Teen who stabbed Brit mum Emma Lovell to dying in Australia is jailed

A teenager who stabbed British mother Emma Lovell to death during a violent home invasion in Australia has been jailed for 14 years. 

Ms Lovell, 41, was slaughtered after confronting two intruders who had broken into her property in Brisbane on Boxing Day in 2022.

She had emigrated from Suffolk in 2011 for a ‘better life’ with her daughters and her husband Lee, who was also injured in the attack.

Her killer, who cannot legally be named as he was 17 at the time, pleaded guilty to her murder earlier this year.

Now aged 19, he was sentenced at Brisbane’s Supreme Court.

Mrs Lovell was wounded in the chest and died as a result of her injuries. 

Sentencing judge Tom Sullivan said the mother-of-two’s murder was a ‘particularly heinous’ crime.

He added the Lovells had been a ‘loving family’ trying to create a fresh lives for themselves in a new country.  

‘They were ordinary citizens enjoying their family life in their home where they were entitled to feel safe. What happened… violated that entirely,’ Judge Sullivan said.

The second teenager alleged to have been involved in the attack has also been charged with murder but is yet to enter a plea. He is due to appear at a court in Brisbane later this month. 

The court previously heard how Mr and Mrs Lovell confronted the teens after being woken by their dogs, pushing the pair outside of the house before grappling in the front garden. 

During the scrap, one of the teens plunged a 4.5in knife into her chest, hitting her heart and fatally wounding her.  

When police and paramedics arrived at the scene, they found Ms Lovell’s two teenage daughters weeping over their parent’s bloodied body. 

In a desperate attempt to save the stricken mother’s life, medics performed open heart surgery on the front lawn of her home. 

Tragically, despite the efforts by doctors, Ms Lovell died shortly after arriving at hospital.  

The nightmare assault in the leafy suburb of North Lakes, about 30 miles north of Brisbane, was captured on a security camera.

Ms Lovell’s family has previously called for her killer to be jailed for life.

Speaking earlier this month, Mr Lovell opened up about the trauma of watching the security footage that captured his wife’s final moments. 

‘It was quite hard seeing myself fighting with the guys coming out of the house. That was traumatising,’ he told reporters outside Brisbane’s Supreme Court.

Earlier this month, Justice Sullivan heard that he could sentence the teen to a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment or 14 years if he found the crime to be ‘particularly heinous’.

Mr Lovell told the court he was trying the best he could to raise his children after losing his wife of 22 years.

‘I feel so lost without her … It was so difficult returning home. My daughter feared they would come back.’

In a heartbreaking interview in December, Mr Lovell said the aftermath of his beloved wife’s death had seen him go into ‘dad mode’ – with his full focus on looking after his daughters.

He decided to take his children, Scarlett, 15, and 14-year-old Kassie back to the UK to avoid a painful Christmas due to the memories attached to their bungalow Down Under.

He told the BBC: ‘The kids, the house, I’ve been trying to be the best parent I can be. It’s all on me. They were 13 and 15 at the time. Emma lost her dad at 13 and I know how much that affected her.

‘I’ve got to get up, I’ve got to work, I’ve got to get the kids to school and put food on the table for them. I’ve got to make sure there’s a roof over their head.

‘So I guess I’ve been a bit practical in that regard. I’ve just got on with life a bit. They just come to me and talk to me about stuff – their day at school, boys, girls stuff. You’ve just got to be the best person you can.’

Mr Lovell said he felt like his future had been ‘robbed’, adding: ‘Sometimes in life you go through things and you’re not so confident about something and you lean on that other person to help get you through and I just don’t have that.

‘It’s also hard seeing couples together, you feel really angry and jealous about that.’

The Lovells fell in love when they first arrived in Australia from the UK in 2002 and decided to make it their permanent home.

They celebrated Christmas Day 2022 by eating a special meal at the local beach.

Mr Lovell wrote in a Facebook post at the time: ‘So for the first time in 11 years we spent Christmas day on the beach and even managed to cook up some bacon and eggs!’

‘Hope everyone has a great Christmas day spent with loved ones and friends.’

Hours after the post – when the family had returned home to their bungalow in North Lakes, Brisbane – they woke up to find intruders in the hallway.

Mr Lovell had just forced one of the men out of the house when he heard his daughter say ‘mummy’s bleeding’.

‘I remember thinking at the time, ”I can’t die, I can’t leave the kids orphans”’, he recalled.

Mrs Lovell was resuscitated but died later in hospital.

Speaking in December, her shattered husband said he had found grieving ‘hard’, struggling to combine it with the pressures of looking after his kids. 

He called his late wife ‘beautiful, amazing’ and said he regularly found himself breaking down in tears while he was driving due to the pain of losing her. 

In August, Mr Lovell revealed his determination to stay in the house where his wife died because it was full of years of joyful memories.

‘I just want to focus on this house being a happy place for us and our family,’ Mr Lovell told The Courier Mail.

He said that for months the whole family had slept in the same bedroom after the terrifying incident with Scarlett on a mattress on the floor and Kassie where her mother used to sleep.

He said that while he was proud of his children for being strong, it had also caused the absence of his wife to sink in further.

‘I haven’t gotten used to it, I suppose it’s been pretty lonely. Just going to bed by myself and waking up by myself,’ he said.

The children had offered to stay, which Mr Lovell suspects was for his benefit rather than theirs, but he conceded they should go if they felt ready, even if he did not.

Mr Lovell said he had added extra security since that night including a new security door at the front of the property, motion sensors and security cameras which, even eight months on, he will vigilantly check throughout the night.

The couple had been particularly close, having been married young and spent more than two decades together, including relocating across the other side of the world from the UK to Australia in 2011.

Mr Lovell said it was particularly ‘heartbreaking’ to lose such an intimate relationship in which both he and Emma had been so happy.

Speaking publicly for the first time since losing her mother, in August, Scarlett said her presence would ‘brighten’ any room she was in and said she found it hard to recall moments when her mother was ever sad.

She particularly misses their regular night drives to collect Kassie together.

‘I guess it’s when we really opened up to each other but also had a lot of fun singing songs and stuff,’ Scarlett said.

Mr Lovell said with each day the family is adjusting to the loss though some days are harder. His birthday and Mother’s Day, just a week apart, were particularly difficult.

Scarlett and Kassie have become closer to their father, confiding in him about boys or teenage things they would previously only ever tell their mother.

‘Emma was the glue in our family, she was funny, smart, so caring, would do anything for anyone,’ Mr Lovell previously told Daily Mail Australia. ‘She died trying to protect me and our family.’

At the time of the tragedy last Boxing Day, neighbour Julie Balhatchet told Daily Mail Australia her daughters were on the second floor of their home when they saw the commotion unfolding across the road.

They quickly told their father who ran across the street to help.

‘When my husband ran over, it was dark. He had no idea she was injured,’ Mrs Balhatchet said. ‘She [Mrs Lovell] was laying face down on the ground bleeding.’

Mrs Balhatchet said after the scuffle in the street, her daughters saw the two alleged offenders running from the house.

While her husband and Mr Lovell worked to save his wife, another neighbour ushered the two daughters away from the traumatic scene.

Mrs Balhatchet was devastated to later learn Mrs Lovell died in hospital.

‘It’s just so so sad,’ she said. ‘Those poor girls and her husband. He was very distraught.’

Mrs Balhatchet said the random alleged attack had shocked the normally quiet neighbourhood.

‘I’ve lived here 19 years and nothing like this has happened. You think, why them? It could have been any of us on the street.’

Originally from Hasketon, Mrs Lovell moved to Australia to have the chance to have a ‘better life’ for her family, her brother David Angel told the BBC.

Mrs Lovell’s death prompted outrage across Queensland and was one of many high-profile crimes that saw the state introduce stricter youth crime laws in 2023.

An emotional Queensland opposition leader David Crisafulli visited their North Lakes family home with flower after the murder to pay his respects to Emma Lovell. 

Mr Lovell backed calls for an urgent overhaul to the youth justice system as he issued a desperate plea for politicians to act and follow through.

He urged politicians to the fast-track legislation, dubbed ‘Emma’s Law’ in a petition calling for mandatory jail and no bail for armed and violent repeat home invaders, as thousands of Australians also pledged their support.

It is now a criminal offence in Queensland if a child breaches bail conditions.

Children as young as 15 can also be fitted with GPS trackers, and the courts now have the authority to declare youths as serious repeat offenders in certain circumstances.