With his eyes boring into the back of her head, Jemima Fraser squeezed past her father's lawyers and made her way to the witness stand, where she would be able to see him squarely in the dock.
WARNING: This story contains graphic content with details that will be distressing to some readers.
"I've spent the past four months writing and crossing out words that will never compare to the damage this man, Adrian James Basham, has done to our lives. My life. He murdered my mum," Jemima said.
In 2018 her estranged father, Adrian Basham, viciously attacked her mother, Samantha Fraser, at the home they once shared at Cowes on Phillip Island, and then staged her death to look like a hanging.
The alarm was raised when Samantha Fraser failed to pick up her three children from school.
Basham, 46, later claimed that his wife had killed herself in the moments after he brutally bashed her because she was severely depressed.
But that was ultimately rejected by a jury, which took less than two days to find him guilty of his wife's murder.
Today, he faced a pre-sentence hearing in the Supreme Court of Victoria where his eldest daughter, now a teenager, wept as she described the "nauseating" crime.
"I had my whole life ripped away. I lost my mum, a dad, my social life, and a chance at a normal future," Jemima Fraser said.
She also echoed the bracingly cruel words that were hurled at her in the months after the crime took place.
"Kids want to come up to you with all sorts of mean comments and theories like, 'I bet her mum didn't even die and she's doing it to get attention'," she told the court.
Her nine-year-old sister, April Fraser, worked with a counsellor to tell the Supreme Court that her world was turned upside down.
"It just feels like there is a gap nestled in my heart somewhere," she said in a statement that was read to the court.
"On special occasions, I come to the realisation that mum is not waiting for me.
"The memories I have of her I have to cherish because they are all I have. He took the best part of my heart away, by taking her away."
The three children are now being cared for by their grandparents, Trevor and Janine Fraser, who were Samantha Fraser's parents.
Marked occasions 'forever now tainted with grief'
Trevor Fraser told the Supreme Court that his fondest memories of his daughter, who lifted others up with her work as a psychologist, were clouded by her violent death.
"When Adrian entered the garage after Samantha drove in … she would have known what was about to happen," Mr Fraser said.
"It is also impossible for any of us to fully understand the initial confusion in the minds of these three young children, then aged nine, seven and five years old, being left forlornly waiting after school at the flagpole for a mother who never arrived to collect them."
"Nor to understand their trauma, their grief and even their anger upon realising that it was their dad, who should have loved them, but who ultimately has destroyed their lives."
His wife, Janine Fraser, told the Supreme Court that the murder had also profoundly affected her other grandchild, Rex Fraser.
"He was so afraid his father would be out of jail during the trial," Janine Fraser said.
"Mother's Day, birthdays, Christmas are all days forever now tainted with grief."
As the victim impact statements were read to court, Jemima Fraser was comforted by loved ones, including her mother's best friend, Lija Matthews, who held her hand.
Prosecutors have long accused Basham of murdering Samantha Fraser because he allegedly raped her, and she was due to give evidence against him just days later.
The rape charges were dropped after her death.
Defence argues murder not premeditated
Ashley Halphen, who is defending Basham, today pleaded for mercy and told the Supreme Court that the killing was not premeditated.
"There's no evidence that Mr Basham was aware of the existence of the rope until he was inside the garage," Mr Halphen said.
"The use of the rope arose then in circumstances of spontaneity," he said.
But Justice Lesley Taylor pushed him on this argument.
"A purpose of visiting her, short of killing her, is not in his interests," Justice Taylor said.
"If Mr Basham went there thinking that Ms Fraser was going to be alive when he left and with the intention to get her to withdraw the rape complaint … why the need to leave his own phone behind," she said, referring to an attempt to cover his tracks.
But today's hearing was ultimately suspended before it went any further after Basham, who interrupted the hearing twice by waving and making interjections, became "highly distressed".
"He's not following the proceedings adequately," Mr Halphen said.
"Your honour, I don't feel as though we enjoy his confidence at least at the moment. I don't feel comfortable continuing on with the plea today," he said.
"He's not following the advice that we've given him in relation to explaining what's going on, explaining some of the arguments that have been raised and why they've been raised."
"I have consequent concerns about the future as far as Mr Basham accepting the manner in which this matter has proceeded."
Justice Taylor said she accepted the "experienced and very credible opinions" of the defence lawyer and adjourned the pre-sentence hearing until October, but not before issuing Basham with a warning.
"I want to make it very plain. These proceedings must be heard, however difficult Mr Basham finds them," she said.
"We are here because he has been found guilty and there's a very live question that I must determine, that he now has no input into [it] whatsoever."
