Ricky Nixon’s former fiancée has opened up about the night last July when the former sports agent viciously attacked her in their Port Melbourne home.
Tegan Gould, 28, tells the May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly that she still has nightmares about Ricky coming towards her brandishing a kitchen knife.
“I thought he was going to kill me,” Tegan says. “When I try to sleep, the images are still very real — it haunts me. I have no doubt that if I hadn’t escaped, he would’ve killed me.
“I thought he was going to start stabbing me with the knife and I thought he’d probably kill me first, then hurt himself.”
Last month in the Melbourne Magistrates court, Ricky, 50, pleaded guilty to charges of intentionally causing injury to Tegan and escaping police custody. He was sentenced to 200 hours of community work.
During the violent assault, Tegan says Nixon ripped hair clean from her skull, tried to strangle her with such force she thought his thumbs would push through the back of her throat, and spat in her face.
The police images tendered to court are sickening, even though they were taken days after the attack, when the bruising to her face and throat had begun to subside.
Tegan’s throat was so raw, she was unable to speak for days afterwards and, today, 10 months on, a crimson rash of anxiety sweeps across her face and body as she relives the terrifying ordeal.
The physical scars have healed, but the emotional trauma will stay with her forever. And although many have argued Nixon’s punishment was grossly inadequate, Tegan says his guilty plea and conviction have brought a sense of relief after the train wreck of former AFL player Ricky Nixon roared through her life.
“I’m just so happy it’s all over,” she says. “I’d been living in a silent hell. I was so frightened of him, I woke up every morning not wanting to be in that life, but I know I’m one of the lucky ones because there are a lot of other women who are in similar situations who can’t get out or don’t make it out alive. For that, I am so grateful.”
Tegan met Ricky in 2011, after the drink driving charges, after the rehab for substance abuse, and after the headline-making affair with 17-year-old schoolgirl Kim Duthie.
At first their relationship seemed glamorous, but eight months in, Tegan says “very scary things” were happening.
Tegan is now an ambassador for Adelaide-based charity With Love and Lipstick, which raises awareness of violence towards women. With the help of police, they distribute “boxes of love”, filled with shampoo, toothpaste and brushes, or toys, pencils and colouring books, to women and children in shelters.
“I want something good to come from all of this,” Tegan says. “I hope my story gives other women strength, because you will always get through it, there is always a way out and there is support.”
If you or someone you know is suffering abuse, the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available to help 24 hours a day.
Read more of this story in the May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
