Alive against all odds, domestic violence survivor Simone O’Brien shares her harrowing story during a fundraiser to support Albury’s new Betty’s Place women’s refuge, which will open in early 2026. Photo: Tilly Rose Creative.
CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses domestic violence involving physical and emotional abuse and contains disturbing images.
There were no screaming alarm bells.
The red flags were just tiny wisps of warning … at first.
Doting mum of three Simone O’Brien had been separated from her children’s father for several years when she decided to give online dating a go.
At the age of 37, she thought, “Why not? I’m still young enough to have a partner in my life”.
What began with flowers and dinner dates would end with Simone beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat in her bedroom with two young daughters at home.
It would end with a neighbour holding her shattered skull in their hands waiting for the ambulance while two more fought off her attacker.
It would end with an arm snapped in two places, one eye blinded and one side of her head held together with screws and titanium plates.
It would end with physical and psychological scars Simone and her children will wear for the rest of their lives.
Ripple effects of an unimaginable trauma.
On Friday (November 28), Simone will join Border residents to mark the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign (25 November to 10 December). She will be the keynote speaker at a walk and community vigil on at Albury’s QEII Square from 11 am.
Earlier this year, she shared her harrowing story with 220 women and men at a fundraiser to support longstanding Albury women’s refuge, Betty’s Place.
The event, now in its sixth year and hosted by Traverse Alpine Group owner Rosy Seaton, raised a record $140,000 towards the city’s new crisis accommodation centre for women and children experiencing domestic and family violence.
The redeveloped Betty’s Place, which is close to completion and will open in early 2026, will include seven self-contained units with a range of on-site staff and supports designed to provide safety and independence.
It’s a cause that cuts close to the bone for Simone, who could never have imagined she would end up clinging to life after clicking with a man who looked like the perfect match.
“I thought he was safe because I knew he would have had a police check to get his real estate licence,” she says.
On their first date, Simone recalls he picked her up from her Brisbane home, greeted her with a bunch of flowers and paid for dinner.
“Even saying that to you now I still get shivers – because I hadn’t had flowers bought for me for years, I was a bit chuffed,” she says.
Their relationship would last nine months.
Described as “a gentle giant”, Simone recalls a man who opened car doors for her and her children, and never swore in front of them.
But tiny red flags began to flutter and then to flap more furiously.
It started with money stolen from her wallet, which Simone initially blamed on her youngest son.
Contacts were deleted from her phone – repeatedly.
There were lots of other, “little”, things that started going wrong, like breaking the SIM card in her phone. Things that “just didn’t feel right in my stomach”.
Surprisingly perhaps, the “real clincher” came when he began sending flowers to Simone at work.
“It wasn’t just one bunch every couple of weeks, it was every day,” she says.
“I worked in a government building where he wasn’t allowed to come in. Of course, my work colleagues were going, ‘Oh Simone, he’s a keeper, he’s a keeper’ … but it just didn’t sit well with me at all.”
The day before 25 September 2012, Simone rang a friend and asked her how she should extricate herself from the relationship.
On the way to work the next day she agonised over how to break it off. She admits she did the “gutless” thing and sent a text but adds the relief she felt was instant and enormous.
At lunchtime, Simone checked her phone to find hundreds of messages, and when she caught the train later that evening, there were hundreds more.
She arrived home and broke the news of the break-up to her daughters (one of them fist pumped the air) while her youngest son Zach was at basketball training.
At 6:06 pm there was a knock at the door. She could see the man she now describes as “the perpetrator” behind the glass.
Simone, raised to be unfailingly polite, answered the door and he asked if they could talk things through.
“I said, ‘Sure’, and didn’t think anything of it,” she recalls. “He asked if we could go into my bedroom; we walked in and I didn’t come out the same again.”
Chillingly, and unbeknown to her, Simone’s attacker had already stashed a baseball bat under her bed.
Between 6:06 and 6:16 pm, Simone would suffer 45 to 50 blows to the right side of her face with that bat.
It took a 16-hour operation to put her skull back together, one of dozens of surgeries she has endured over the years to repair the catastrophic damage of that night.
“From now on, for the rest of my life, I am a prisoner in my own body,” she says.
Incredibly, instead of bitterness, this horror attack has fostered in Simone a gritty determination to “never give up, to stay positive and to keep smiling”.
And with that has come a personal quest to use her “lived experience” to protect women and children from the horror she and her family faced.
So that no children have to be taken from a police station at 2 am to say goodbye to their badly beaten mother.
To safeguard victims like the women and children who turn to Betty’s Place for sanctuary.
“I want to give them hope of a life they know they can change outside of what they’ve been through,” Simone says.
“To know that they are not alone.”
Glenn Matthew Cable was sentenced to 15 years behind bars for the attempted murder of Simone.
Other stories about her perpetrator would surface during and after the trial, of former wives and a girlfriend also assaulted.
One with a baseball bat, one with a knife, another with a wine bottle.
“I shouldn’t be standing here today looking like this …” says Simone, who now lives in Victoria and has joined calls for the widespread introduction of Clare’s Law, allowing people to access vital information about a partner’s history of abusive behaviour, supporting safer decisions and early intervention.
That early intervention needs to spread to include education in schools, according to Simone.
“To make it safer for us now and for the next generation,” she says.
Driving change
It’s to this end that Rosy Seaton wants to accelerate a further major fundraising initiative she has on the go for Betty’s Place to ensure it continues to be a safe haven for those who need it and to help cover any shortfall in fitting out Albury’s new crisis refuge.
She’s calling for the community’s help to drive that change by buying a ticket in a car raffle that will raise a further $170,000 to support more women and children escaping domestic violence locally.
Up for grabs is a new Volkswagen T-Cross Life 7 Speed DSG with tickets going for $100. More than half of the 2000 tickets have sold but help is needed to cross that finish line. Money raised will go to fitting out the new facility with essentials such as furnishings, white goods, crockery, cutlery and bed linens.
Simone says she is one of the “lucky ones”.
She survived.
On average, one woman is killed each week in Australia by a current or former partner.
Before 2012, Simone says she was oblivious to the red flags and risks linked to domestic and family violence.
Now she begs women not to sweep those little signs under the carpet.
As an advocate, she wants to give strength and hope to victims, to arm them with the information they need to protect themselves, get help and get out of violent relationships.
“Let’s look out for each other – it’s up to all of us,” she says.
Buy tickets for the Betty’s Place car raffle here or purchase through Albury Newsagency, Wodonga Prestige Volkswagen, or contact Terri Hollis on 0418 653 229 or email fundraising@traversealpinegroup.com.au
If you or someone you know is impacted by family and domestic violence, support is available:
- Lifeline 13 11 14; Men’s Referral Service 1300 776 491; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800; beyondblue 1300 224 636; 1800-RESPECT 1800 737 732.
Original Article published by Jodie O’Sullivan on Region Riverina.
