How Luke Batty tried desperately to save his mum in the years before he was murdered by his father.

Rosie Batty’s memoir reminds us that family violence can happen to anyone.

We read Luke Batty’s heartbreaking letter to his mum: It’s OK talk a little and LOL (laugh out loud). Just take a BREAK.”

We hear of Luke Batty’s desperate account of trying to save his mum.

“I tried to stop him.”

“I tried to pull him off Mum, but I was too little.”

And we digest Luke Batty’s loving words about the father who would kill him, the father he “loved him to bits”

Australian of the year Rosie Batty has revealed how her son Luke tried to protect her from his father, Greg, never knowing that in time he would be the victim of his father’s violence.

In her autobiography, out today, Rosie Batty writes of how at one point her former husband Greg told Luke that he was going to kill him, but that the young boy played down the threat.

In 2013 his dad showed him the knife and told him: “It could all end with this.”

“He said he was tired of this life and wanted to go to the next life. And he said he wanted me to go with him,” Luke told Ms Batty.

And yet they never realised his words would come true.

In February last year Luke was beaten, stabbed and killed by his own father at cricket practice in front of shocked onlookers. His mother, Rosie was there.

In a detailed account of her book “A Mother’s Story” in today’s Herald Sun we learn that Rosie Batty wanted to take Luke to England to escape her ex-partner but believed she couldn’t after advice from Legal Aid.

She writes: “Only much much later did I learn that we may well have been able to return to the UK,”

“If only I’d known.”

In the book heartbreaking, but treasured notes from Luke to his mother are shared.

One saying “It’s OK talk a little and LOL (laugh out loud). Just take a BREAK.”

Another: “Mum I love you and I think that little boy will always love you no matter what PS. I’m happy little boy again.”

In A Mother’s Story Rosie re-counts how Luke told child protection workers that at the age of three he watched his dad slam his mum’s head on the wall.

“There are two sides to Dad, he can be nice and then angry,” he told the workers.

But he said “Dad is good. He always has a smile on his face”.

He told them he had tried to save his mum “I tried to stop him. I tried to pull him off Mum, but I was too little.”

The Herald Sun accounts that even when child protection workers asked Luke  about the time his father  had showed him a knife, Luke played it down.

From The Herald Sun:

“But when child protection workers pressed them on the details, Luke left out the threat to his own life.

Ms Batty tried to interject with the full story, but Luke got upset and denied it.

The workers took Luke at his word, deeming that he was not in danger.

The book details Ms Batty’s long battles with the police, courts and authorities, charting her growing frustration, as they were repeatedly let down.

The book paints a picture of a mum who trusted authorities to protect them, a mum conflicted by Luke’s desire to see his Dad.

Anderson’s threats to kill her if she stopped access always played on her mind.”

After Luke’s death Rosie Batty made it her mission to lift the burden from victims and make family violence every Australian’s business.

“If Luke hadn’t died in such an extreme way, I’d just be one of those ‘family violence’ people no one listens to” she said.

On Luke’s 13th birthday she launched the Never Alone Foundation to end family violence.

According to the ABC at the time she said “[Today] we begin a movement of ordinary Australians to stand beside the victims of family violence and make it impossible for our issue to be ignored any longer.”

“It’s a journey of discovery, to understand the drivers and solutions to the family violence epidemic.

“But it’s also a journey with a mission. One that will hold our leaders to account.”

In her book we learn of Luke’s struggles with his feelings of responsibility towards his father – how when Rosie Batty told him that Greg was facing child pornography charges Luke took the burden on himself.

“He slumped at the kitchen table and told me he ‘hated’ his life and didn’t see the point of being alive,”

He told his mum: “I might as well commit suicide.”

The Herald Sun writes that a few days later during art therapy classes he told his therapist that his father was only alive for him.

“I think I am the only thing he is living for,” he told the art therapist.

In her book, written with author Byrce Corbett in the third person Batty has used the memoir as an opportunity to share her story.

“I needed it to be written by a third person … because I don’t see myself as exceptional, so how could I write about my qualities?” she said.

But the story is not just about the bad times she also details the good times that Luke Batty shared with his father, how he would take him to libraries to read, shoot hoops at the basketball court and how he taught his to ride a bike.

The day after Luke was killed Rosie Batty’s first public words defined the way she would go on to change the way family violence was talked about in Australia.

When she first fronted the cameras and talked about family violence – just hours after her son’s death -we sat up and listened. We watched our screens shocked at what had occurred, fearful of what we would learn and saw a woman who had just lost her son but was about to change the lives of thousands.

Her voice raw, her eyes glazed, her hair, she admits now a mess she said:

“I want to tell everybody family violence happens to everybody”

“No matter how nice your house is, how intelligent you are. It can happen to anyone, and everyone.”

It how we met Rosie Batty – how Australia grew to love her through tragedy. Her voice is now the leading voice in Australia on family violence and has paved the way for other families to speak up, for the start of a dialogue about family violence – and even for a royal commission in Victoria.

Her book is now another step in this important battle.

The proceeds from A Mother’s Story will go to the Luke Batty Foundation.

 

If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live: they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.