June 5, 2025 • 13 mins
On Christmas Day 2021, Hobart midwife Rachel Wake was brutally murdered by her ex-husband. This week on iHeart Tassie, Olivia Hicks sits down with Rachel's daughter Romany Wake, to discuss her activism in the fight against domestic and family violence.
A warning, some of the content in this episode could cause distress.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My Heart. Hobart woman Romini Wake has lived through terrible
tragedy as a witness and victim to domestic violence and
olived experience has driven her to become a passionate advocate
and campaign for change. In the immediate aftermath of the
murder of her mum, Rachel, a beloved midwife and mother
(00:21):
of two, Romney founded Rachel's Voice, a social media platform
through which she bravely shares her story and provides support
to others impacted by domestic abuse. Alongside her mother's work colleagues,
she founded the Rachel Wake Midwoofree Scholarship in twenty twenty
three and speaks at public rallies and viduals. She's also
(00:42):
worked with a range of organizations, government agencies and institutions
such as the police, courts and frontline services to improve legislation.
Romney joined me in the studio recently in spoke about
the highs and lows the last few years have brought,
and a warning, some of the content here is pretty horror,
so listener discretion is advised. Romnie joins me now for
(01:03):
this week's episode of My Heart Tazzy. Romnie, thank you
so much for coming in.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
You've spoken about your mum many times. Tell us what
kind of mum was she? Like? What memories have you
got from childhood?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
She was pretty much I say it every single time.
She was the kindest person in the universe. She was
my best friend, and she taught me all that is
about love and life and everything in between.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Have you got a special memory in particular that you
like to remember.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
There's so many, just because she was the most amazing
mum ever. But I think one of my favorite ones
is after me pestering her while she was doing the gardening.
She would spend one of her whole days off doing
the gardening. I'd pester at about five six pm to
do handstand battles on the trampoline, and she'd complain that
she didn't want to do it and she was sore
(01:53):
from gardening, and then we'd just do it anyway, and
it would turn into one two hours of just chucking
stuff around on the trampoline, which so fun.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Does she often think about other people? Didn't she? She did?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
She put everyone above herself.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The events of December twenty five in twenty twenty one
are horrific. What do you remember about that? Day.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I remember spending Christmas morning waiting for my brother to
get up get out of bed so we could open presents,
and I remember Mum saying that we need to wait,
the presents aren't going anywhere. We did end up opening
the presents, I think at around eleven o'clock, and I
remember telling my mum that it was the best Christmas ever.
And then we started to decorate our gingerbread house. I
(02:38):
was eating all the lollies, so I was banned from
decorating the gingerbread house. And then I had to go
to Darren's house, my biological father's, and so we said
our last words to each other, which I end every
single Rachel's voice post or speech with, which is see later, Alligator,
I love you. And we'd say that every single time
we left the house or the car, and no matter
(03:00):
what we were doing, we would say that, and then
everything else was kind of a blur after that. But
one of the main things that I remember was Darren
walking out of the house with blood all up his arms,
going cul triple zero, I've just killed your mum, and
then everything being a blur from then, and then I
remember one of the police officers trying to get me
(03:21):
to go in the car to go down to the station,
and he said, if you don't come with me now,
your mum's going to die, and so he basically I
remember being blamed for my mum's murder and if she
wouldn't live that it would probably end up coming back
on me, because that police officer said that if I
didn't go with him, she was going to die, even
though I was across the street at the time, and
(03:43):
I remember just leaving the police station. I remember just
walking out and then them not being able to find
me and then interrogating me afterwards of how I got
out when the front door was unlocked. So that's pretty
much all I remember from Christmas Day.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
You call your if I can. You're build is Darren
to you? You don't call him your dad? Have you
ever called him your dad?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I did growing up as a child, Like early childhood,
I would, but then kind of as I got older,
more preteen, I kind of realized that, no, this is
not how a biological father would act around his children.
So I dropped. I called him dad to his face,
but I kind of dropped that term. And then now
I do not want any associations with him being dad.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
The subsequent days after that day, what do you recall
from that time?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I remember being told that I wasn't allowed to go home,
so to my mum's house. I wasn't allowed to go
back home, and I wasn't allowed my car as that
was part of the crime scene. And then I remember
staying at a lot of my friend's houses, so I'd
swap houses each day, and staying in one jumper and
the same clothes that I was wearing on Christmas Day,
(05:00):
and my hair was still up in the same curly
pigtails that my mum did that morning for I think
close to three days because I just could not bear
to take them out. And then I remember being told
I was allowed to go home and get some stuff
only a couple of days later, and so when I
went home, the whole house was pretty much turned upside down.
It was completely different from what I remember it looking like,
(05:21):
and it was terrifying.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Did you have support with you at that time?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I had my friends and my family, but obviously my
family was also going through everything to do with the
loss of my mum and dealing with coming to terms
with what happened to my mom and looking after my brother.
He needed a lot more support, so I wanted my
brother to have the support, and so I kind of
(05:47):
dealt with everything on my own.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Your brother's younger, Yes, how is he doing now? How's
he going with everything?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
He's doing well. We don't talk much, but that's not
unusual because even grow up, we wouldn't text or call
each other as much, and so it's not uncommon for
us to go long periods of time without talking to
each other.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
After those events and your experience with the justice system,
how would you put that into words? That whole process.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Long and tedious. It was shocking. I knew that at
some point, knowing that we would go to the magistrates
court first until we got a plea, and then that
took ages because it kept getting delayed for even the
most random reasons like oh the paperwork hasn't been filed,
we don't have any money, but like stuff like that.
And then we got we were told that he's most
(06:42):
likely going to plea not guilty for a trial, and
then a couple of weeks later we got we went
to court and we were told that he had lead guilty,
which was a big relief of our shoulders, just knowing
we didn't have to go through the trial. But then
in the Supreme Court it was pretty much the same
thing that it was just delayed, delayed, delayed. And then
(07:04):
one day I remember going into being told, Hey, sentencing
is today. It was a shock to be told that
sentencing was today, but it was very, very exciting to
know that it was almost over. After I think it
was close to Yeah, it was almost three years because
it was right before my birthday. And then the day, yes,
(07:27):
the day after my birthday, I got a call saying
that he had appealed the sentence. So we're still going
through that now.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
My heart's as he, My hearts as he. You wouldn't
be blamed for hiding away and dealing with your own
grief and trauma, but you've turned something truly awful into
helping others. Where does that drive come from?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I think as well, it's hearing a lot of personal
stories from people. So I get stopped a lot after rally,
some vigils, and I get messages on Rachel's voice all
the time from people sharing their stories and I'm so
honored that they are comfortable to share them with me.
And it's pushing for a drive for change.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
You've recently worked on the National Plan to End Violence
against Women and Children, guarding the response to domestic abuse
and helping to ensure the safety of those affected in
the future. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I got a message from a friend who was asked
to help out and read through it, and so she
gave me kind of some questions about what could be
done to change it up because some of the wording
in the plan wasn't right. I provided my own understanding
from surviving domestic violence and family violence and gave a
(08:44):
survivor voice.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You're being nominated for Young Australia of the Year for
Tazi YEP and most recently you took out the Tasmanian
Young Achiever of the Year awards. How does that make
you feel. I'm sure you've got very mixed emotions there.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It was an honor to be nominated and especially to
win the Premieres Young Achiever of the Year for Tasmania.
I wasn't expecting that. Simon, who was presenting the award,
was kind of talking about the person beforehand and he
was like, they are courageous and they are brave, and
I was squatting down the front because there wasn't enough
(09:23):
room on the stage for us older fit on there
without kind of going off to the side. I was
looking at all the inspiring people around me, going, this
could be any one of them, because say, the most
incredible people in the world. I was not expecting those
words to be used for about me. It was so
incredible the response that I got. And I knew a
(09:43):
fair few people in the room from one of my
old sports and a couple of friends were there, and
they just all came up to me, and I could
hear cheers from the other end of the room because
it was a massive hole, and so it was really
special to hear that people knew who I was and
what I was doing for Tasmania.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, Rachel's always where do you see that going? Like,
what's your goal or ambition there?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I have a really big project that I'm starting to
work on. I'm just kind of figuring out a few
bits and pieces right now, so I'm hoping that Rachel's
voice will be able to amplify my current plan to
make change in the justice system.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Do you see yourself as a victim or as survivor?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It's a bit of both. It's kind of hard to
differentiate between the two, but it's who I am. I
don't know who I would be otherwise, because I've had
a lot of people and some friends ask me, hey,
in a different world, like what would you be like,
like what would you want? And I kind of have
to say, well, I don't know what my life would
(10:53):
look like without what I went through and what happened
on Christmas Day.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Christmas Days have been and will come. What do you
do on Christmas Day? I mean, it is a huge
day for everyone, but for you, what do you do
for yourself on Christmas Day?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Christmas Day isn't actually the hardest day you would think
it would be, but it's actually the lead up to Christmas,
seeing all the Christmas stuff in the shops and all
the advertisements on TV and the songs on the radio,
just knowing how big of a lead up there is
to that day. But then on Christmas Day, I always
do stuff that lets me take a moment and just
(11:33):
reflect on what's happened over the past year. And then
me and my friend we often go to a new
beach and have a swim, and then me and another
friend we often spend the day doing a craft and
watching something. So a couple of years ago, me and
Mum were obsessed with the Matilda musical. We never got
to see it, but we saw a couple of school
productions of it. And then in twenty twenty two, on
(11:55):
Christmas Day, the Mathilda the Musical the movie came out,
so me and my friend watched and did a craft
and then the year later we did Lego. So it
was my first ever time really doing a Lego set,
so we decided to go all out and do a Lego.
I had a broken arm that year, which was really
rough doing Lego with a wet cast in one hand,
but you know what, it was a great memory. I
(12:17):
got a really good Lego out of that. And so
just doing things that make me happy and just keep
me busy, Oh what I do?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
My last question was essentially that self care. What do
you do for yourself? How do you navigate that?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
How I do self care and making time for myself
when dealing with grief. Because grief is so prevalent in
my everyday experiences, I often deflect and keep busy, which
is definitely not what you should be doing, but it
works for me, and so I'm often doing what Mum
loved subconsciously I'm often gardening or doing a DIY project
(12:55):
around the house and turning up more colorful and creative.
Or I'm playing my sport so that mum used to
come watch me compete and play in So I'm doing
a lot of things that subconsciously I did with my mum,
and that's kind of how I do self care and
connect to mum.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Thank you so much for being with me. That's okay,
and that's it for iHeart Tassi for this week. If
you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to the
iHeart Tazzi podcast feed on the iHeart app or wherever
you get your podcasts, and if you'd like, you can
leave us a review while you're there. I'm Olivia Hicks.
Thanks for your company. My heart Sasi
My Heart. Hobart woman Romini Wake has lived through terrible
tragedy as a witness and victim to domestic violence and
olived experience has driven her to become a passionate advocate
and campaign for change. In the immediate aftermath of the
murder of her mum, Rachel, a beloved midwife and mother
(00:21):
of two, Romney founded Rachel's Voice, a social media platform
through which she bravely shares her story and provides support
to others impacted by domestic abuse. Alongside her mother's work colleagues,
she founded the Rachel Wake Midwoofree Scholarship in twenty twenty
three and speaks at public rallies and viduals. She's also
(00:42):
worked with a range of organizations, government agencies and institutions
such as the police, courts and frontline services to improve legislation.
Romney joined me in the studio recently in spoke about
the highs and lows the last few years have brought,
and a warning, some of the content here is pretty horror,
so listener discretion is advised. Romnie joins me now for
(01:03):
this week's episode of My Heart Tazzy. Romnie, thank you
so much for coming in.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
You've spoken about your mum many times. Tell us what
kind of mum was she? Like? What memories have you
got from childhood?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
She was pretty much I say it every single time.
She was the kindest person in the universe. She was
my best friend, and she taught me all that is
about love and life and everything in between.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Have you got a special memory in particular that you
like to remember.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
There's so many, just because she was the most amazing
mum ever. But I think one of my favorite ones
is after me pestering her while she was doing the gardening.
She would spend one of her whole days off doing
the gardening. I'd pester at about five six pm to
do handstand battles on the trampoline, and she'd complain that
she didn't want to do it and she was sore
(01:53):
from gardening, and then we'd just do it anyway, and
it would turn into one two hours of just chucking
stuff around on the trampoline, which so fun.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Does she often think about other people? Didn't she? She did?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
She put everyone above herself.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The events of December twenty five in twenty twenty one
are horrific. What do you remember about that? Day.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I remember spending Christmas morning waiting for my brother to
get up get out of bed so we could open presents,
and I remember Mum saying that we need to wait,
the presents aren't going anywhere. We did end up opening
the presents, I think at around eleven o'clock, and I
remember telling my mum that it was the best Christmas ever.
And then we started to decorate our gingerbread house. I
(02:38):
was eating all the lollies, so I was banned from
decorating the gingerbread house. And then I had to go
to Darren's house, my biological father's, and so we said
our last words to each other, which I end every
single Rachel's voice post or speech with, which is see later, Alligator,
I love you. And we'd say that every single time
we left the house or the car, and no matter
(03:00):
what we were doing, we would say that, and then
everything else was kind of a blur after that. But
one of the main things that I remember was Darren
walking out of the house with blood all up his arms,
going cul triple zero, I've just killed your mum, and
then everything being a blur from then, and then I
remember one of the police officers trying to get me
(03:21):
to go in the car to go down to the station,
and he said, if you don't come with me now,
your mum's going to die, and so he basically I
remember being blamed for my mum's murder and if she
wouldn't live that it would probably end up coming back
on me, because that police officer said that if I
didn't go with him, she was going to die, even
though I was across the street at the time, and
(03:43):
I remember just leaving the police station. I remember just
walking out and then them not being able to find
me and then interrogating me afterwards of how I got
out when the front door was unlocked. So that's pretty
much all I remember from Christmas Day.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
You call your if I can. You're build is Darren
to you? You don't call him your dad? Have you
ever called him your dad?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I did growing up as a child, Like early childhood,
I would, but then kind of as I got older,
more preteen, I kind of realized that, no, this is
not how a biological father would act around his children.
So I dropped. I called him dad to his face,
but I kind of dropped that term. And then now
I do not want any associations with him being dad.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
The subsequent days after that day, what do you recall
from that time?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I remember being told that I wasn't allowed to go home,
so to my mum's house. I wasn't allowed to go
back home, and I wasn't allowed my car as that
was part of the crime scene. And then I remember
staying at a lot of my friend's houses, so I'd
swap houses each day, and staying in one jumper and
the same clothes that I was wearing on Christmas Day,
(05:00):
and my hair was still up in the same curly
pigtails that my mum did that morning for I think
close to three days because I just could not bear
to take them out. And then I remember being told
I was allowed to go home and get some stuff
only a couple of days later, and so when I
went home, the whole house was pretty much turned upside down.
It was completely different from what I remember it looking like,
(05:21):
and it was terrifying.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Did you have support with you at that time?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I had my friends and my family, but obviously my
family was also going through everything to do with the
loss of my mum and dealing with coming to terms
with what happened to my mom and looking after my brother.
He needed a lot more support, so I wanted my
brother to have the support, and so I kind of
(05:47):
dealt with everything on my own.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Your brother's younger, Yes, how is he doing now? How's
he going with everything?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
He's doing well. We don't talk much, but that's not
unusual because even grow up, we wouldn't text or call
each other as much, and so it's not uncommon for
us to go long periods of time without talking to
each other.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
After those events and your experience with the justice system,
how would you put that into words? That whole process.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Long and tedious. It was shocking. I knew that at
some point, knowing that we would go to the magistrates
court first until we got a plea, and then that
took ages because it kept getting delayed for even the
most random reasons like oh the paperwork hasn't been filed,
we don't have any money, but like stuff like that.
And then we got we were told that he's most
(06:42):
likely going to plea not guilty for a trial, and
then a couple of weeks later we got we went
to court and we were told that he had lead guilty,
which was a big relief of our shoulders, just knowing
we didn't have to go through the trial. But then
in the Supreme Court it was pretty much the same
thing that it was just delayed, delayed, delayed. And then
(07:04):
one day I remember going into being told, Hey, sentencing
is today. It was a shock to be told that
sentencing was today, but it was very, very exciting to
know that it was almost over. After I think it
was close to Yeah, it was almost three years because
it was right before my birthday. And then the day, yes,
(07:27):
the day after my birthday, I got a call saying
that he had appealed the sentence. So we're still going
through that now.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
My heart's as he, My hearts as he. You wouldn't
be blamed for hiding away and dealing with your own
grief and trauma, but you've turned something truly awful into
helping others. Where does that drive come from?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I think as well, it's hearing a lot of personal
stories from people. So I get stopped a lot after rally,
some vigils, and I get messages on Rachel's voice all
the time from people sharing their stories and I'm so
honored that they are comfortable to share them with me.
And it's pushing for a drive for change.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
You've recently worked on the National Plan to End Violence
against Women and Children, guarding the response to domestic abuse
and helping to ensure the safety of those affected in
the future. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I got a message from a friend who was asked
to help out and read through it, and so she
gave me kind of some questions about what could be
done to change it up because some of the wording
in the plan wasn't right. I provided my own understanding
from surviving domestic violence and family violence and gave a
(08:44):
survivor voice.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You're being nominated for Young Australia of the Year for
Tazi YEP and most recently you took out the Tasmanian
Young Achiever of the Year awards. How does that make
you feel. I'm sure you've got very mixed emotions there.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It was an honor to be nominated and especially to
win the Premieres Young Achiever of the Year for Tasmania.
I wasn't expecting that. Simon, who was presenting the award,
was kind of talking about the person beforehand and he
was like, they are courageous and they are brave, and
I was squatting down the front because there wasn't enough
(09:23):
room on the stage for us older fit on there
without kind of going off to the side. I was
looking at all the inspiring people around me, going, this
could be any one of them, because say, the most
incredible people in the world. I was not expecting those
words to be used for about me. It was so
incredible the response that I got. And I knew a
(09:43):
fair few people in the room from one of my
old sports and a couple of friends were there, and
they just all came up to me, and I could
hear cheers from the other end of the room because
it was a massive hole, and so it was really
special to hear that people knew who I was and
what I was doing for Tasmania.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, Rachel's always where do you see that going? Like,
what's your goal or ambition there?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I have a really big project that I'm starting to
work on. I'm just kind of figuring out a few
bits and pieces right now, so I'm hoping that Rachel's
voice will be able to amplify my current plan to
make change in the justice system.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Do you see yourself as a victim or as survivor?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
It's a bit of both. It's kind of hard to
differentiate between the two, but it's who I am. I
don't know who I would be otherwise, because I've had
a lot of people and some friends ask me, hey,
in a different world, like what would you be like,
like what would you want? And I kind of have
to say, well, I don't know what my life would
(10:53):
look like without what I went through and what happened
on Christmas Day.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Christmas Days have been and will come. What do you
do on Christmas Day? I mean, it is a huge
day for everyone, but for you, what do you do
for yourself on Christmas Day?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Christmas Day isn't actually the hardest day you would think
it would be, but it's actually the lead up to Christmas,
seeing all the Christmas stuff in the shops and all
the advertisements on TV and the songs on the radio,
just knowing how big of a lead up there is
to that day. But then on Christmas Day, I always
do stuff that lets me take a moment and just
(11:33):
reflect on what's happened over the past year. And then
me and my friend we often go to a new
beach and have a swim, and then me and another
friend we often spend the day doing a craft and
watching something. So a couple of years ago, me and
Mum were obsessed with the Matilda musical. We never got
to see it, but we saw a couple of school
productions of it. And then in twenty twenty two, on
(11:55):
Christmas Day, the Mathilda the Musical the movie came out,
so me and my friend watched and did a craft
and then the year later we did Lego. So it
was my first ever time really doing a Lego set,
so we decided to go all out and do a Lego.
I had a broken arm that year, which was really
rough doing Lego with a wet cast in one hand,
but you know what, it was a great memory. I
(12:17):
got a really good Lego out of that. And so
just doing things that make me happy and just keep
me busy, Oh what I do?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
My last question was essentially that self care. What do
you do for yourself? How do you navigate that?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
How I do self care and making time for myself
when dealing with grief. Because grief is so prevalent in
my everyday experiences, I often deflect and keep busy, which
is definitely not what you should be doing, but it
works for me, and so I'm often doing what Mum
loved subconsciously I'm often gardening or doing a DIY project
(12:55):
around the house and turning up more colorful and creative.
Or I'm playing my sport so that mum used to
come watch me compete and play in So I'm doing
a lot of things that subconsciously I did with my mum,
and that's kind of how I do self care and
connect to mum.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Thank you so much for being with me. That's okay,
and that's it for iHeart Tassi for this week. If
you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to the
iHeart Tazzi podcast feed on the iHeart app or wherever
you get your podcasts, and if you'd like, you can
leave us a review while you're there. I'm Olivia Hicks.
Thanks for your company. My heart Sasi
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