Call Me Cruel (15 page)

In retrospect, this was a turning point in Wilkinson's life, the first time we know of where he fabricated death threats, which were to become a major tool in his manipulation of the people around him and their families.

They kept coming. One day he showed Julie a piece of paper with a threatening message on it, composed of words cut out of a newspaper. It was something to do with Aboriginal deaths in police custody. Paul insisted their lives were in danger as a result of the work he'd done, and said Julie must stay at her parents' until the wedding. Julie accepted what he was saying and moved back to Illawong. This was to happen several more times over the coming year. Presumably, Wilkinson did this to get time away from Julie, although on this first occasion we do not know for what purpose.

Jenene was not as concerned about the approaching wedding as Kevin was. She felt caught between his concerns and Julie's enthusiasm, and would be positive when she was with her daughter. Julie now says she was actually having doubts herself just before the wedding, as she became increasingly aware of Paul's controlling nature. On her hen's night, he hung around the venue and learned that she'd danced with one of the actors in the show the women had gone to see; afterwards there was an explosion of jealousy. Julie says she pushed her concerns away, thinking maybe they were just normal pre-marriage nerves. In any case, she told herself, it was too late to stop: people were coming to the wedding from overseas and interstate. Plane tickets had been booked.

In February 2003, she and Paul were married at St Andrew's Anglican Church in Cronulla. There were 130 people there, including many of Paul's colleagues from Redfern. At this stage he was still liked by most of the people he worked with, who found him easy to get on with and apparently enthusiastic about his job. The reception was held at the Novotel at Brighton-le-Sands, and lots of Paul's extended family from Dubbo and Walgett were there. This was an eye-opener for Julie's family. They were vastly outnumbered by the Wilkinson clan, who obviously enjoyed a party. Some had made an effort but others were dressed in casual clothes, as though they'd just come off the street. One, from west of the mountains, tried to steal Julie's uncle's jacket. Another, who hadn't been asked, turned up anyway and tried to punch the bride for not inviting him.

In the months after the wedding, Paul became increasingly unsociable. By the second half of 2003, he and Julie hardly saw his old friends at all—most of hers had already been driven away—and their social life had become restricted to their own home and visits to their parents every few days. This didn't worry Julie so much, because by now she was pregnant and concentrating on becoming a mother. But she did notice the isolation increased Paul's desire to control her. For a while he was even fiercely jealous of her gynaecologist.

In September 2003 they moved to the rented house in Kelvin Parade, Picnic Point, in preparation for the birth. On 18 November Julie was due to be induced and Paul dropped her at the hospital at 10.00 a.m. and sped off, telling her he was going to get new tyres for the car. Julie started pushing at 1.30 p.m. and said to the female friend who was with her, ‘Could you please ring Paul and get him back in here?'

He just made it for the birth but left again an hour later. He returned briefly that evening, announcing that he had a headache and was going home to sleep. Later that night there was a crisis when Bradley stopped breathing. Julie rang Paul in a panic while the child was being resuscitated and he tore shreds off her for calling him so late. This was not like Paul, who was very much a night person, and she wondered what he was up to.

It turned out he'd celebrated his son's birth by cleaning out their joint bank account. He got paid the day Bradley was born, and when Julie left hospital and went online to their joint bank account to pay the rent, she saw that Paul had withdrawn all his wages at the Sutherland United Services Club on the night of the birth. They were all gone, gambled away. A friend lent her enough to tide them over for the next fortnight.

On leaving hospital, Julie went to her parents' for a few days so her mother could help with the child, and then wanted to move back to Picnic Point. But there was a problem. Paul said he'd received more death threats in the past few days, and for their own safety, Bradley and she should remain at her parents'. Julie agreed. Today she has no idea why he wanted to keep her away at this time, before his affair with Kylie began. Possibly he was just not looking forward to sharing the house with a newborn baby. One thing he didn't do was take refuge in work, as many men do: he was on sick leave for most of the time from November until the following February.

In December Wilkinson blacked out and went into Sutherland Hospital for a few days to have his sugar levels tested. It was hard for Julie to keep up with all his health issues by now, what with his stress and all the rest. Recently he'd told her he'd been diagnosed as having some sort of psychosis. She discussed this with her parents but they all found it hard to believe: they knew Paul was lazy and told a lot of stories, but they had no suspicion of any deeper problems. Kevin wondered if Paul had fooled the expert who'd made the diagnosis. There was no doubt his son-in-law was a good actor, and cunning too.

Julie moved back home just before Christmas, unaware that Paul had begun his affair with Kylie. She did not find out about it for many years. She was vulnerable to deception for several reasons: her acceptance of Paul's longstanding odd behaviour; her focus on her newborn child; and the amount of time she spent at her parents'.

Wilkinson picked vulnerable women and preyed on them. He made sure they were trusting by nature, because part of his technique involved portraying himself as a victim in order to gain their sympathy. Once he had their attention, he took their money—in Julie's case, also her father's—and grew bored. This still lay ahead for Kylie.

When the Redfern Riots occurred in February 2004, Paul told Julie that the police had had nothing to do with TJ Hickey's death. He'd visited Redfern and chatted with former colleagues and confirmed this, he said. The claim that Mick Hollingsworth had pursued TJ to his death was false, he told her—it was just the local Aboriginal people trying to cause trouble. But a few weeks later he changed his story: he said he'd been told Hollingsworth had killed TJ after all.

At the same time he told Julie this, the death threats started to arrive again. This time they were in what looked like female handwriting. At first Paul was hesitant about showing them to police, but on Julie's insistence he did. (Or at least, he said he did.) After receiving three threats in one week, he demanded she return to her parents'. She did for a while and then insisted on coming home again. Paul picked Bradley and her up, and when they reached home told her to wait in the car while he checked the place out. After a while he came out and said, ‘I don't want you going in there—someone has been in there.'

She insisted on going inside, where she found one of Bradley's teddy bears stuck to the wall with a knife through its throat. The knife was also pinning a sheet of paper with the words ‘Bye bye baby Bradley'. The portable cot had been turned upside down in the lounge room and a few other things were scattered around the house on the floor. There was also (as Wilkinson was to tell detectives a few months later) the word ‘Die' written in pen on the fridge. Paul insisted that Julie and Bradley go back and stay at her parents' yet again, which they did.

In retrospect, Julie now sees that Paul wanted her out of the way so he could conduct his affair with Kylie. But at the time, she believed his story that he was being persecuted for trying to do the right thing and reveal the truth about police involvement in TJ Hickey's death. Over the next few months he would visit Julie at her parents' most days in the afternoon and remain for about half an hour. He would not normally stay for dinner, saying he had to get home to keep an eye on the house ‘in case anything happened'.

Julie had little idea what else he was doing with his time. As we have seen, in February 2004 he left Marrickville Police Station and never returned to work. He told Julie he had punched a police officer but a few weeks later a senior officer called her to ask what had happened to Paul, who she said had just walked off the job one day for no apparent reason. He later told a former colleague he had cancer.

On 14 March, Kevin received his Visa card bill and it showed thousands of dollars that had been spent by Paul. He blew his top and told Julie he was sick of her moving between Picnic Point and Illawong: she had to make a choice. Julie called Paul and he drove around to take her home. Once Julie and Bradley were in the car, he came back into the house and told Julie's parents they would never see Bradley again. He made a great drama of this declaration, saying they could throw him out of their house, but not their grandchild. When he'd gone, Kevin was really upset: Jenene and he had become deeply attached to Bradley. The next day, Jenene called Julie and she came around; Kevin told her why he'd been so angry the day before and how there was no desire to exclude Bradley from their lives.

Although Kevin and Jenene were still susceptible to Wilkinson's influence, their suspicions were growing. The next day they changed their wills to make sure that if anything happened to Julie, Paul could not benefit from their deaths: the money would go into a trust for Bradley. It was not that they feared any violence from Paul, but rather a reaction to the financial problems he had introduced into their daughter's life and their own. By now they knew he was a serious problem gambler who often got into financial trouble. At one point Julie had even taken his cashcard and kept it for a while so he wouldn't gamble away all their money.

Despite this, by the end of March Paul suddenly had lots of cash—so much that in early April he took his family on a short holiday to Batemans Bay. Julie had no idea where it came from—she would learn much later that Kylie had given it to Paul—and didn't ask. By now she'd given up trying to understand his actions.

Late one night, not long after they returned from Batemans Bay, Julie dropped her mobile phone into the bath. When she pulled it out it wouldn't work, and she asked Paul if she could borrow his phone to use with another SIM card she had. When she turned it on she saw that Paul had some messages stored in his phone, so she had a look. One was from someone called ‘Hutch'. She opened it and saw a picture of a horse and cart, and underneath this the words: ‘I'm hurrying to see you soon, I love you.'

Julie tried to save the message to her SIM card but rang the number by mistake. When she realised what she'd done, she hung up. A few minutes later a message came through from the same number: ‘Who is this and why are you ringing me at this hour.' Julie texted back, saying, ‘Sorry I had the wrong number and I was looking for my friend Matt.' She pulled her SIM card out of the phone and returned it to Paul, who put his back in and went up the road to the shops. When he returned he was very angry: he walked into the bedroom and demanded, ‘Who the hell is Matt?'

Julie said, ‘Who the hell is that sending those kind of messages to you?'

‘It's a girl called Kylie,' said Paul. ‘I've been working on a sexual-assault case with her, and that was actually a message that she sent to the guy who assaulted her.'

Julie had never heard of Kylie before. They proceeded to have an argument about why he was still involved in work when he'd told her he'd left, and whether he was actually having an affair with this Kylie.

‘Don't you trust me?' he said.

Julie knew that Paul had a shocking temper, and by this stage it was easier not to provoke him, so she let it go. But for the first time she suspected he was cheating on her.

On 26 April 2004 there was a Souths game, and Julie and Paul decided to go. They dropped by Illawong on the way, and just as they were about to leave, Paul persuaded Julie not to come after all. It looked like rain, and he said he was concerned Bradley might get wet. Kevin noticed Paul go into Julie's old bedroom and remove a Souths jumper, which he stuffed under the one he was already wearing. He wondered what was going on but knew there was no point in asking.

Paul went off to the game by himself. It was the same game Kylie went to, not long after the pregnancy test that had returned a positive result; it was the game from which her grandmother says she came home upset. We can assume the two of them met at the game and that she pushed him to leave Julie, and that he refused.

Paul returned to Illawong before the game had finished, very angry. Julie ran down the drive to meet him and came back distressed. He was in a filthy mood, abusing her for no reason.

‘We've got to go,' she told her parents.

‘What about dinner?' they said.

Some of Julie's old friends were coming around to see Bradley for the first time.

‘He's cranky,' she said. ‘I've got to go.' She grabbed Bradley and left the house.

When she'd gone, Kevin said to Jenene, ‘Did you see the look on her face? She looked so scared.' He called Julie that night to see what had happened. She told him Paul had seen someone at the football he didn't like, so he'd left early. The story didn't make much sense. The Sydney Football Stadium is a big place, big enough to get away from someone you don't like and still watch a game. Paul seemed to have become even more erratic than before. Following this incident, Jenene began to note examples of his unusual behaviour in a diary.

On 11 May Paul received the phone call from Rebekkah Craig. Julie listened to his side of the conversation and could tell something was wrong. When he hung up, she asked what was happening and he said it was about the Kylie girl: ‘I did some work with her for the police and she's gone missing—they just wanted to know if I'd heard from her.' He explained he had to go up to Gosford on 17 May to make a statement.