This article contains details of domestic violence and injury. Some readers may find this content distressing. Reader discretion is advised.
Back in January, Destiny Otton-Rakuraku was loving life.
She was happily single, raising her two teenage sons in Brisbane and about to start her dream job. Even better, her best friend from her Manurewa school days was visiting.
That perfect life changed with the flick of a lighter.
Brisbane police say Destiny’s ex-partner doused her in petrol and set her alight in her own home.
The horrific attack 10 months ago left Destiny fighting for her life and then facing a gruelling rehabilitation regime for third-degree burns covering almost half her body.
“I sometimes felt it was easier if I just didn’t survive. I wouldn’t have struggled with mobility, mental health, if I just didn’t survive. My whole life changed.”
Hers wasn’t the only life irrevocably altered.
Destiny’s empty-nester parents were about to fly to Perth for their own adventure. Instead mum Alison Rakuraku has had to quit her council job to become her daughter’s fulltime carer.
She kneels beside her daughter and warms her hands with a waxy cream before she starts the daily ritual of massaging Destiny’s neck and shoulders.
Alison shares “Sometimes it hurts. I hate touching her skin. It’s just ugly.”
Because touching her daughter’s gnarled and heavily scarred skin is a constant reminder of the trauma the Rakuraku whānau have endured over the past ten months.
The sudden brutal burn attack has left Destiny Otton-Rakuraku totally dependent on her parents for the simplest of tasks - even getting dressed. Each obstacle, a reminder of that January morning.
Destiny and her former partner met four years ago through a mutual friend. But an initially happy relationship became increasingly toxic.
“Things were getting uglier and uglier. No trust. Especially with him working away in the mines, ‘cause while he was away he would ring me and always nut out. ‘Where are you? What are you doing?’”
The couple split in October 2024 - a separation she believed was mutual and civil. So in January, when he had nowhere to live, she let him temporarily move in downstairs.
She was having a morning cuppa on the deck with her best friend Emma Nygen-Veza when he stormed up the stairs, petrol can in hand.
Destiny recalls “That’s all I have embedded in my head. Like just that face, the eyes. It wasn’t human, there was just so much anger and hate. Like someone on a mission.”
Emma Nygen-Veza tried to stop him. “He grabbed her by the neck and was pouring all the... it was a massive like five litre gas can all over her and I was trying to stop him, so the liquid was getting everywhere. As soon as he done that he just grabbed the lighter and flicked it, and she was all in flames.”
Whānau from across New Zealand and Australia gathered at Destiny’s hospital bedside as she spent 11 days in critical condition in ICU.
After months of surgeries and rehabilitation, she is gradually making a remarkable recovery learning to talk and walk again.
Recovery for burn victims is complicated. Scar tissue constantly shifts, affecting Destiny’s muscles and ligaments. Her immunity is compromised, she’s prone to infections, can’t regulate her body temperature and in constant pain.
On top of that, she’s still coming to terms with the disfiguration of her body.
“Humans are curious. They want to ask, ‘What happened? What’s wrong with you? Did you hurt yourself?’. And then I’m like, ’No. You know, my ex-partner poured petrol on me and lit me on fire.’ And I have to be blunt, because if I’m not blunt, I’m just gonna cry.”
A 2024 study by the Australian & New Zealand Burn Association (ANZBA) describes burn attacks from domestic violence-related incidents as a “hidden crisis”. The research shows that these assaults are often more severe and life-altering than accidental burns and are hugely under-reported.
University of Queensland criminal law lecturer, Dr Joseph Lelliott has looked at the prevalence of threats of fire in cases of domestic violence and says evidence shows the most dangerous time in a violent relationship is when a partner decides to leave.
“We certainly found in our research that more serious threats and the use of fire was often linked to that loss of control. They know that they are losing that control over the victim. So they take an approach where it’s sort of well if ‘I can’t have it then neither can you.’”
Destiny’s former relationship has many of the hallmarks of coercive control.
She remembers, “I knew it was wrong, I just made excuses. There was a pattern. It was always when I had plans to do something. Never ever did I think I’d be on the news as another DV victim.”
Destiny’s learning to live with being physically and financially dependent on her whānau, knowing she can’t be the mother she once was to her sons.
“I can’t be a mum. That’s the hardest part for me. I’ve always been a single mum, my kids have never missed out on anything. I worked hard so we could live our best life, and I can’t do it anymore.”
It’ll be a long time before she’ll be able to work again, with the hospital now her second home.
Hospital appointments at least three times a week, along with regular physio and gym sessions to give her strength and help loosen her skin, are her full-time job.
Destiny’s whānau are by her side through it all.
“So much love and support. So it makes me keep going”.
Destiny’s whānau has set up a Gofundme page for her road to recovery, which has currently raised over $12,000 NZD.
Helplines
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
Safe to talk Helpline: 0800 800334 (24/7)
Family Violence Information Line Helpline: 0800 456 450 (9am-11pm every day)
Women’s Refuge Crisis line: 0800 733 843 (24 hours)
