Until this week, Tony and Kate Ticehurst thought this stage of their nightmare was about to be over. Daniel Billings, the man who murdered their daughter Molly in a 2024 domestic violence attack which shocked the nation, was days away from being sentenced, ending two years of legal process and incalculable degrees of emotional torture.
But a phone call several days ago changed everything. Billings would not face the NSW Supreme Court on June 1 as planned, the grieving parents were told. Instead, sentencing would be pushed back until at least September. Then came the biggest blow: for the first time, Billings had invoked mental health as part of his defence, raising the prospect that he could end up being sentenced for manslaughter instead of the more serious charge of murder.
For a family that has already expressed concerns that the system let Ticehurst down in life and in death, the latest development is devastating. “It’s a travesty for all victims of crime,” the family’s local state MP, Phil Donato, told the Herald.
Court documents show the defence team is preparing to rely on a report in which a psychiatrist found Billings was suffering from depression at the time of the attack, “which gives rise to an abnormal state of mind at the time of the offence”. The psychiatrist’s report said the state of Billings’ mental health “is likely to have affected his perception of the events and also his capacity to exercise proper control over his actions”.
Under the NSW Crimes Act, any person who would otherwise be guilty of murder is not to be convicted if their capacity to understand events – or judge whether their actions were right or wrong – was substantially affected by a mental health impairment. Any proven substantial impairment opens the door to a manslaughter charge, which carries a maximum 25-year imprisonment instead of life for murder.
Donato, a former police prosecutor who has been supporting the family since Molly’s murder, spoke to the Ticehurst family about the development on Friday. “They are really upset about this,” he said.
“Not only have they lost their daughter in the most gruesome of ways, but to be told just two weeks before the sentencing date that there will be further delays is really disheartening.”
Billings broke into his former partner’s Forbes home just before midnight on April 21, 2024 and stabbed her to death in an attack that lasted just one minute. The murder spurred a national debate over domestic violence and whether state and federal governments were doing enough to protect women.
The childcare worker and mother had made a formal complaint to police about Billings’ violent and controlling behaviour in the weeks before her death. Officers brought Billings before a court on April 6, 2024, only for him to be granted bail.
Billings purchased a hunting knife from a store in Parkes the day before the stabbing frenzy, confessed to friends that he had murdered Ticehurst, and also recorded a series of videos on his phone in which he discussed the attack.
He pleaded guilty in November last year. Due to the latest delay caused by debate about Billings’ mental health, nearly a year will have passed between his formal plea and likely sentencing date.
“He’s had sufficient time to make any application like this if it was warranted before a guilty plea was entered,” Donato said. “And now we are seeing a further delay, a further denial of justice for the victims who want to move on with their lives and get justice for Molly.
“It just puts that cloud of uncertainty over the family, and how this matter is going to be dealt with.”
Court documents show the Crown was not told about any potential mental health impairment application until May 15 this year.
The June sentencing date was vacated to give the Crown time to seek its own psychiatric report on Billings.
Billings’ legal team was contacted for comment.
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Bevan Shields is a senior writer, and former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
