On the run? Simone shares her story below on our podcast:
Simone O’Brien and her ex-husband Trevor had been divorced for several years when she decided to try online dating and met real estate agent Glenn Cable. When their nine-month relationship ended, Glenn bashed Simone over 45 times with a baseball bat, leaving the mum-of-three fighting for her life.
The horrific incident made Simone and Trevor realise just how much they loved each other. This January, they remarried in a touching ceremony. “It was the most amazing day,” Simone told our podcast How I Survived. However, it was a long and traumatic journey back to each other.
Simone initially clicked on Glenn’s online dating profile because he was a real estate agent and having worked in the industry herself in the past, she knew the job required a police check.
“And I thought, ‘Oh he’s had a police check. He’s gotta be okay. He can’t be a criminal or a bad person’,” Simone said.
Going on a date, the pair hit it off. Glenn was great with her kids, especially her youngest Zac, then nine. “He was like a gentle giant,” Simone said. But, over the course of their relationship, she’d soon discover Glenn was too good to be true.
“I wasn’t experienced in dating men, but little red flags grew. They were deleting contacts out of my phone, stealing money, sending flowers to work to me not just once a week or once every two weeks. Every day.”
Simone knew she had to break off the relationship. But then Glenn proposed to her in front of the children. Simone felt like she couldn’t say no – especially in front of Zac, who loved him.
So, she said yes.
“Even when we were engaged for those few weeks, I knew I wasn’t going to marry him,” she said.
Deep down Simone knew something wasn’t right with Glenn, so on September 25, 2012, she found the courage to break it off via text message. Overcome with relief, when she got home from work at 6pm, she broke the news to her girls, Ashlyn, 11, and Gabby, 15 – Zac was at basketball training so she’d have to tell him later.
But, at 6.06pm, Glenn turned up at her front door wanting to talk. “He goes can we go into your bedroom since the girls are in the kitchen and I said, ‘Yeah sure’. I walked in first, and he walked in second and shut the door,” Simone said.
Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, Glenn was gripping a baseball bat – police would later discover that he’d planted it in Simone’s bedroom on a previous visit.
“He lifted up the baseball bat and his teeth were gritting. The next minute, I look up and that’s when I see the baseball bat coming down on me. And that was sort of it. It was just like bang.”
For the next ten minutes Glenn violently bashed the baseball bat into the right side of Simone’s face 45-50 times. Her girls desperately tried to save their mum, throwing anything they could grab at Glenn. Then they called Triple Zero and ran to find help.
Simone’s neighbours, Donny and Julius, wrenched a crazed Glenn away. By then, her skull had been caved in so severely, her brain was exposed. Somehow, though, she was still conscious.
Raced to hospital, Simone was left with a broken arm, nose, cheekbone and eye sockets. Her top jaw was smashed, her skull was shattered, she was blind in her right eye and she’d lost her sense of smell.
Nearly two years after the attack, in April 2014, Glenn Matthew Cable was found guilty of attempted murder in the Brisbane Supreme Court and he was sentenced to 15 years in jail. “It must be clear a woman is entitled to end a relationship without having violence inflicted upon her,’’ Justice Roslyn Atkinson said.
Simone is now an ambassador who speaks out against domestic violence. She wants other victims – whether they’re men or women – to know that there is help available. And by asking for it, they have nothing to be ashamed of.
“Yes, it’s hard to get out, but get out. It’s the best thing that you can do because otherwise you could be, and you won’t know it, but you’ll be dead. Don’t think he’s going to change, don’t hesitate, because a pinch can turn into a punch very quickly. Something so small can turn into something so big.”
Eight years on from the attack, and after more than 50 operations, Simone still has to go into hospital weekly for treatment. But she always looks for the silver lining in her situation. Even losing her sense of smell has its upsides – as Zac very quickly discovered.
“He goes, ‘I don’t have to have a shower right away, because you can’t smell!’ So, turning life into a positive with my defects has been the best thing,” she said.
And, of course, marrying Trevor again has been a blessing.
“We said on the invite, ‘Please come to our celebration, let’s turn divorced life into married life again!’ The love in the room was just phenomenal.”
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