
How many times did the system fail Kelly Thompson?
Kelly Thompson was half-running, half-stumbling down the road. She was visibly distressed.
Her neighbour Stephen Hall drove past in his car and then turned the car around to check on her.
He asked whether she was OK. Kelly replied: “My partner tried to strangle me.”
Kelly Thompson’s partner, Wayne Wood, drove up in his car, wedging Kelly between the two cars. Wood told Stephen Hall to, “get the fuck out of here”. Kelly called out to Stephen Hall’s wife, who was in the car, begging her to call the police.
The Halls called the police. Kelly Thompson fled and Wayne Wood chased her in his car.
The Halls watched that night as the police turned up at Kelly Thompson’s home.
They also watched the police leave.
It wasn’t the first time that police had been called to Kelly Thompson’s house. And it wasn’t the first time that they had walked away.
Kelly Thompson was murdered by Wayne Wood in February 2014. Wood then took his own life.
An inquest into Kelly’s death this week has heard that she had taken an intervention (restraining) order out against Wood.
He repeatedly breached that order by spying on her and following her to social events.
Wood was brought before a magistrate and the magistrate told him that if he breached the order again, he would be arrested. But as Kelly’s mother said, “when he continued to stalk Kelly, he didn’t even get a slap on the wrist.”