Category Archives: Domestic violence

Australian science prize awarded to researcher studying memory accuracy of domestic violence survivors

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Helen Paterson’s work on advancing how police and courts understand memory is recognised in prestigious Eureka prizes

Memory is an imperfect thing: research shows that recollections of single events – a purse being snatched, say – differ to those about repeated or ongoing events, such as incidents of domestic and family violence.

“What our research shows is that compared to a single-event witness, a repeated-event witness tends to report more gist-like details, the overall details of what typically would happen, and the things that remain constant between the episodes,” said Helen Paterson, an associate professor in forensic psychology at the University of Sydney.

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Man who murdered Molly Ticehurst unlikely to face life in jail, court hears

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Justice Natalie Adams says she is troubled by expert evidence about rape allegations in slain woman’s police statement

Molly Ticehurst’s ex-boyfriend is unlikely to face a life sentence for her domestic violence murder, a crime which galvanised a national movement against gendered abuse.

Ticehurst, a 28-year-old childcare educator, was found dead in her home at Forbes, in the New South Wales central-west, in the early hours of 22 April 2024.

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Survivors of violent crime criticise MoJ for not explaining offender restriction zones

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Campaigners accuse ministers of trying to grab headlines with announcement before a working system is ready

Survivors of violent crime and families of victims have criticised the UK government for announcing “world first” plans to introduce restriction zones for serious offenders freed from prison within a few weeks without spelling out how they would work.

Key campaigners who have championed the idea of the zones, designed to “lock” offenders into specific areas, accused the government of seeking to grab headlines rather than providing the detail that would reassure survivors and families.

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Abusers coercing or duping women to post explicit OnlyFans content, UK court cases reveal

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Separate criminal convictions come as domestic violence charities warn of tech-facilitated abuse and coercion

Two men have been convicted this week in separate criminal cases that revealed they had posted explicit content on OnlyFans without the full consent of the women whose images were uploaded.

In the first case, Alexander Tang, 37, took and uploaded 47 intimate images and four videos of a woman to OnlyFans without her consent, and was paid money for the material he posted to the website.

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Abusers coercing or duping women to post explicit OnlyFans content, UK court cases reveal

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Separate criminal convictions come as domestic violence charities warn of tech-facilitated abuse and coercion

Two men have been convicted this week in separate criminal cases that revealed they had posted explicit content on OnlyFans without the full consent of the women whose images were uploaded.

In the first case, Alexander Tang, 37, took and uploaded 47 intimate images and four videos of a woman to OnlyFans without her consent, and was paid money for the material he posted to the website.

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Woman assaulted after Travelodge staff gave room key to her abuser

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Woman had gone to London hotel for ‘night away from the fear’ in latest incident of chain giving keys to men without checking

Travelodge staff gave a room key to the domestic abuser of a woman, who then physically attacked her.

The woman, who is remaining anonymous, told the BBC she was staying in a branch of the hotel in London to escape the man, but he followed her and was given a key by the reception staff.

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Ohio Republican Max Miller faces growing calls to resign over domestic abuse allegations

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Miller calls women accusing him liars as Republican senator Bernie Moreno says former son-in-law unfit for Congress

Max Miller, the beleaguered US Republican representative from Ohio, has vowed to defy a rising groundswell of resignation calls from his own party over domestic abuse allegations after his ex-father-in-law, Bernie Moreno, a GOP senator, said he was unfit to serve in Congress.

In a combative interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Miller turned the tables by attacking Moreno, accused three women – including his ex-wife – of lying by saying he had been violent towards them, and invoked Donald Trump in insisting that he would not resign.

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Pauline Hanson says domestic violence prevents police from dealing with ‘real crime’ in unearthed interview

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One Nation leader labels family violence leave ‘ridiculous’ and decries ‘woke’ support of women’s rights in November podcast

Pauline Hanson has described paid leave for those experiencing family and domestic violence as “ridiculous”, and suggested the issue is taking police away from “real crime”, calling for the family law system to be “wound back”.

In an unearthed interview, the One Nation leader said the advancements of women’s rights in the family law system over the decades had become “broken” because they favoured women and were now “suppressing the males all the time”.

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The Queensland government promised to put victims first. Instead it buried a report from domestic violence survivors

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Exclusive: Report from LNP-convened panel heavily criticises police responses to family violence and calls for civilian oversight

The Queensland government has buried the findings of its own working group of domestic violence victim-survivors, after their report was heavily critical of police responses and called for a “civilian review mechanism” to escalate complaints about police.

The Liberal National government has repeatedly said it would “put victims at the heart” of the state’s justice policies.

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Dowry murders in India no longer spark public anger or debate, study finds

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Thousands of women are killed in dowry disputes each year, despite the practice being banned in 1961

Dowry deaths in India no longer provoke the public anger they once did, despite thousands of women’s lives still being lost every year, according to new research.

The killings – women who are murdered or driven to suicide following dowry disputes between families – have also faded from political debate, despite an increase in cases.

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‘Truly international’ network of drug-facilitated rape uncovered by UK crime agency

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NCA says offenders arrange to sexually assault and film victims via online networks with crimes often taking place in trusting relationships

Criminal investigators in the UK say they have uncovered a “truly international network” of organised drug-facilitated sexual assault in which victims are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted.

The National Crime Agency [NCA] has said online networks, “many as yet unidentified by law enforcement”, were allowing offenders to arrange to rape and abuse victims or arrange for sexual assaults to be filmed.

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Offenders in England and Wales who kill current or ex-partners face 10 more years in prison

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Increase comes after seven-year campaign by mothers of victims for a change in the minimum sentence for domestic murder

Offenders who kill their current or ex-partner face spending an extra 10 years behind bars, with a new minimum sentence of 25 years in England and Wales, under plans announced by David Lammy.

The increase, announced by the justice secretary on Monday, comes after a seven-year campaign by mothers of victims for a change in the minimum sentence for domestic murder.

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Prosecutors in England and Wales expect rise in domestic abuse during World Cup

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CPS urges victims to go to police, saying they will be taken seriously and it ‘won’t hesitate’ to bring abusers to justice

Prosecutors in England and Wales are expecting incidents of domestic abuse to increase during the men’s World Cup, and have urged victims to come forward, saying those responsible “will be held accountable”.

“We often see more domestic abuse cases around major football tournaments like these,” the CPS national stalking lead, Olivia Rose, said. “The point that we want to get across is that those responsible will be held accountable, and that we won’t hesitate to bring them to justice.”

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Pakistan police rescue French woman and children allegedly held captive by husband for 12 years

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Husband arrested after Sylvie Yasmina, 54, and five children found at home in north-western province

Pakistan police say they have rescued a French woman and her five children after she told authorities she had been held captive by her husband for more than a decade and subjected to years of domestic abuse in the country’s north-west.

The woman, identified as 54-year-old Sylvie Yasmina, was rescued earlier this week from a mud-brick home in Bara, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, the district police chief, Waqar Ahmad, said.

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Western Australian police to review response to Virginia Giuffre domestic violence dispute

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Police will investigate how they interacted with Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent victims, after her family requested the review

Police in Western Australia have agreed to review how they interacted with Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, in the lead-up to her death a year ago by suicide.

Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law, Sky and Amanda Roberts, told ABC radio on Wednesday morning that they had written to both the state coroner and the police requesting an investigation into how police handled a domestic violence dispute she was involved in before she took her life on her WA farm last April at age 41.

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UK parliament to debate whether all suicides linked to domestic abuse to be investigated as homicide

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Lib Dems table amendment to crime and policing bill, saying system ‘simply not doing enough to protect women’

Parliament is to debate whether all suicides in cases involving victims of domestic abuse should be investigated as homicide.

The Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to the crime and policing bill saying that if “there is reasonable suspicion that a death by suicide has been preceded by a history of domestic abuse committed against the person by another person, the relevant police force must investigate that suicide as if it were a potential homicide”.

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Man who stabbed four to death in Washington state had history of mental health issues

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Man, 32, shot dead by deputy after stabbing attack was the subject of domestic violence protection orders

A man shot dead by a sheriff’s deputy after he fatally stabbed four people outside his mother’s home near Gig Harbor, Washington, on Tuesday morning was the subject of domestic violence protection orders recording mental health and substance abuse issues stretching back at least five years.

Records reviewed by Associated Press show that the woman living at the address had obtained a 12-month protection order against her 32-year-old son in May. The order noted that he struggled from substance abuse, and had threatened his mother saying that her “grave has been already dug up”.

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Survivor of financial abuse invited to advise ministers after Guardian report

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City minister Lucy Rigby acts after woman faced repossession of house burned down by controlling husband

A woman who was nearly killed by her abusive husband has been invited to advise the government on measures to support victims of financial abuse after the Guardian highlighted her story last weekend.

Francesca Onody was left homeless and penniless when her husband doused their cottage with petrol while she and her two children were inside. Her husband, Malcolm Baker, died when the property exploded.

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Police ‘determined’ to target abusers who drive women to suicide but say they lack of resources

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NPCC lead for domestic abuse says officers dealing with huge caseloads, made worse by justice system backlogs

Police are “determined to do more” to hold to account domestic abusers who drive victims to kill themselves, the National Police Chiefs’ Council has said.

Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe, the NPCC lead for domestic abuse, has said that “more posthumous investigations are taking place”, but that officers struggle with a lack of resources, adding that 20% of all crime relates to domestic abuse in most forces.

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CPS to train staff on ‘spectrum of abuse’ in violence against women and girls

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Five-year strategy aims to improve casework after analysis finds domestic abuse in more than third of rape cases

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will train its staff to recognise the “wide spectrum of abuse” in cases of violence against women, after new data found that domestic abuse was present in more than a third of rape cases, and in more than eight out of 10 cases of stalking and image-based abuse.

Launching its five-year Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy, the body said its main aims were to increase casework quality and increase trust in the CPS.

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