An uncomfortable truth: police already know about many offenders who murder women
Guardian Australia has asked every police jurisdiction how it assesses risk in family violence offenders to get a better understanding of how the system should work
Paul McDonough was released from custody and went straight home to beat his partner to death. Henry Shepherdson killed his child after gaining access despite repeatedly breaching family violence orders. Kumanjayi Dixon had 47 recorded police incidents involving his relationship with his partner but was free to set her alight.
Amid an ongoing national reckoning about family violence deaths and the men responsible, an uncomfortable truth emerges: that police already knew about many of these offenders but either failed to understand – or failed to act on – the risk they posed.
The three cases above all occurred in the past five years in different Australian states and territories. There are more.
A man killed his partner within months of being jailed for family violence offences after police failed to warn victims their abuser had been released. Another killed his former wife only days before she was due to give evidence in a rape case against him. A woman killed herself after abuse by a former partner, who also abused five other previous spouses.
A critical gap
Guardian Australia asked every police jurisdiction in Australia how it assesses risk in family violence offenders to get a better understanding of how the system should work.
The results were mixed; some have specific schemes for alerting victims that their abusers will be released from prison, others do not. Most have some form of specialist unit tasked with policing high-risk offenders, but how an abuser finds themselves classified in this way varies.
Even the best systems fail with human error. In the case of Shepherdson, a South Australian police officer told the inquest they would have assessed him as high rather than medium risk if they had “scrolled down” to read all of an initial referral.
It is difficult to assess how effective the risk assessment tools used by police are. Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (Anrows) confirmed there was no specific evidence on police practices across states and territories.
It also said that a significant number of offenders were still not being identified, meaning that it was not just risk assessment, but risk identification, that police and frontline services should improve.
“Our research shows that high-risk perpetrators of intimate partner homicide don’t always stand out – some are well known to police, while others remain almost invisible,” said Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine, the Anrows chief executive.
“Forty per cent of cases involved persistent and disorderly offenders, whose violence was highly visible across police, child protection and health services. But 33% of perpetrators operated under the radar, using coercive control without physical violence, making them much harder to detect.
“This highlights a critical gap – police and frontline services must expand how they identify and monitor high-risk offenders, especially those using coercive control, to prevent the worst outcomes.”
Anrows lists 10 “lethality/high risk factors” in its national risk assessment principles: a history of family violence, actual or pending separation, sexual violence, non-lethal strangulation/choking, stalking, threats to kill, access to and use of weapons, escalation in frequency and/or severity, coercive control, and pregnancy and new birth.
A national first
In 2016 Victoria police unveiled what was then a national first: a unit dedicated to the highest risk family violence offenders.
It was based on a model developed in Scotland that was considered to have revolutionised the policing of family violence by investigating domestic abuse with the same rigour and intensity as homicide.
There was no shortage of work: in the decade before it formed, more than 15,000 people in the state had been charged with family violence offences relating to three or more different victims. About 3,500 of these offenders had more than four victims, and 20 were charged in relation to more than 10 victims.
The taskforce still exists but has evolved from only carrying out its own investigations to assisting about 30 teams across the state with managing high-risk offenders in their regions.
The understanding of risk has evolved too, Det Sen Sgt Steve Higgins from the family violence command taskforce says, including about behaviour such as coercive control that does not include physical violence.
“Back in 2016, there wasn’t the broader community understanding or Victoria police understanding … it was all focused on physical injuries, things like that we were looking for, black eye, broken arm, threat to kill, things that were obvious evidence, rather than family violence behaviours that in isolation weren’t a factor,” Higgins said in an interview with Guardian Australia in October.
“All the research is that coercive control … is far more damaging than physical injuries, and is lifelong for many of the victims.
“And it puts them at more significant risk, because they’re being intimidated, isolated, regulated, during the course of a relationship, which puts them in danger, because there’s a consequence for all their actions.”
While the taskforce has handed most of its responsibilities for high-risk offenders to regional units, in a move that Higgins believes has strengthened understanding across the state of how to manage the worst abusers, it still conducts some investigations.
One case led to the prosecution of a man for offences against four women between 2010 and 2018, including his 15-year-old daughter.
He told her to take photos of herself holding a handgun to send to her boyfriend, repeatedly hit her, damaging her teeth, breached a court order taken out by a previous partner by calling her more than 100 times, and bit another former partner on the face.
He was sentenced in October to a non-parole period of three years and six months.
There are many other cases, however, where repeat offenders kill, despite police knowing the risk they pose.
No simple solution
The simple solution – locking more potential serious threats up – is not so straightforward. There are nowhere near enough prison beds, for a start.
In Victoria police were called to a record number of family violence incidents last year, with one offence recorded less than every six minutes.
“Family incidents have reached their highest levels ever in Victoria, exceeding 100,000 in a year for the first time,” Fiona Dowsley, the chief statistician at the state’s Crime Statistics Agency, said in December.
“There have been increases in incidents involving serious assaults, particularly aggravated assaults against females and threats of serious injury.”
Police say it is difficult to use these statistics as a measure of their effectiveness, but it does provide an indication of demand.
This is because family violence remains underreported, so an increase in recorded offences can be considered as a clearer picture of the issue revealing itself, rather than necessarily indicating an increase in actual offending.
It also stands to reason that if police are responding to the issue more effectively, then that could result in an increase in recorded offences.
The cases mentioned at the beginning of this story were from across Australia. While the brutalisation of women and children is not confined to any particular state or territory, how those serious offenders are handled depends entirely on where the violence occurs.
Higgins says Victoria police are increasingly working with interstate counterparts to track offenders.
The Northern Territory government is considering a slew of recommendations after an inquest into the family violence deaths of Aboriginal women, though there are concerns youth crime in the territory is a more pressing focus of police.
In South Australia the state’s deputy coroner is expected to hand down findings later this year about the death of nine-month-old Kobi Shepherdson at the hands of his father, Henry.
The response to tragic family violence deaths is often a tightening of the conditions under which a known offender can be released on bail.
Bail with a focus on rehabilitation
In New South Wales the state’s remand population – people who have been charged and refused bail but have not yet been convicted – reached its highest on record in June 2024. It has remained stable since.
This increase has been driven by alleged domestic violence offenders, according to figures released by the state’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
In September 2024 alleged domestic violence offenders made up a third of the 5,643 people on remand. Locking up those DV offenders cost the state more than $500,000 a day, according to corrective service figures on daily incarceration costs.
Experts suspect more people will be placed on remand in the wake of the Minns government’s reform to the bail system. The changes see those charged with coercive control or serious domestic violence offences – those that have a maximum penalty of 14 or more years in jail – are either held on remand or electronically monitored.
This includes offences such as sexual assault, strangulation and kidnapping but doesn’t include other offences such as reckless assault occasioning grievous bodily harm which carries a 10-year maximum penalty.
The new laws came after the death of 28-year-old Molly Ticehurst. Her former partner Daniel Billings has been charged with murder over her death. He was out on bail for allegedly raping and stalking her at the time.
Julia Quilter, a University of Wollongong bail expert, says that while she is generally opposed to people being held on remand, because at that point they aren’t proven guilty, there are significant risks of alleged domestic violence perpetrators reoffending while out on bail.
“It’s a strange position for me to be in because usually I’m saying the government is improperly restricting access to bail. But I think there are causes for concern in relation to this area.”
She doesn’t think it’s an effective long-term strategy. The ideal model may be bail but with strict conditions that promote a focus on rehabilitation.
“I think the reality is we know that prison is a very ineffective place for rehabilitation,” she says.
On-the-spot protection orders
Queensland has long grappled with the vexed issue of DV and its perpetrators. The government just this month announced it would allow police officers to issue instant year-long domestic violence protection orders. But it’s a proposal that experts say could put vulnerable women at greater risk of harm.
The state’s police minister, Dan Purdie, said the plan would save “hundreds of thousands of hours” of police time.
But domestic and family violence experts and victims’ advocates said handing police the power to issue on-the-spot orders – avoiding the need for a time-consuming court process – risked compounding problems caused by the widespread police misidentification of victims in DFV matters.
Under existing laws police can issue a temporary “protection notice” that lasts until a magistrate can hear an application for a domestic violence order. The new proposal would enable a “police protection direction” that lasted a year.
“It’s really important that there’s careful consideration for a protection order,” Heather Douglas, a law professor at the University of Melbourne and an expert on protection orders, said. “I think the risk is [that police] end up [issuing orders] that aren’t appropriate just to save themselves time and that’s really problematic.”
Angela Lynch, the executive officer of the Queensland Sexual Assault Network, said Tasmania used a similar system of police protection directions. She said DFV services and victims agencies there were now “advocating for their removal as they have increased misidentification of victims as perpetrators, which has had devastating consequences for the safety and justice of many vulnerable women and children”.
Lynch said the network was also concerned about the 12-month timeframe for police notices, when court-issued orders typically last for five years.
“We hope that the government has fully engaged with the DFV sector to fully understand all the consequences and impacts on victim-survivors of these changes.”
The federal election has also brought about a raft of further proposed changes.
Last year the scale of the emergency prompted the national cabinet to agree on a $4.7bn investment to tackle the problem.
With Anthony Albanese promising to go further if elected on 3 May, Labor this week promised “practical” measures targeted at perpetrators, including $8.6m for ankle bracelets on high-risk offenders, behaviour change programs and early intervention for young people.
The Coalition matched the $8.6m commitment and proposed a raft of other measures, including the introduction of a national domestic violence register.
• 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