Category Archives: Domestic violence

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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‘Dangerous and undermines our systems’: Tanya Plibersek condemns serious police failures in Queensland DV deaths

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Plibersek said those victims – Hannah Clarke and her children, Kardell Lomas and her unborn child, and Gail Karran – ‘should have been kept safe’

The federal social services minister, Tanya Plibersek, says Guardian Australia’s “devastating” revelations of failures to protect women fleeing violence must prompt action from governments “at every level”.

Broken Trust, a two-year Guardian investigation, uncovered evidence and allegations of serious police and support service failures in multiple domestic violence homicides in Queensland.

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Statistically, there’s a reliable way to predict a domestic violence homicide like Hannah Clarke’s

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Queensland researchers studying intimate-partner killings found one thing common to more than half the cases

When researchers in Queensland catalogued data from seven years of intimate-partner killings, they found one thing common to more than half of those cases – a victim’s own sense of fear about their impending death.

Statistically, the most reliable way to predict a domestic violence homicide is to believe the victim.

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Bar Council calls for legal aid for all family court cases involving domestic abuse

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Only 15% of families are eligible for legal aid which has led to huge swathes of UK becoming ‘legal advice deserts’, body says

The Bar Council has called for all family court cases involving domestic abuse to be brought within the scope of legal aid for both parties, and for means testing to be scrapped for alleged victims and survivors of domestic abuse.

In a new policy paper, the body, which represents all 18,000 barristers in England and Wales, has set out a package of recommendations to improve the ability of the family justice system.

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Man charged with murder after woman’s body found in NSW’s Hunter Valley

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Arrest of 37-year-old after emergency services called to Kearsley home on Friday night

A 37-year-old man faces murder charges after a woman’s body was found with a gunshot wound in the Hunter Valley region on Saturday night.

A sawn-off shotgun and ammunition were allegedly found in the man’s car when New South Wales police took him into custody.

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Hannah McGuire’s mother tells murderer she hopes he suffers ‘most intense pain imaginable’ for life

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Family members of young woman strangled to death by her former boyfriend in her own home have confronted killer Lachlan Young in court

A mother has confronted her daughter’s killer in court, saying she will never forgive him for taking away her vibrant and courageous girl.

Lachlan Young, 23, did not look at Hannah McGuire’s mother, Debbie McGuire, as she read her statement in the Victorian supreme court on Monday.

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Majority of family court cases in England and Wales feature domestic abuse, watchdog says

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Commissioner’s review found 87% of cases uncovered physical, psychological or sexual abuse of a family member

Nearly 90% of cases before the family courts in England and Wales show evidence of domestic abuse, a watchdog has disclosed.

Physical, psychological or sexual abuse of a member of the family or household was uncovered in 87% of cases, according to a review ordered by the domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs.

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Victorian coroner calls out family violence failures after husband ambushes wife with hatchet

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‘It is critical that specialist family violence services make contact and offer support to people who use violence in a timely manner,’ coroner says

Family violence services are regularly failing to contact offenders who have been referred to them for support, a Victorian coroner investigating the death of a woman who was murdered by her estranged husband has found.

The coroner, John Cain, also found that more research should be done into “fixated threat” family violence murderers, given risk assessment tools used by police were largely inadequate in predicting homicides.

In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 988 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

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Queensland police charged woman with driving offences while she was fleeing domestic violence

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Magistrate throws out case against woman, saying she had been trying to escape an ‘extraordinary emergency’

A Queensland court has thrown out the police case against a woman who was charged with driving offences while fleeing domestic violence with her dog.

The Gympie magistrates court accepted the unchallenged evidence of the woman – referred to as ESC – that she drove while disqualified after her violent partner threatened to kill her dog.

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In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org

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