burst into tempers and I think he drank a lot.
"He was running a sort of brokerage out of a basement of their home. There were a number of young women there and I think Olga was more than a little concerned about that."
Asked by counsel assisting Christopher Mitchell what kind of bullying Olga disclosed to him, Mr Brown said: "I mean, how long have I got?"
Police outside the West Pennant Hills home in 2018. Credit:Janie Barrett
"Olga was not the sort of person who would be overly complaining about things but things were getting pretty bad," Mr Brown said.
Things were "thrown and broken" and Olga was sleeping in a separate room with the children because she feared physical confrontation. Mr Brown said there was "serious physical abuse" against young Jack that was "almost daily".
On one occasion Edwards had a confrontation with his "tearaway" son, who seemed to increasingly resent his father, throwing him to the ground and kicking him. Another time Edwards threw a book at Jack, cutting his son's eye.
“There were so many instances ... where the father had altercations with his son because the son had shown no respect for his father, with good reason I should say,” Mr Brown said.
In March 2016, Olga summoned the courage to leave the husband and began Family Court proceedings. In her affidavit she laid out the violence Edwards had subjected their children to, but the court still made a limited contact order to allow Edwards to see his children.
In the affidavit Olga stated that Jack kept a cricket bat in his bedroom out of fear for his father and Jenny did not want to turn her back on the man.
Olga was the seventh partner he had stalked, harassed, or abused, with police having documented previous charges and AVOs against him.
Nonetheless, after their split, Edwards went about reapplying for the gun licence he had been refused in 2010 due to a prior AVO. Despite his history, he was able to get the gun licence in 2017.
After the split, Edwards continued his controlling behaviour. Olga believed he was stalking her. On one occasion, her estranged husband secreted himself in a "hot" yoga class Olga attended. She discovered he was there when the instructor turned the lights on and she realised he had been standing two metres behind her.
Mr Brown accompanied Olga to her former family home to pick up a large amount of her belongings, which Edwards was withholding from her. When they arrived at the house, Edwards had set out one box which had barely anything in it.
"Olga opened it, there was something like a couple of handkerchiefs and a bra. I mean it was a joke," Mr Brown said.
"I said, 'Let's just get out of there,' and we did.
"This man was looking for conflict and in my position I was trying to avoid it but it was pretty hard."
The inquest continues.
Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service 1800 737 732 Lifeline 13 11 14.
Jacqueline Maley is a senior journalist, columnist and former Canberra press gallery sketch writer for The Sydney Morning Herald. In 2017 she won the Peter Ruehl Award for Outstanding Columnist at the Kennedy Awards
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2020-09-08 02:42:00Z
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