Tiffany Marie Spence was killed by her partner in 2022. Photo: Supplied by family.
CONTENT WARNING: This article contains distressing content and refers to family violence.
A mother was left with injuries to nearly half of her body when she was murdered by her partner, who appeared to plant a hammer in her hand in an attempt to stage the scene after her death.
Adam James Britt was arrested five months after he killed 36-year-old Tiffany Marie Spence and few details of what happened were made public while the case made its way through the courts.
This changed after the 40-year-old pleaded guilty to murder and the ACT Supreme Court released documents about the case, although many details are still too distressing to publish.
The couple were in a relationship for about 12 months before Britt called Triple Zero around 5 am on 9 September 2022 and claimed Ms Spence had collapsed at their apartment in Reid.
“My partner, she’s not breathing. She took off for a few days, she come back and she’s all beaten up,” he told the operator.
He repeatedly claimed she had been hitting herself with a hammer.
“She’s still got the hammer in her hand,” he said.
Paramedics arrived to find blood spread throughout the apartment and Ms Spence in their bedroom.
She wasn’t breathing, had cuts and bruises all over her body and appeared to have defensive injuries as well as injuries caused by a hammer.
“The injuries inflicted upon her were of a type that the first responders who attended the scene, the paramedics, had never seen before,” the documents say.
She did have a hammer in her left hand, which paramedics immediately suspected had been strategically placed, partly as she wasn’t left-handed, but Britt is.
Paramedics also saw he had heavily swollen fists. He was initially arrested before he was released.
An autopsy found Ms Spence’s cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries. Bruises or other injuries covered 40 per cent of her body, which on their own would likely have killed her, while she also had rib and spinal fractures, extensive injuries to her neck and a collapsed lung.
The forensic pathologist said there was no way her death was due to self-inflicted injuries and it was likely she had been dead for a few hours before paramedics arrived.
The apartment complex in Reid where Tiffany Spence lived with Adam Britt (left) and the communal stairwell leading to their apartment. Photos: Tendered to the court.
During the investigation, police learned that Ms Spence’s family is from mid-north NSW and that she had no connections to Canberra when she moved in with Britt.
She went to NSW to visit family in November 2021, and he became jealous and possessive when she returned.
She was interviewed at Canberra Hospital when she went there with bruises to her face and arms that month, saying he had assaulted her over 48 hours and told her she was not allowed to see her family again.
In January 2022, she went to a police station with bruises on her arms, and she said she had again planned to visit family, but when she told Britt, he punched and choked her.
About a week before her murder, she told Red Cross workers in Canberra that she did not feel safe at home, and they helped her find other accommodation.
She made plans to travel to see family and applied for an Escaping Violence Payment from Wesley Mission.
Meanwhile, Britt repeatedly tried to contact her over several days before they spoke over email, and he begged her to return home. She agreed, although she told him she was soon going to visit her family.
“But can you promise you ain’t gonna start shit when I come back?” she asked him.
She returned on 6 September. During the next couple of days, he took photos of her which showed an increasing number of injuries to her body and over the night of 8-9 September, neighbours heard thumps and screams from their apartment.
After she died, police hid recording devices around the apartment, and Britt was heard telling someone how she “probably got what was f-ing coming to her”.
“She probably f-ing deserved it,” he said.
He was refused bail after his arrest in February 2023 and has remained in custody since. Sentencing has been scheduled to begin on 15 June.
If this story has raised any concerns for you, 1800RESPECT, the national 24-hour sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling line, can be contacted on 1800 737 732. Help and support are also available through the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre on 02 6247 2525, the Domestic Violence Crisis Service ACT on 02 6280 0900, the Sexual Violence Legal Services on 6257 4377 and Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency, call triple zero.
If you have been affected by sexual violence, or someone you know has, you can report it to police by attending a police station or phoning 131 444.
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