- Read our full feature examining domestic violence in Australia here.
- Worst time of my life: Rosie Batty leads the charge for change on domestic violence.
- He almost killed me: Migrants left trapped in domestic violence
- Budget cuts hurting domestic violence victims, Senator says
Survivors such as Rosie Batty have called for reforms of the court system to protect domestic violence victims.
Ms Batty’s son Luke was killed in February by his father Greg Anderson at Tyabb cricket ground, south east of Melbourne.
Ms Batty told SBS that she had taken out an intervention order against her 54-year-old former partner 18 months before the murder, but there had been insufficient monitoring by authorities.
Listen: Stephanie Anderson speaks with Rosie Batty.
“All the onus was on me,” she said.
“The onus was on me to take out intervention orders, have those variations to the orders put through, keep Luke safe.
“You are a five foot three woman doing the best she can and really that’s it. You’ve got a little piece of paper that you’ve battled to get that everyone hopes keeps you safe.”
Ms Batty faced a coronial inquest into her son’s death yesterday, examining what Victoria Police and the Department of Human Services could have done to prevent Luke’s death.
She told the inquest that it had occurred to her to call the police when she saw Anderson at the cricket oval on the night of Luke's death, but she decided not to.
She said she had previously had unpleasant situations trying to get the police involved at the cricket club.
Speaking to SBS, Ms Batty said she hoped the enquiry would result in greater perpetrator accountability and a more consistent approach to those breaching intervention orders.
“An intervention order is only effective if someone is going to abide by it,” she said.
“…It was the worst time of my life. The worst time of my life, because he wasn't in a fixed address or the police couldn’t locate him. They couldn’t serve papers on him, so I had to help them do their job and push them to try to find him, tip them off about where he would be.”
‘It’s like navigating a minefield in a warzone’
Ms Batty is also calling for greater cooperation between authorities and agencies working with domestic violence victims.
She said her experience with the numerous groups was “like navigating a minefield in a warzone”.
“There are about five organisations – including child protection, police, corrections, family violence services and the court system – who all work in silos, who really don’t have that sharing of information and working in a proactive way,” she said.
The need for greater cooperation between agencies was highlighted by the NSW Auditor General in 2011 and is being requested from agencies behind the push for a national register of intervention and domestic violence orders.
Domestic Violence Crisis Service executive director Mirjana Wilson said the ongoing lack of national register meant women moving interstate were forced to undergo a second court process to register their order.
The head of the Canberra-based service said the differences between states had produced a system which discourages victims.
“We’ve still got a system very much where both criminally and civilly, the jurisdictions manage this quite differently, which can be quite difficult for women,” she said.
“… The onus is on the victim to do all of that. What we’ve been talking about for the past couple of years is the capacity to get a national register, so once you’re granted an order, there is a register.”
Ms Wilson said authorities often rely on the victim to report breaches, despite legal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s that strengthened police powers.
“For victims of domestic violence, they have to be active in the criminal justice system,” she said.
“Any of these systems are only as good as the victim engaging in them… If they don’t report the breaches, then the order is considered to be a piece of paper really at the point.”
Ms Wilson said the court experience could also be confronting to victims, who were left in “a little bit of a holding zone” by a process which could drag out past the usual three month period.
“People get dragged into what they see on television,” she said.
“In a one hour show, we’ve seen the whole thing play out in front of our eyes, but the reality is it’s something that can take many, many months to be resolved and you as the victim are going to be on a roller-coaster ride during that time.”
‘The victim is treated like they’re the ones that have done wrong’
Support for women going through the court process is necessary, Ms Wilson says, a point emphasised in a 2006 report by the NSW Ombudsman.
The report – titled “Domestic Violence: improving police practise” - called for enhanced support for victims of domestic violence, focussing on concerns such as a lack of safe rooms in courthouses and staffing gaps.
NSW Ombudsman Bruce Barbour said reform was needed to create an effective system.
“In many of these high-need and high-risk locations, there are outstanding individuals working hard to achieve effective results,” he said.
“Yet too often they, and the families they assist, are let down by ineffective or inadequately resourced systems and supports.”
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