Domestic violence: “I’ll never get over my daughter’s death, my aim now is to save one woman’s life”

Even after reading the findings of a NSW coroner’s report, which made the tragic end of her daughter’s life sickeningly official for Wendy Malonyay, it’s still so hard for the Central Coast mum to believe the vivacious, trusting and caring soul she created could be taken out of this world in such a brutal, heinous way.
Bashed and strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend, naval officer, Elliott Coulson, Kate’s naked and lifeless body was only discovered by police five days after she’d been killed when her murderer used her mobile phone to send fake text messages to her mother, friends and workmates reassuring them she was still alive.
In a final act of cowardice, Coulson would later take his own life, leaping from a high-rise balcony on the Gold Coast, as detectives investigating the homicide tracked him to the Marriott hotel room he’d booked using his victim’s credit card.
In Kate’s case, the abuse was largely verbal, with Coulson bombarding her with threatening text messages, hacking her emails, and launching into explosive fits of rage when his habitual and elaborate web of lies were challenged and exposed.
Mrs Malonyay would only learn about the explicit and horrific nature of the messages Coulson used to terrorise Kate during the inquest into the 32-year-old’s death — requesting they not be reported again out of respect.
“You just can’t treat another human being like that,” she told NewsCorp Australia.
“Kate was tormented by this abuse, just his controlling nature and the lying. He just wanted her all to himself. It’s just very sad.”
Coulson had also allegedly attacked and threatened to kill a previous girlfriend, Anne Thoroughgood, who gave evidence she was beaten unconscious two years before he would meet then murder Kate.
Despite ending their tumultuous 13-month relationship in January 2013, Kate continued to be so frightened by her former partner’s erratic and aggressive behaviour, she sought advice from a police officer cousin, who urged her to take out an AVO (apprehended violence order).
Coulson was treated to an honourable funeral service by his Royal Navy Australia peers, a decision which caused even greater distress to Kate’s family and friends.
A Defense spokesperson said while the force did not tolerate domestic violence, “in supporting the (Coulson) family, others may have misinterpreted our actions.
“Defence regrets any distress this may have caused to others. Coronial findings in relation to the death of Kate Malonyay were not made until August of 2013, four months after the incident and, as such, could not be considered at the time of the funeral.”
In the classic, but cruel recriminations which can follow these tragedies, Mrs Malonyay said “people were saying, ‘why didn’t she see it coming?’ or ‘why didn’t she just leave him?’ Well, she did leave him. Then they’d say, ‘well, why didn’t you see it?” - a lingering question, she says, she has wrestled with during hours of trauma counselling.
Educating herself about domestic violence since losing her daughter, she is now a campaigner for White Ribbon and the Homicide Victims Support Group, taking “any opportunity I have to tell people what a beautiful person (Kate) was ... she was just a beautiful, beautiful girl.”
“I’ll never get over it. Never, ever. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of my daughter, but I have turned it around. My aim now is to save another woman’s life and to try to tell them how subtle these signs are ... and that’s actually helping me.”