Paul Thijssen stalked his ex-girlfriend Lilie James and meticulously rehearsed how he would attack the 21-year-old water polo coach in a school bathroom before murdering her, a coronial inquest into their deaths has heard.
James’s body was found with serious head injuries in a gymnasium bathroom at St Andrew’s Cathedral school, where she worked, in October 2023.
Police immediately began a search for 23-year-old Thijssen, who had been in a brief relationship with James that had ended days before her death. His body was found in the ocean below cliffs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs days later.
The inquest into both deaths began on Tuesday, with counsel assisting the New South Wales coroner, Jennifer Single SC, saying the murder of James was “calculated”.
“The preparation was calculated. It was not a momentary loss of control. It was a premeditated killing,” Single said.
There was evidence Thijssen had stalked James and rehearsed her murder, including by performing several “dry runs”, the counsel assisting said.
“In the days after [she broke up with him] … the evidence indicates that Paul stalked Lilie, Paul carefully planned his attack, and that in the hours before the attack, he rehearsed the attack, making a number of dry runs,” Single said.
The court was shown “chilling and disturbing” CCTV footage of Thijssen practising – multiple times – aggressively entering different bathrooms before selecting where he would stage his attack.
He was shown lunging into two different bathrooms, exiting and trying again – before deciding to attack James in a disabled bathroom at the school.
He placed a “cleaning in progress” sign in front of one of the bathrooms so James was “forced” into Thijssen’s preferred toilet, the court was told.
Single said police believe Thijssen had earlier in the day travelled back to his home and picked up a hammer from a roommate’s toolbox and used it to kill James. He had purchased a seperate hammer from Mitre 10 days earlier, but did not end up using it in his attack.
After murdering James, Thijssen took her phone and drove to Vaucluse. Police were unable to locate that phone or Thijssen’s “usual phone” – instead only finding a backpack with an older phone alongside clothes and other items, the court heard.
“Paul disposed of his usual phone, and Lilie’s phone, possibly taking them with him over the cliff at Diamond Bay,” Single said.
Single outlined escalating tensions in the relationship between Thijssen and James, with the court shown CCTV footage of an argument between the pair in the days before the water polo coach was murdered.
During the argument, which lasted for about five minutes inside one of the school’s buildings, Thijssen shoved and cornered James as he spoke aggressively.
Single said Thijssen appeared “stressed” the next night when James was at a party also attended by one of her former partners. Thijssen had been checking the location of James via Snapchat and appeared “annoyed and sour” on the drive home that night, Single told the court.
The court heard James had allegedly told her former partner at that party that “she didn’t feel safe with [Thijssen] and a bit weirded out by him”.
Thijssen had made a former partner feel “suffocated and controlled”, Single said. When the former girlfriend attempted to break things off with Thijssen, he had stalked and intimidated her, hacked into her Snapchat account and punched a tree above her head.
“When she asked him why he had done that, he said, ‘because I can’t punch the one thing I want to’,” Single said on Tuesday.
A handmade gift that the former partner had given Thijssen was found in his backpack at Vaucluse. Police believed he was looking at it before he died.
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Single outlined Thijssen’s extensive stalking of James in the lead-up to the murder. Data from GoGet, a car-sharing service, showed he drove to James’s house seven times in the three days before she was killed.
Single showed the court images found by investigators that revealed Thijssen had kept track of the cars parked on James’s street.
Thijssen’s Netherlands-based parents did not attend the inquest, but had liaised with lawyers assisting the coroner, stating they had gathered evidence that “showed how Paul’s life derailed over the last two years of his life”, Single said.
However, they did not want to put the information before the coroner.
Single told the court there could have been several stressors in Thijssen’s life in the lead-up to the deaths, including the state of his work visa.
She said that during his applications for various work visas, Thijssen had forged documents, including references, job descriptions and payslips.
Thijssen was raised in the Netherlands and had initially come to Australia with his parents between 2015 and 2017. He became sports captain and prefect at St Andrew’s.
He returned to Australia several times after that, each time on a working holiday visa, which can only be issued three times to an individual.
The visa comes with a series of requirements that holders work in specified fields, such as agriculture, tourism or mining.
Single said he was on his third and last working holiday visa and that to attain previous visas he had forged documents to show he had worked at St Andrew’s outdoor education centre, Kirrikee, in the southern highlands of NSW.
While Thijssen was employed there for a period as a sports assistant and casual sports coach, he had embellished his role to meet the visa requirements, stating in his applications he had worked as a “farmhand” at Kirrikee.
The investigation also found that Thijssen had lied to family and friends about the reason for returning to Australia. He had told his parents he was enrolled to study a masters of teaching at the University of Sydney.
But Single told the court there were no records of this study at the University of Sydney or any other university in Sydney. She said the money his parents had put aside to pay for his studies had not been spent.
The inquest continues.
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In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
