Having murdered an ex-lover, hockey coach Paul Thijssens went to a clifftop and clutched a handmade memento from another woman who dared to dump him, a court has heard.

The inquest into the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old sports assistant bludgeoned to death by Thijssens on the grounds of a Sydney private school, is examining the Dutchman’s history of stalking and controlling behaviour before the attack in October 2023.

The inquest, which will resume on Wednesday, has already heard that Thijssens previously dated an 18-year-old Sydney woman for eight months in 2021.

The relationship’s initial signs were positive, with the woman – known as Freya – giving him a bundle of handmade vouchers before an anniversary and her parents noting Thijssens was a polite, friendly and respectful man.

But their concerns grew as Thijssens began to check up on the teenager and got “annoyed if she did not answer straight away”.

He had earlier pressured her to share her iPhone and Snapchat location.

He asked her to marry him, having earlier been warned by Freya she would not have sex with him before marriage.

In evidence to the inquest, Freya described the increasingly strained relationship as suffocating and said she “felt Paul was trying to pressure … and control” her. This was despite Thijssens being based in the Netherlands in late 2021.

The woman recalled her parents “lost it” when Thijssens suggested she travel to the Netherlands or meet him in Singapore.

She tried to end the relationship in December, causing Thijssen to immediately apply for a work-holiday visa with fraudulent documents. He turned up unannounced at her church that Sunday.

On being told the relationship was over, he punched a tree next to Freya’s head.

“I can’t punch the one thing I want to,” he said.

Thijssen was later seen twice outside Freya’s home, including early one morning when she got a glass of water, looked out a kitchen window and saw his face.

He appeared remorseful in a meeting with Freya’s father, counsel assisting the coroner Jennifer Single SC said. There was no further contact after that.

But Single underlined the relationship’s apparent importance to Thijssen, who took the handmade vouchers to the spot where he killed himself in Sydney’s eastern suburbs after murdering James.

“Paul still had these vouchers two years after his relationship with Freya,” she told the inquest on Tuesday.

“The fact they were found 10 metres away from his backpack (which was left at the clifftop) leads to an inference he was looking at them before his death.

“We submit these held special significance for him.”

The inquest has been told how Thijssen stalked James for days before he murdered her in a “calculated, premeditated” attack at the school where they both worked.

Domestic violence experts will give evidence on Wednesday or Thursday.

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-AAP