Sunday, May 1, 2016
18 months into their relationship, Leesa Jacobs' boyfriend Michael
John Price, 45, poured petrol over her chest and used his lighter
to set her alight inside their Hobart home.
The 44-year-old suffered burns to 25 per cent of her body and doctors thought she would die. Her
body is covered in scars from the burns and from the multiple skin
graft operations she has had to repair the damage. There will be many
more operations ahead for the mother of four.
In
court last month, Price pleaded guilty to three counts of assault and
one count of causing grievous bodily harm. Justice David Porter
described the attack as "appalling" and said the only reason Price had
given for his crime was his excessive consumption of alcohol-which at
that time was up to a carton of full-strength beer a day.
But the Justice said said "excessive alcohol consumption is, of course, no excuse".
"You
have consigned Ms Jacobs to a lifetime of pain-physical and emotional,"
he said before sentencing Price to 10 years in prison and ordered that
he not be released for six years.
Ms
Jacobs has spoken out for the first time since the attack, telling the
Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) she hoped that what happened to her would inspire other women to
leave abusive relationships.
She said
the night of the attack in June 2015 was a normal night. The couple had
been out. Price had not been particularly talkative
during the evening, but Ms Jacobs said she had no inkling of what would
unfold when they got to their home in Austins Ferry.
"We went home and I went upstairs to my daughter, who had a friend
over, and I stayed up there for a few minutes, and then I went
downstairs to the garage. He'd gone straight into the garage and was
drinking," she said.
"I went in there
and we started ... I don't
even remember what we started arguing about ... then he said, 'I'm going
to burn you'. And he picked up the petrol tin and opened the lid
and poured it over me, and then pulled out his lighter and lit it, and I
remember being on fire and trying to pat myself out and screaming.
Michael was standing over from me ... just standing there watching me
burning and not saying anything. I
remember looking in the mirror and I could see that my hair had all
been burnt up and I had all skin and that hanging off me and all off my
arms. My clothes had melded into my chest and my legs and that
were still burning and I was still burning even though I had put myself
out. I remember sitting down on the floor and thinking, 'I just want to
die now'."
Doctors originally
thought Ms Jacobs might die and she was put into an induced coma for 12
days while they worked to stabilise her. She had to been given morphine
even to shower because of the pain of the water on her skin.
"I
can't describe how painful it was. It's painful when you get a little
burn or something on your arm, when you burn it on a stove or something
like that, but I had it all over me. I don't like to
look at myself in the mirror because of what I see. All I see is melted
skin .... my chest, arms, on my legs and then where they've taken the
skin. The only part they didn't take any skin is off the front of my
stomach. Other than that everywhere else is scarred. He wanted to burn
my face and change the way that I looked and how I felt, and he did
that."
Ms Jacobs said she had met Price through
work and she had fallen in love with his smile and happy-go-lucky
charm. But things had changed a few months later when they moved in
together. Price broke her arm, forcing her to have 11 weeks off work and
leaving her with little money, and punched and choked her.
"I
stayed because I loved him and I didn't think that he'd do it again,"
she said. "He
was just putting me down all the time. Nothing was ever good enough for
him and then I started to think that maybe it was something that I was
doing, and I tried to make everything better. In the end I realised that
there was nothing I could do to make it better — that's just who he is
and who he's always been."
She
had decided the relationship was over and was moving out and said that
Price knew that. She was staying to get the money to move out. Ms Jacobs
said she had only been back at work for two days from her broken arm
when Price set fire to her. She did not report the previous assaults.
"I
did go to the doctor but I always made up a different story about what
happened because I was embarrassed. I didn't want anyone to know," she
said.
Ms Jacobs warned other victims to get out, saying there were services to help victims no matter their financial state.
"Don't
stay — get out of there because they're not going to stop. They say
sorry but they're not going to stop," she said. "There's always
something better than staying with that person, always. I just wish that
I had thought like that."
Unable
to work and with Housing Tasmania unable to find her suitable
accommodation, Ms Jacobs struggles to pay for a private rental and
ongoing medical appointments from her Centrelink pension. She is angry
that Price is appealing against the length of his sentence.
"I've
got to live with this and my kids have to live with this for the rest
of our lives. He'll get out and he'll lead his life. He's changed my life and my kids' life, forever"
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