The final text messages between a former Victorian magistrate and his court clerk fiancee, moments before she tragically died, have been revealed.
Ashleigh Petrie, 23, tragically died on October 28, 2019, just weeks after her partner Rodney Higgins, then 68, proposed to her.
The couple had met while both working at a Victorian courthouse and, despite their 45 year age gap, began dating in 2019.
Their relationship was made public after their engagement, sparking debate about workplace power dynamics.
The pair had only recently become engaged during a trip to Fiji, with magistrates across Victorian courts being warned over inappropriate relationships with judicial officers.
Speaking to A Current Affair last night, Mr Higgins said he was heartbroken people had been “hurt” but said there was no power imbalance in his and Ms Petrie’s relationship.
“I just am sorry that a lot of people have been hurt out of this,” he said.
“The impression, if you like, was Ashleigh worked with me in court, and that I had some sort of hold on her.
“That’s completely untrue, we never, ever worked together.”
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Mr Higgins spoke to the current affairs program about his final moments with Ms Petrie, on the night of October 28, 2019.
The couple had chatted into the night before having a spa and going to bed.
As they were in bed, Ms Petrie told her fiance she wanted to go for a walk.
“I want to clear my head,” Mr Higgins recounted his partner saying.
“A few minutes later she started to text me things like ‘you know you’ll be better off without me, I’ve ruined your career, I’m ruining your life, you’ll find someone’,” he added.
Mr Higgins said Ms Petrie promised to return home before sending four or five texts that “just got worse and worse”.
“’You wont see me again, know that you were the love of my life’ and then ‘goodbye,’” Mr Higgins said, his voice cracking with emotion.
Mr Higgins jumped into his car and took off down the remote road in the Grampians region of Victoria but he was soon stopped by police cars and paramedics.
“I asked if it was a young girl, (the police officer) said ‘yes’, I asked how she was, he said she’d passed away,” he said.
Mr Higgins admitted to the program that he moved back in with his former partner, the one he left to be with Ms Petrie in 2019, three months after she died.
Mr Higgins had been with his former and now current partner for 18 years when he started dating Ms Petrie.
Before her death, Ms Petrie had taken out life insurance and also had money sitting in her Rest Superannuation account.
Despite Ms Petrie’s mother being nominated as the beneficiary of both funds, it was revealed in June that Mr Higgins had claimed the entirety of the money.
The Age revealed Mr Higgins had pocketed the $180,000 payout, despite his partner’s wishes.
Mr Higgins, who recently retired from his magistrate position, told A Current Affair that authorities believed he deserved the entirety of the payment.
“They think I deserve 100 per cent of it,” he said.
Rest Superannuation had ruled Mr Higgins deserved the money under the Superannuation Industry Act.
According to superannuation law, a dependent is the spouse of the person, any child of the person and any person with whom the person has an interdependency relationship.
Mr Higgins told A Current Affair his work had told him to call the superannuation company to tell them Ms Petrie had died.
“I did that, they said, ‘What’s your relationship to her?’ I said, ‘I’m her fiance, we live together.’ They said, ‘We will send you paperwork, fill it out and send it back.’ And that was it,” he said.
Ms Petrie’s mother is fighting to receive her late daughter’s death benefit from her superannuation fund and the decision is currently the subject of an appeal before the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
Mr Higgins admitted the death benefit should’ve been shared with Ms Petrie’s family “in some proportion”.
However, he also said he did not like the way the solicitor for Ms Petrie’s mother had been working.
In June, a spokesman for Rest Super said that while they could not comment on the specifics of Ms Petrie’s case due to privacy, super funds were bound by laws which govern how death benefits are paid.
“Rest has every sympathy for Ms Petrie’s loved ones and all those grieving her tragic passing,” spokesman Michael Mills said.
“In general terms, when a member dies, super funds are required by law to pay the member’s death benefit to a dependent or a legal representative, such as an estate.
“A super fund can only consider paying someone else if they can’t locate either a dependent or estate.
“The process of paying a death benefit can involve contested claims and disputes between potential dependants.
“Rest always endeavours to handle situations like these with the utmost sensitivity and sympathy.”
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