Isabelle has a congenital heart condition, which means she can’t use the contraceptive pill and all her pregnancies are high-risk.



“My cardiologist refused to put me on the pill or give me [contraceptive injection Depo-Provera],” she said.

But Cameron would not wear condoms — “he just refused every time” — and Isabelle said she didn’t feel like she had any control over when she had sex.

“I wasn’t seen as a human, I was seen as a possession, his cook, his cleaner, the mum who looked after the kids when he was at work and then when he came home sex was his reward,” she said.

“It felt like an obligation and another chore, and I just gave it to him so he’d shut up, because I didn’t want the fighting.”

Isabelle said even when she was “in the midst of a migraine” Cameron would demand sex.

“Nothing could deter him from sex,” she said. “During the trial in October I had to read out texts to the court, and they were all about him demanding sex like ‘this is why men cheat on their women because they don’t put out’.”

Isabelle had multiple abortions throughout the course of their nine-year relationship. Although most were in the first trimester, the procedures were all surgical as medical abortion drug RU486 wasn’t listed on Australia’s pharmaceutical benefits scheme until 2013.

“The first abortion I had was in September 2007, and he cried and tried to make me feel guilty, but I just said, ‘No, look, I can’t take on another baby’, and we’d been together less than a year,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to be a single mum with two kids, I needed to protect my own sanity and welfare.”

The couple had one child together. When Isabelle fell pregnant again she wanted to terminate the pregnancy, but Cameron did not. She said to help “guilt trip” her into keeping the pregnancy, Cameron rang Isabelle’s “very religious auntie” and told her about the pregnancy.

“She called me and congratulated me and I felt so trapped and like I couldn’t have an abortion,” she said. “He never wanted me to have abortions, he wanted me to have babies, because that meant staying home another five years.”

This pregnancy was further medically complicated by the fact that Isabelle had placenta previa, a condition where the placenta lies low and may cover the cervix, blocking the baby’s exit during birth. She was anxious about the birth throughout the pregnancy and had to have a caesarean.