Law week 2012 hypothetical part 2 of 7

Transcript

[Law Week Hypothetical 2012]
[Continues from part 1]

>> Kay McGrath: Okay, but let's go back to our scenario now, with Sam and Jacob.

Last month, apparently Samantha's school friend Adrian called to try and arrange a catch up. He hadn't seen Samantha for a long time.

Well, Jacob flew into a rage when Samantha got off the phone and accused her of cheating on him with Adrian. So he slapped Samantha's face and said in a threatening way that she would pay if she ever cheated on him.

So we've moved up now and this abuse has become physical.

Samantha is so shocked she bursts into tears. Jacob, true to form, immediately apologises and begs for her forgiveness, saying he had a rough day at work and nothing like this would ever happen again.

Well, now feeling deeply worried about Jacob's behaviour, Samantha confides in a friend and the friend suggests that perhaps it is time to contact the police; let them know what's going on.

But Samantha doesn't feel right about that.

She doesn't want to lose Jacob as her boyfriend, she can't afford to pay the rent on her own and to pay all the bills and possibly the thought of looking after Lucas on her own is a bit overwhelming.

So Samantha is clearly now in an unsafe domestic violence situation but she doesn't want to go to the police and report Jacob's behaviour.

So she's feeling very trapped. Let's go to Fionna Fairbrother from Legal Aid Queensland.

Fionna, why is it that some women who are indeed, experiencing this type of domestic violence are so reluctant to go to the police and report it?

>> Fionna Fairbrother: A lot of them are quite isolated so in this instance Jacob may have meant that she's not able to talk to family, so she feels quite alone.

They're fearful that if they actually do make any complaints what might be the ramifications from that. Things might become worse. They also still care for the partner, they're the father of the child, so that's an important relationship.

They feel guilty also; if they were to leave that would mean that the child may not have a relationship with the father.

As you've said before, it is about the practical things as well. They might not know who to go to. They might feel the police won't believe what they say so they might feel a bit judged as well, because a lot of times this happens behind closed doors.

Quite often he may well be saying to her no one's going to believe you, you have no evidence and so that's a real problem for women.

>> Kay McGrath: I understand a lot of women also blame themselves. You know, maybe if I'd done something differently, if I didn't nag so much or whatever. Is that common?

>> Fionna Fairbrother: Yes. It is quite common, especially he might say it's because you haven't done that properly, that if you'd only done that then I wouldn't have behaved this way, which is not at all true.

Even worse is when women may be from another culture so they might believe, in their culture, that it's actually appropriate, that the behaviour's okay. In Australia, as we've said, it's not appropriate behaviour.

Sometimes they may not speak English so a lot of the information out there is not accessible to people from other non-English speaking backgrounds. So it is a real barrier for them.

There's also women who may have intellectual disability or mental health that may not feel that anybody would believe them.

>> Kay McGrath: Thank you Fionna.

I'd like to go into the audience now and ask some of these ladies along - I'm bearing down on you here; they're starting to squirm already and I'm going for you.

Can I ask your name? [question directed to audience member]

>> Brooke: I'm Brooke.

>> Kay McGrath: Brooke. Do you want to stand up for a second, Brooke?

What do you think Samantha should do? If you were her friend, what advice would you give her?

>> Brooke: That she needs to talk to someone and though it would be scary going to the police, that maybe talking to her family might give her more comfort and then more confidence to go in the long run.

>> Kay McGrath: So she should take some sort of action; she should do something?

>> Brooke: Yes.

>> Kay McGrath: For her own sake and her child's?

>> Brooke: Yes because it's unstable for the kid to be experiencing it as well.

>> Kay McGrath: Would you agree with that, young lady? What's your name? [question directed to audience member]

>> Lucy: Lucy.

>> Kay McGrath: Lucy, would you like to stand up, Lucy? What advice would you give to Samantha, Lucy?

>> Lucy: I'd tell her to get away, like probably try to find some way to take her and her son away from that situation completely so she's not in danger and then to go to the police so that they can stop him and make that home safe again.

>> Kay McGrath: It's a bit daunting though. What if Samantha didn't have family to go to? I mean that's a problem too, isn't it?

>> Lucy: Yeah I guess that would be really hard, but again, friends are a good place to go as well. Co-workers or something, someone who you really trust.

>> Kay McGrath: Right. Thank you Lucy and thank you Brooke.

Let's go over and nail some young men over here.

You've got a lovely smile, young man, I've noticed it. What's your name? [question directed to audience member] [audience laughs]

>> Shane: I'm Shane.

>> Kay McGrath: Shane, how do you do? Would you like to stand up? What advice would you give Samantha?

>> Shane: Yeah I'd get away straight away. I'd just leave. She's obviously not doing good there, her son's in trouble so you don't want to keep him around. Police can help you. If you don't have any friends and family there's other people that can help you. Just, it's pretty sad.

>> Kay McGrath: Heather, can we put you on the spot and ask you to talk about the myths that do surround domestic violence?

What's real, what's not real?

>> Heather Nancarrow: Look, I'd like to start with the one that I mentioned earlier about the myth that women and men equally perpetrate domestic violence. The reason I want to start with that one is because in 2005 the Australian Government conducted a national community attitude survey and repeated that in 2009. We see that there's an increase in the number of Australians, and particularly men, who believe that men and women equally perpetrate domestic violence.

So we're actually going backwards in terms of that particular issue. Not generally in terms of attitudes across the Australian public but on that particular issue, there seems to be an increase in the Australian public, and particularly Australian men, who believe that men and women equally perpetrate domestic violence.

Now there is some research that shows that men and women equally use physical acts of violence in terms of a conflict - in order to resolve a conflict. That research is showing the way in which some couples resolve conflict and it's incident based conflict. It's not the kind of coercive, controlling domestic violence that we're talking about and the research that does focus on the motives, the impacts and the consequences of violence clearly show that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of that kind of violence.

Further, it's women, even in the conflict kind of scenario that isn't coercive, controlling behaviour but where injuries are caused, whether it's couple conflict or whether it's coercive, controlling violence, it's women who are overwhelmingly the ones that suffer physical and psychological harm and homicide.

So it's very clear from the research that when we're talking about coercive controlling, this ongoing pattern, this cluster of behaviours that are about controlling the life in general of another person, rather than controlling an individual, specific, isolated incident, it's predominantly men perpetrating violence against women.

>> Kay McGrath: What about class, Heather? Is it restrictive...

>> Heather Nancarrow: Look, there's a general perception that domestic violence happens in lower socio-economic groups or in particular, cultural groups. There is research that suggests that some groups of people are at more risk of domestic violence than others but it certainly does occur across all socio-economic and cultural groups.

So nobody is completely not at risk of violence. There's a potential for anyone entering into an intimate partner relationship to experience that if they're partnering somebody whose values about gender relationships are not as they should be. It comes down to equality between men and women in relationships and the way that those relationships are perceived.

I think it's important to say, though, that domestic violence isn't caused by any one single thing.

So while structural inequality and gender inequality is certainly a major contributor, we know that not all men perpetrate violence against their female partners, therefore it can't be explained entirely by that structural inequality.

There are other factors operating at individual level, family level and community level, as well as that broader social structure that interact in the lives of an individual person, individual couple, that contribute to this kind of coercive controlling behaviour.

>> Kay McGrath: Can I ask to just to speak briefly to the myth that a lot of women bring it on. They deserve it, they've been nagging you know, they've been pushing buttons.

>> Heather Nancarrow: Yes that, indeed, is another myth, that women provoke it.

This kind of violence, this kind of coercive controlling domination and control pattern, women who experience this form of violence speak about the lengths that they go to in order to avoid the next physical or verbal assault. They don't know when it's going to strike and they talk about walking on eggshells. They do everything that they can to avoid that next assault.

Women have reported being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and being beaten up, standing at the sink washing the dishes and suddenly there's an attack.

Ultimately it's not about what the victim does or does not do, it's about what the perpetrator of the violence - this coercive, controlling partner - it's about his action and his decision or his sense that this is his right to dominate and control his partner.

So it doesn't matter what she does, it's about what he does.

[Part 2 ends - continues in part 3]

Last updated 30 October 2015