Justice Natalie Adams says she is troubled by expert evidence about rape allegations in slain woman’s police statement
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Molly Ticehurst’s ex-boyfriend will not face a life sentence for her domestic violence murder, a crime which galvanised a national movement against gendered abuse.
Ticehurst, a 28-year-old childcare educator, was found dead in her home at Forbes, in the New South Wales central-west, in the early hours of 22 April 2024.
Her former boyfriend Daniel Billings broke into her bedroom and stabbed her 15 times in a ferocious attack that lasted less than a minute.
Billings had been charged with several counts of raping Ticehurst and a string of domestic violence offences just over two weeks before the killing, but he was freed on bail by a local court registrar the next day.
During a mention in the NSW supreme court on Monday, Justice Natalie Adams told the legal parties she did not expect them to seek a life sentence.
Adams said there would likely be mitigating factors to consider when sentencing Billings, as there were in almost all cases.
“It’s difficult to identify what’s [legally] unique about this case,” she said.
But the judge said she was troubled with how to deal with expert evidence about Ticehurst’s police statement that she was repeatedly raped by Billings.
The sexual assault charges were dropped when Billings pleaded guilty to murder in November 2025 after 18 months of legal negotiations.
Billings always denied raping Ticehurst and developed a dark obsession with clearing his name in the lead-up to the murder.
“If I’m going to do the time, I may as well do the crime,” he said in a conversation with a friend soon before the murder, according to a statement of agreed facts before the court.
Adams said she could not ignore the rape allegations, despite the charges being dropped, when it came to sentencing Billings for murder.
