Molly Ticehurst murder: Family’s fight for domestic violence reform after Daniel Billings jailed

The flowing shock of white hair, the tattooed arms. Mine worker, motorcyclist and fisherman Tony Ticehurst seems the epitome of a hardened rural bloke.

For a laugh, his voicemail message claims he can’t answer the phone because he’s busy drinking champagne in the spa.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Molly Ticehurst’s killer sentenced for murdering Forbes childcare worker

Behind this exterior, though, is a devoted and soft-hearted father, painfully articulate under the immense weight of grief.

It has been more than two years since the youngest of his three children, 28-year-old Molly , was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend in the central western NSW town of Forbes.

Daniel Billings was on bail when he broke into Molly’s bedroom and killed her in a frenzied stabbing attack just before midnight on April 21, 2024.

He was enraged because she’d reported sexual assault allegations to police a fortnight earlier, following his campaign of threats, violence and abuse.

The charges of rape, which were ultimately dropped when Billings pleaded guilty to murder, were more abhorrent to him than taking her life.

He was on Friday sentenced to 28 years’ jail. He will serve at least 20 years, which will make him 49 years old when eligible for parole.

Molly, a bubbly young mum and childcare educator , had a close and warm relationship with her separated parents.

After injury forced her dad to quit work as a coal colliery truck driver and wind back his biking and angling, she regularly helped him around the house.

She’d hang out his washing on the Hills Hoist he could no longer reach, lovingly make his bed and clean for him.

Molly could reliably light up a room with her infectious joy, her mum Kate Shaw says of her only child, her “entire world”.

Photos show them together, tenderly smiling cheek-to-cheek or in peals of laughter.