Daniel Tommerup died 30 years too early when ‘all the hope in his eyes was gone’

Jeff McKinnon and Stephen Avery remember Daniel Tommerup, a rough sleeper in Launceston who died after setting himself alight while cooking. Photograph: Sarah Rhodes/The Guardian

The hope had gone from Daniel Tommerup’s eyes. That’s what Stephen Avery remembers most from the last time he saw his friend alive. Tommerup, 51, had been sleeping rough on the streets of Launceston for years. The bad days were too many to count.

Avery, a street chaplain working with the city’s homeless community, says Tommerup would regularly show up in the morning with black eyes, bruises and cuts, evidence of violence inflicted on him the night before.