In a better world, the hundred or so people who eventually met at the Racecourse Hotel at Wallsend on Saturday afternoon would have spent their weekend differently. It was a tragedy that instead brought them together on March 16. And knowing that it could have been avoided made the circumstances all the more heartbreaking.
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Paul Ryan set off with his band of family and friends from Whitebridge Cemetery in the morning, five years after his sister-in-law Gabriella Thompson was murdered by her ex-partner, Tafari Walton, at Glendale in 2019.
Gabby has been remembered as an independent young mum, the youngest of three sisters, with a strong will and fierce sense of loyalty to her family and friends. As comforting as it was to see so many join the ride across the suburbs in her memory, there was sorrow as well.
Mr Ryan, who is married to Gabby's sister, Beck, was surrounded by friends and family at the Racecourse Hotel as the band gave up their time to play for free. Those who commemorated wore purple to remember.
Gabby's daughter, who is now eight, had dyed the ends of her mane of curls purple for her mum. March can be a difficult month for the family, Mr Ryan said, and in the last few weeks, she has been asking questions.
"It has to stop," Mr Ryan said of the violence that robbed his family, "Gabby was the 13th woman killed in 2019, and it was only March."
He mourns the tragedy that took Gabby away from his family and the inadequacies of a system that was meant to protect her and others who face similar instances of domestic violence. He thinks of how trapped Gabby felt in her situation and how, even though her family were only a few suburbs away, she felt she couldn't reach out.
In 2019, 36 women were killed by an intimate partner. Women accounted for eight in every 10 killings involving intimate partners that year, averaging a death every 10 days.
Australian women are nearly three times more likely than men to experience violence from an intimate partner, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and one in every three women has experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by men since the age of 15.
These are the horrifying statistics that Gabby's family and friends want to see end.
"The only way that I can think to end it is to talk to our kids, and our kids talk to their kids," Mr Ryan said.
A police inquest into the deaths of Gabby and her killer - who was fatally shot by police less than 24 hours after Gabby's death - found that Walton had threatened to kill Ms Thompson repeatedly. He controlled and manipulated her and, during the brief periods he spent out of jail, had routinely assaulted and drugged her.
Gabby was anxious and afraid of the father of her child being released from jail in the weeks before she died, the inquest heard. Walton, meanwhile, was described by a psychologist as being a "very damaged child" from a tragic upbringing who developed significant mental health issues and drug addiction in his teens and spent four years incarcerated between the age of 16 and his death.
Gabby and Walton began a relationship in 2014 when he was 17 and she was 22.
By that stage, Walton had already spent time in juvenile detention centres and was struggling with his mental health and methamphetamine addiction.
He was jailed for a hotel robbery at the age of 19, and a month after being released, he was jailed again for firearm offences and a siege. He was abusive toward Ms Thompson and threatened and assaulted her on several occasions, though the inquest heard many incidents went unreported.
In January 2019 - after Walton was accused with two others of stabbing another inmate in jail on the Mid-North Coast - he was ultimately granted bail in Kempsey Local Court, and though there were strict conditions on his release, the inquest found breaches of those conditions went unreported, and he was not returned to incarceration.
As his mental state declined and his drug use worsened, Walton bound the mother of his child with rope and stabbed her in her house on the morning of March 13. Gabby died about an hour later in hospital.
Mr Ryan and his family remember Gabby each year. They have taken her daughter under their wing, and they want to see an end to the cycle of violence against women. The weekend's ride was shared with the hashtag "Spread love for Gabby".
It was a wet start to the morning, but the weather was never going to stop the convoy. The cause was too important.
"DV is f-ked, and this is the reason why we are here," Mrs Ryan wrote in a social media post in the days before the ride, "But to keep a memory alive means so much to all of us."
- For domestic violence help: 1800 65 64 63; 1800-RESPECT; Lifeline 13 11 14
Editorial: We must make safety Gabby Thompson's legacy
Simon McCarthy
Simon McCarthy is a journalist working at the Newcastle Herald in NSW. He writes news and features, and produces video and multimedia, for the Herald and Herald Weekender magazine. He contributes regularly to the Newcastle Herald’s daily Topics column, and is the co-creator and producer of the Toohey’s News podcast. McCarthy has worked as a journalist in regional NSW since 2013. He joined the newsroom of the Newcastle Herald in 2017 from the Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth where he worked from 2015 to 2016.
Simon McCarthy is a journalist working at the Newcastle Herald in NSW. He writes news and features, and produces video and multimedia, for the Herald and Herald Weekender magazine. He contributes regularly to the Newcastle Herald’s daily Topics column, and is the co-creator and producer of the Toohey’s News podcast. McCarthy has worked as a journalist in regional NSW since 2013. He joined the newsroom of the Newcastle Herald in 2017 from the Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth where he worked from 2015 to 2016.
