EIGHT years ago, Sonia Anderson’s daughter Bianca Faith Girven, 22, was strangled to death by her abusive partner in a Brisbane park.

Since her death, Ms Anderson has been campaigning for support for domestic violence victims, lobbying to change laws and donated thousands of her own dollars and hours to volunteer work.

She’s also desperately tried to come to terms with her daughter’s brutal murder and mend her family’s trauma.
But last week, that healing process came to a screaming halt.

Last Friday, Ms Anderson received a call from Queensland Health’s Victim Support Service informing her there’d been a book written about Bianca’s 2010 murder.

The author, forensic psychiatrist Donald Grant, described the book as a “look inside” the minds of killers — including the man who killed Bianca.

Queensland Health told Ms Anderson it was going to be “harrowing” for her to read because there was information in there she - and they - were unaware of.

“So I went home where I was safe, and then I read it. I skimmed it once and haven’t had the courage to re-read it, it was so traumatising for me,” she said.

Within the Bianca chapter of Dr Grant’s book Killer Instinct were the apparent final words the 22-year-old said as she was being murdered — something Ms Anderson said was withheld from her until she read about it.

At the book launch earlier this week, the bereaved mother confronted Dr Grant, in emotional scenes.

“I read in your book that my daughter wanted to say goodbye to her son and I didn’t know that until you wrote it,” she told him.

“That’s private, you should have come to me, you should have contacted me.

“For eight years, I’ve spent a lot of time with journalists, with television, with newspaper articles and magazines and you the psychiatrist are the one and only person that has caused me and my family deliberate distress.”

In the book, Dr Grant claims Bianca asked to say goodbye to her son before her partner Rhys Austin said, “No, he’ll know” before “tightening his grip”.

Ms Anderson said reading the chapter “took me back to a bad place that I didn’t ever want to go back to. I’ve been very traumatised”.

She also said it had been “excruciatingly horrible” for her family.

Ms Anderson has always wanted to know as much as she could about her daughter’s death and regularly visits a memorial she created at the tree where Bianca died.

But reading about her daughter’s final words in a book that Ms Anderson claims was written “purely for public fodder and for him to line his pockets” put the Queensland mum in a “very black place.

“I had to know. For the first five years after Bianca’s murder, I had a video constantly playing in my head of the horror of what happened to her.

“I wanted to know, I had to and it caused me enormous anguish. I’m a mum so I had to know but [Queensland Health] would not tell me because it had to be kept secret and confidential.

“He’s published it believing he has the right to give it to everyone,” she said.

After Bianca’s death, Austin’s case was transferred to mental health court and he was eventually committed to a mental health facility.

When that happens in Queensland, the level of information families can get about their loved ones’ deaths becomes limited — something that has never sat well with Ms Anderson.

“I can’t think of anyone that hasn’t lost someone to murder that doesn’t want to know how it happened.

“We all want answers and in mental health you don’t get it. We need to look at Queensland Health and figure out how much information a victim’s family is allowed because we must get more than we’re given.”

“The protection for them is astounding. They get everything and we get nothing,” she said.

In a previous statement, Queensland Health described Dr Grant’s book as a “betrayal of patients, victims and their families”.

“They are mortified that this happened,” Ms Anderson said. “They cannot believe that this has occurred with one of their doctors.”

Queensland Health has asked the Crime and Corruption Commission to consider whether Dr Grant engaged in “potential corrupt conduct”.

Queensland Health and Ms Anderson have also put in separate complaints to the Health Ombudsman.

The Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists also said it was “currently reviewing the matter internally”.

Almost immediately after Dr Grant was confronted at his launch, he held a press conference declaring some of the profit would go towards supporting victims families.

In a statement to The Australian, Dr Grant said he was “offering my expertise to help create a road map for victims of serious crime to access relevant reports”.

“I will donate a proportion of my author royalties from Killer Instinct to help support victims’ families to access information from trials and judgments. If my modest contribution can enhance their work I will be satisfied.”

But despite that, Ms Anderson said it’s too little too late.

“I want it stopped and to be taken out of publication.

“If he had of come to me, I might’ve even agreed and endorsed it but he has had no respect for a single person, no empathy at all.

“He’s retraumatised 10 families and caused them excruciating pain.”

Attempts were made to contact Dr Grant and Melbourne University Press.