I have already provided a link to this story previously but decided to reproduce it here because it is relative to something I have had issues with for a long time. Suppressing details to supposedly ‘protect’ the victim ( a child) when actually the only one’s who profit are the killers. John Ashfield was only six years old when he was beaten to death and one of the many outrages following this evil crime was the law passed in NSW in 2004 that made it an offence to publish details about a child victim who had died. In doing this the killer/s also received anonymity and thus protection. We have the wonderful NSW Homicide Victims Support Group to thank for lobbying for the abolition of this disgraceful Act – and it now has been. John is no longer around to be hurt anymore – but we can make damn sure his killers will pay for their evil behaviour for the rest of their lives. This is the story of what happened to six year old John in his own home at Shorland Place, Nowra, on that afternoon of August 5th, 1993. John’s sister, Melissa, gives the details of his ordeal – I wish this brave young lady the very best and all our support in her fight to keep her mother behind bars:
Source: The Australian, June 30 2007 by Caroline Overington…
In August 1993, a little boy – John Ashfield, aged 6 – was beaten to death with a hammer to his head.
His mother, Gunn-Britt Ashfield, then 25, led the assault; her boyfriend, Austin Allan Hughes, then 20, was a keen participant.
According to evidence presented to court in December 1993, Ashfield became enraged when she heard that John, who was in Year 1 at East Nowra primary school on the NSW south coast, touched his three-year-old sister in an inappropriate way. Her boyfriend agreed the boy could not be allowed to “get away with it”.
He didn’t. Less than 24 hours later he died in Shoalhaven Hospital, his tiny body covered in more than 100 bruises from his parents’s savage beating — a beating that ended with Hughes putting the Nowra telephone book against John’s head, and hitting him with a hammer.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
They were each sentenced to 21 years in jail, reduced to 19 years on appeal, with a minimum of 14 years.
Next Thursday, 14 years since she beat John to death, his mother, who has changed her name in prison and now calls herself Anjelic Karstrom, will apply for parole. Hughes has also applied for parole. His case will also be heard next Thursday.
In 2004, the NSW Parliament passed laws that made it an offence for media outlets to publish the name of a dead child who had been the victim of a crime, no matter what the circumstances.
This law prevented The Weekend Australian from printing this story, ostensibly to protect the victim, John.
The newspaper’s parent company, News Limited, backed by groups including the NSW Homicide Victims Support Group, and the Victims of Crime Assistance League, has lobbied against this law since it was enacted, believing that it protects only the killers from being identified.
On Thursday night, the NSW Parliament passed a bill amending the law, making publication permissible in some circumstances, such as if the next of kin agrees. The changes come into effect next Wednesday.
John’s sister Melissa, 17, does not want her mother released. “I have not seen my mother since I was 11,” she said. “The last time I saw her (in prison) I pulled her hair and slapped her. I have flashbacks to what happened. She tried to blame me. She tried to get us to help her bash John. She tried to say that John touched me. He never touched me.”
Melissa says she remembers the day John was beaten, “clear as anything”. When he swang in from school that day, August 5, Hughes confronted him in the kitchen. He told police he kicked John on the bottom with the side of his foot “the way you kick a soccer ball”, slapped him around the head and sent him to his room.
But that was not the end of it: Ashfield and Hughes decided John needed to be taught a lesson. They went into his bedroom and started beating him.
A frenzy soon developed: they punched him with their fists, and beat him with the white aluminium rod that held up a curtain.
John was sobbing: “I’m really sorry, don’t do this to me, I’m sore, I’m sorry.”
Hughes mocked him, saying: “You scream like a little girl.”
When John continued to sob, Hughes took a girl’s dress out of the cupboard and shoved it over the crying boy’s head, forcing his arms through the sleeves.
“He started crying and carrying on,” Hughes would later say, in a statement to police.
“He was crying: ‘Get it off, get it off, I’m not a girl’.”
Death came slowly: Ashfield would later tell police that Hughes had put the phone book against John’s head, and repeatedly beat him with a hammer, until John was limp and dazed, unable to sit up on the bed.
When it became apparent that John had lost consciousness, his mother dunked him under a cold shower, then a hot shower.
Several hours passed before Ashfield took her son to Shoalhaven Hospital. In the meantime, she told her other children to tell police John had been beaten by a gang of teenagers while walking through a park.
Her oldest boy, then aged eight, went on national television to back up the story.
In a shaky voice, he said: “We were going to buy milk and bread when four boys said, ‘Come here. We want to bash you up’.”
The story was never going to stack up: John was cold and bleeding from the nostrils when he was airlifted to Westmead hospital in Sydney.
Doctor Barry Wilkins would later tell the court he had more than 100 different coloured bruises, suggesting “repeated, non-accidental beating”.
His small hands were swollen and bruised, which suggested he had “attempted to fend off an assault”. He had suffered a very serious brain injury.
John died the next day, Friday, August 6, 1993. His mother and her boyfriend were charged with murder shortly afterwards.
On the day of John’s funeral, his natural father, Brian Ashfield, wailed over the white coffin.
Brian is now dead but he told reporters at the time of his son’s murder that he had warned the NSW Department of Community Services that his wife was violent, and that she intended to hurt the children. In fact, DoCS had about 35 notifications that all was not well at Ashfield’s home.
Ashfield asked DoCS to take the kids away from her, saying she “felt violent” towards them.
Melissa’s life since her brother was killed has been chaotic: she was fostered into the care of DoCS after her mother went to prison but ran away at 11. She bounced around foster homes, and was briefly placed in a nunnery in Grafton, until she fell pregnant at 16, and lost the baby. She admits to “drinking alcohol, doing crazy stuff” to deal with anger and grief but is trying to steady her path. She now lives with her boyfriend, Jason, 33, and is in counselling.
John’s uncle, Andrew Ashfield, said the law banning publication of John’s story had “protected the people who killed him, and the social workers who let it happen”.
“DoCS knew that she was violent, and knew that she was troubled,” he said. “But they didn’t take the kids until after she killed one of them.”
Wendy Campbell, who was Brian’s fiance at the time of John’s death, wants the case to get media attention because she “promised Brian, if they ever apply for parole, I will be there, and I will stop it”.
Copyright © 2007-2012 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.Related posts:
- Child-killer Austin Allan Hughes: released from jail and coming to a Northern Rivers town near you…
- John Ashfield: While his killer Austin Allan Hughes walks free Gunn-Britt Ashfield enjoys media anonymity
- Will the Australian courts forget what happened to little John Erik Ashfield…?
- Gunn-Britt Ashfield (Angelic Karstrom) denied parole – for now
- Why Karen Matthews reminded me of a little Australian boy named John Ashfield.
hi there my name is cherie and i live in nowra nsw, my younger brother was in johns class at school and was his best friend, my brother and my family have not forgotten this tradgety and never will, it will forever haunt us but johns memory will always be in our hearts and johns memory will never haunt us. his mother should never be released, i know of crimes of much less whom have stamped on there criminal files “never to be released” and john’s mother should have been one of those whom should never be released!!
Hi Cherie, thank you for sharing that here. I remember this all so well and how devastating it was to learn of what that poor little boy went through in those hours. I hope that creep Hughes will be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his days – and as for her…I hold out hope that a long, lingering, terror-filled, agonising death lies in wait for that woman. And that she is ignored as much in her last minutes of life as her child was.
We had a ‘weekender’ at St Georges Basin from 1972-76 and Dad used to drag us all down there from Manly for weekends and holidays. Back then it was all bush and scrub, we were two streets back from the water and there was a little general store between us and the basin, my sister and I had to walk through long grass and scrub to get to it. Sussex Inlet was just across the bay. We used to go into Huskisson all the time and Sanctuary Point. Kangaroos used to hop past the back of our little house and we had one of those outdoor dunnies which I hated. I bet it is different there now though!
Why do we leave unprotected children with abusers and then think the children will be safe. Just because you bear a child does not mean you are a parent, we need to protect our children and stop protecting the abusers.
I have been following this story since it happened, I have left flowers near the flats where it had happened near the anniversery of his death, I have followed the story of the case and Melisisa’s story with so much intent that I have it in my memory. I really couldn’t belive Hughes got parrloled, this is so sad for the remaining family members who witnesed the horrific event. Let us remember John .. Protect the Children and not the abusers
I have never forgotten this child either. I remember the outrage when it happened and how the public were assured these two would never see the light of day again – lets hope that she stays where she is and is never let out.
These two pieces of shit should never see the light of day.They should be named and shamed ,i just can’t believe this is happening all the time to our poor defencless kids,and it seem’s t be getting worse,the government agencies are doing nothing.There needs to be a system in place like the one Wendy drew up in another article i think it was “baby peter”which is really disturbing like this one.I just cry and look at my 3 kids and can’t see how these sick fucking people can do this to our children.It’s a sad day for the human race when our most innocent and defencless are treated like this.
I could not understand the court imposing a ban on publishing the name of the mother for so long because many people, myself included, remembered full well what she is called – and him too. I was only too happy to name her – what’s the point of concealing her name when her kids have grown up…all except for poor little John of course. If she ever gets out and I find out where she is heading I will publish that information too!
Yeah good Wendy let the world know we this scum is leaving.I hope the rest of their days are spent looking over their shoulder.I hope they dont have any friends,living in some lonely shithole.They dont deserve to get anything in life ,i hope they have sad,sick and miserable life for what they did to little John.
this is melisa i just read the comments you all left just want to say thank you for the kind words of support for my brother jhon it maks me happy that there are pople out there thinking about him
Hi Melisa, I have been thinking about little John for many years now and he will live on in the hearts of so many Australians. Believe it or not but people from many countries around the world know about John and have read about him here, I have received many kind and concerned emails regarding his story. Hope you are well and life is being good for you and your family.
hi melisa… i am glenn alonso of philippines and i read the news update today in yahoo… i am very proud of what your decision will going to.. both of them must suffer full sentence to jail or even lifetime… never the less, they must treated no mercy to the authorities and to the public of what they do to your brother…. ….’melisa ashfield, i am proud of you and be strong”…
Hi Melissa, we all have read the terrible news about her being granted parole and are thinking about you and your family at this time. I so admire your strength and determination to be the voice for little John, that takes guts and while some tell the victims to ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’ that rage you maintain inside is the one thing that actually keeps you going in your fight for justice. You are in our prayers. I trust that when she walks out of those prison gates that she feels compelled to look over her shoulder for the rest of her miserable life. It is sad that your dad is not here to comfort you at this time but I know he and John are together – somewhere nice – and John is not only looking down and cheering his big sister on, but he is also well looked after in the arms of his dad. Best wishes – give that baby of yours a big hug from us all.
thank you. My family is good, its all going well.
Mellisa
I hope there is some peace for you now, knowing there are people like Wendy, and myself who will always remember John and keep him in our hearts, I hope by having this knowlege you will be able to move on with your life… John will always be remembered as being a person who onced lived because he will never be forgotten … Thank-you for sharing your painful story, It sheds a lot of light on the story that was told in the press
Umm.. Hi My uncle is Austin Hughes..
xx
I’ve never liked him.. He used to slap me when I was small.. He is a bully and I would piss on his deathbed .. I’m ashamed to call myself his niece and I wish I could stab him a million times.. Melissa Ive never met you and I really wish I could.. Me and my family have moved to a peaceful village in Mansfield.. We were all worried and John will be forever missed.. I loved him SO much, he was so innocent and was REALLY sweet&polite , he didn’t deserve all of this!! Especially at his age
I’m always thinking about you little John and I love you, xx
Thanks Lucie, very often we forget about how the relatives of such people must feel but I hope you are able to distance yourself from that monster and get on with your own life.
Lucie,
I think you are brave. If you hate his as you say, and I believe you do, I hope you can do your part to make sure your uncle doesn’t get out of prison.
John, sleep well little angel. Best of luck to you, Melisa. So sorry you had to witness that horrible scene. My heart goes out to you.
Beautifully written:)
I am once again reminded of the horror of the death of John Ashfield, as there is once again another little vitim killed by the very people who were susposed to be protecting her
Kiesha Abrahams the little girl that went missing from Mt Durit, but was later found in a shallow grave and the mother and step father were arrested for her murder
I hope this time the time suits the crime
It was only a matter of time before that mother was arrested – so obvious they were involved. But with her being aboriginal just watch the difference in how she will be treated…
Well Wendy I hope being Indigenous dosent allow them to get away with it because then how many other inocent victims will have to suffer at the hands of the people who are susposed to be protecting them, and know they can get away with it … let the time suit the crime
Indigenous Australians are generally represented in court by lawyers from the Aboriginal Legal Service, they have their own legal services which are ‘culturally appropriate’.
Yes I am aware of the difference in court cases, I remember a case in Calala Bay a few years back where a Aboriginal step father had killed a 3 year old boy, the case was never mentioned again, and to this day the public have no idea what the senticing was… which is so unfair not only to the [white] people but to the little victims.. They wanted equal rights they should be treated equally the same.
So I hope John Ashfields mother stays behind bars for the full sentice and I hope Kiesha Abrahams mother and stepfather receive what they deserve for the crime.
And as for that man in Calala BayI really hope he got time, but whos too know… as it was never mentioned again.
These two creeps should’ve been left to rot in prison. Their both paedos and I’d like to take to them with a hammer.
hey this is melisa my son turned one to day i whish my brother jhon was here to hold him and whish him a happy brithday and my dad i miss them alot and i know they would be proud of my son i will allways love you jhon and dad xxxx
Melissa I hope your little boy has a wonderful day full of love and kisses and fun – John and your dad are somewhere together I do know that and they feel your love I have no doubt about that.
All the best for your future together
Congratulations on your little boy’s birthday! I’m sorry John was not here for this mile stone, and all the others he has missed. I sure “uncle John” is celebrating with you from above. Never let your son forget about him. Happy Birthday!
Hi Melissa,
I cannot begin to understand how you and your siblings have survived through this, and words can seem so hollow. I have three sons of my own and my biggest fear is not being able to protect them. I have so much admiration for you and wish you and your family all the best for the future and many years of joy and love, the way it should be.
keep Strong.
She is a remarkable young woman indeed.
She has the strength of a lions heart. I thank her for wanting this terrible story of her brothers final moments told. with out people like her and her family we would never know, so there fore can never prevent this from happening again.
I wish the very best for you and your family and hope that one day you will be at peace
Shame on the system and the people within it that are involved in this parole. Grow a spine, find the right way through upholding principles that the community is expected to live by. The murder’s must accept the consequences of their acts. They did it.. they accept what comes. The current day “do gooders” within the Govt’s system need to respect the decisions of those that sentenced those scum. I don’t know that boy. But I weep when reading his story. I don’t know the murders and while being a caring person, I feel raw hatred and vengeance toward them. But regrettably, the murders have probably come to believe and find comfort through social worker bull shit sessions that it was somehow caused by circumstances of the time. Yeah right!! Are better off as a community for providing compassion to these murderers? NO. Can we trust and can we believe in a system that lets it happen? NO. Does the community get a clear picture and understanding of the meaning of consequence? NO. By paroling the murders this kid’s life is demeaned. Shame on you! I’m disgusted.
well said Greg,
its is my brother birthday to day big 25 to day i miss you so much u will always be in my hart for ever i love you happy birthday jhonny love all ways your sister mel
Wow 25 today! what a handsome young man he would be too. Your love and dedication to John’s memory will keep him alive in spirit for as long as you breathe Melisa, and there are countless more people who will remember him. What a wonderful sister you are for him to have:)
Happy birthday John!!!