Murderer and serial rapist Adrian Bayley displayed telltale signs of having experienced family violence and being at risk of repeating this behaviour years before he started offending, a royal commission has heard.
But with these signs missed, Bayley's high profile case underlines the importance of intervening when young people are a high risk of becoming violent, a family therapist has told Victoria's royal commission into family violence.
"There was obvious evidence before he started to commit offences about having a father who was violent, coming from a broken home, all sorts of indicators that probably would have been fairly obvious to quite a few professionals, but nothing was picked up," Wendy Bunston said on Wednesday.
While not all offenders have a history of violence, those who do are more likely to show signs they have trouble forming healthy relationships or interacting with others, she said.
"People who have worked with kids would say you can see a bit of lineage here," Ms Bunston said.
"It doesn't just happen in isolation."
Researchers, clinicians and social workers all told the commission that helping young people understand violent family relationships can prevent them from resorting to violence as adults.
Demonising violent parents and ignoring the deep-rooted causes of their behaviour also puts children at risk and prolongs the cycle of family violence, the experts say.
"As a society we are crap at looking after kids. We are very adult-centric ... we leave children in horrendous situations all the time," Ms Bunston said.
Not enough fathers are being included in family violence support services, or if they were, they were demonised as men who seek to dominate women, the commission was told.
"I think it infects people's thinking so that they don't notice the complexity of what's in front of them," University of Newcastle lecturer Richard Fletcher said.
If society wants to help children at risk, they need to pay more attention to their attachment to both parents, he says.
"We should work with fathers if we want to do anything about the problem," Dr Fletcher said.
Ms Bunston says children generally want their dads involved in their lives, but the family violence sector doesn't reflect this.
"I don't think it's being done well," she said.
The public hearing continues.
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