Vicki Cleary Day
SCROLL
'The Vicki Cleary Day Fund'
Funded and supported by
ABOUT vicki
Vicki Cleary was a mere 25 years of age when she was attacked and fatally stabbed by her ex-boyfriend on 26 August 1987. Born on 9 October 1961, Vicki was the first-born daughter of Lorna and Ron Cleary. A trainee kindergarten teacher, Vicki was a much-loved and respected young woman.
At trial, under the now abandoned provocation law, Vicki’s killer was granted the right to plead that Vicki had provoked him to lose control and stab her multiple times. Despite the killer lying in wait for Vick for around an hour and attacking her the moment she began to park her car outside the kinder where she worked in Cameron Street, Coburg, the jury found him guilty only of manslaughter. He was sentenced to three years and eleven months in goal.
It was an astounding trial and verdict, one that would become a catalyst for a major campaign to raise awareness about violence towards women. This campaign ultimately resulted in the abolition of the provocation law in 2005. Vicki’s brother, Phil Cleary, was at the forefront of the campaign to expose the provocation law’s treatment of women. After the trial Phil publicly accused the law and the verdict of reducing Vicki and all women to chattels.
Since her death and the bewildering trial of her killer, Vicki Cleary has become synonymous with the campaign to end violence against women. Vicki’s story featured In Episode 3 of the 2021 SBS documentary ‘See What You Made Me Do’. Phil Cleary describes her as the inspiration behind his anti-violence campaigning.
about us
The first Vicki Cleary football match was held at the Coburg Football Ground in 2017. Due to Covid there were no Vicki Cleary Days in 2020 and 20021, so the match in 2023 will be the fifth Vicki Cleary Day. The purpose of Vicki Cleary Day is to not only honour the women killed by men, but to raise awareness about the extent of violence against women. The Vicki Cleary Day match begins with a line-up of the competing teams and minute’s silence for the women taken. The truth is there is no other such day in the sporting calendar.
There are crucial and important days dedicated to women lost to cancer, but there is no day in Australia, or around the world, named specifically after a woman murdered by a man. However, the day isn’t just dedicated to Vicki. Every pre-match line-up at Coburg has featured families of women murdered by violent men. Standing alongside these families has been the State Minister for Women, representatives from the anti-violence sector and campaigners. As such, the line-up and the minute’s silence is a profound moment in the anti-violence campaign.
Vicki Cleary Day is managed by the Vicki Cleary Day Committee, made up of Phil Cleary, Vicki’s sisters Elizabeth (Lizzie) Cleary and Donna Cleary and Scott Kennedy. Lizzie was only 14 years of age when she lost her best friend and big sister, Vicki, and is engaged in training and volunteer work in the anti-violence sector.
Vicki Cleary Day 2024
Coburg vs Port Melbourne
Sunday 21st July 2024
1 minutes silence 1:45pm
Bounce of the ball - 2pm
Piranha Park
Corner Russell & Harding St. Coburg
the vicki cleary
day fund
Your tax deductible donation that will help so many women.
Vicki Cleary Day is a centrepiece of the anti-violence campaign and a springboard for new initiatives in the community to raise awareness and assist women in need.
Through the Vicki Cleary Day Fund the Vicki Cleary Day Committee will:
-
Promote and sustain Vicki Cleary Day
-
Raise awareness in the community
-
Provide Help and Advice to women in need
-
Maintain the Vicki Cleary Day Website
Promote & sustain
Vicki Cleary Day
The Vicki Cleary Day website is devoted to promoting Vicki Cleary Day in order to ensure that it maintains its place as the pre-eminent anti-violence day in the sporting calendar. Ultimately, we want to reach a point where there is a full house at Vicki Cleary Day matches at Coburg and the day is synonymous with the anti-violence campaign.
The Coburg Football Club, which has two women’s team, with a specific award – The Vicki Cleary Most Courageous Player Award – named after Vicki has been a great partner in the previous four Vicki Cleary days. The Vicki Cleary Day Fund will enable us to build on that partnership and assist the club’s women’s teams, and the gender equity message they promote in the sporting culture.
As a standalone community-based club in the VFL – formerly the VFA – Coburg does not have the corporate infrastructure of its AFL competitors, but its support of the day is something we want to build on.
Phil with Peggy O'Neal (Former RFC President)
Vicki Cleary Day Luncheon 2022
Phil with his sister Lizzie & Carlton star Darcy Vescio at a gender equity, anti-violence forum at Windy Hill
Raise awareness in the community
The Vicki Cleary Day Fund will enable us to engage speakers with lived experience and professional expertise to talk at schools, sporting clubs and businesses.
Complementing this community engagement, we’ll draw on the experience, research and knowledge of former members of the state government’s Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council in accessing the efficacy of current anti-violence strategies and practices. Included among those advisors will be Tarang Chawla, whose sister Nikita was murdered in 2015, and Grace Donato, whose daughter Adriana was murdered in 2012 by a man she’d left nearly a year earlier.
Maintain the Vicki Cleary Day website
Vicki Cleary Day is a centrepiece of the anti-violence campaign and a springboard for new initiatives in the community to raise awareness and assist women in need.
This website will be a major resource in the anti-violence gender equity campaign. It will feature stories, videos, opinions, advice and podcasts about the violence stalking women. On the website we will hear directly from................................
Help & advice to women in need
Below are some agencies available to women in need of help. Please click on the logos below.
Survivors, Campaigners & Families of Women Taken
In the coming weeks and months we’ll hear from women who’ve lost loved ones and those women who’ve survived men’s violence. So too will we hear from women in the sector who want more done to deal with men who harass, coerce and harm women.
In this section of the website we’ll celebrate the achievements of women, now and in the past, and create space for women with lived experience and expertise to share ideas and stories. These shared ideas will be the foundation for a campaign to counter old patriarchal views and rectify the injustices visited upon women. From the sporting world to the courts and the corridors of power we’ll identify and challenge those views we believe are complicit in the violence stalking women.
Lizzie Cleary with big sister Vicki (right)
Adriana with her mother Grace Donato
Nikita & Tarang Chawla
Cleary Independent
Women talk with Phil about their experience of men's violence
In this episode Grace Donato talks with Phil Cleary about losing her daughter Adriana and her campaigning
Coming soon:
-
Tarang Chawla, whose sister Nikita was murdered in 2015, talks about the way forward
-
Lizzie Cleary remembers her sister Vicki
Partners
The Vicki Cleary Day Committee wishes to thank the state government for its support of the first five Vicki Cleary Days. It also wishes to thank Mary Crooks and the Victorian Women’s Trust for its support of the day in 2022/2023.
However, for the day to continue into the future, and if we are able to build on the anti-violence campaign and support women seeking help we need to raise funds. Every donation will help sustain Vicki Cleary Day and the campaign.
If you would like to partner with Vicki Cleary Day please contact us via info@vickiclearyday.com.au
