South-west records jump in breaches of family violence intervention orders

Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Asenjo said for decades victim-survivors of family violence had reported the most difficult aspect was not necessarily physical harm but psychological abuse.

The repeated phone calls, manipulation, isolation and surveillance.

"It's about instilling fear and having coercive control," the detective said.

"Victim-survivors are living a life filled with fear because of men who are able to control women by the tone of their voice, by text messages and keeping them under control, and that can be just as harmful as one with physical violence."

It comes as the south-west recently reported a disturbing jump in breaches of family violence intervention orders.

The 2020-21 Victorian Family Violence Database released by the Crime Statistics Agency last week revealed the number of reported breaches increased in Moyne (142 per cent), Southern Grampians (126 per cent), Glenelg (104.5 per cent), Colac-Otway (97 per cent) and Warrnambool (29 percent), while Corangamite saw a drop of 50 per cent.

As a whole, breaches spiked 62 per cent in the south-west.

Detective Senior Sergeant Asenjo said the reason for the spike was two-fold.

"On one hand, the community is having greater confidence in police and that they are going to act," he said.

"On the other, police are taking a more serious stance to breaches and doing the right thing at the earliest opportunity, rather than being on the back foot and failing to prevent an escalation in behaviour."

Detective Senior Sergeant Asenjo said police looked at family violence in its totality and acted quickly on breaches, including those that "could be described in a minor way".

He said domestic abuse was about controlling someone's mind and emotions as much as hurting their body.

"Victims report feelings of being followed or feeling suffocated, receiving unsolicited calls and texts or being forced into isolation, feeling like they're being held hostage and in fear of doing something wrong in their own house because they know the perpetrator will explode," the detective said.

"Sometimes victims aren't able to access their own money, or have very-tightly managed money, and there's situations were those people aren't able to see their friends or loved ones, or there's threats to them, their children or their pets.

"There's a whole spectrum of family violence and at the top end of that is physical violence and at various stages throughout that spectrum, it all has a cumulative effect."

Detective Senior Sergeant Asenjo said if police didn't act early, it could give rise to escalating behaviour.

"So we're going to intervene and do everything we can to ensure women are safe - before they're assaulted and before they are killed," he said.

The escalation is repeatedly exposed in the region's courtrooms with harrowing stories of family violence heard on a daily basis.

A 53-year-old man, arrested at the weekend, fronted Warrnambool Magistrates Court on Tuesday charged with breaching an order by loitering outside his ex-partner's house and repeatedly calling her from public pay phones.

The man's lawyer said the offending was at the lower end of the scale - a comment that magistrate Simon Guthrie immediately rejected.

"Time and time again I get this comment, that it's on the lower end of family violence and (the offending) is not physical," Mr Guthrie said.

"I get tired of people saying it to me.

"We know family violence covers a whole spectrum - psychological, coercion and threats."

The court heard an intervention order was in place prohibiting the man from contacting the victim or attending her home.

But he attended on one occasion, hiding outside for hours and listening to her conversations.

The court heard he repeatedly called her over the weekend, using different mobile phone numbers and public pay phones.

A police informant said the victim continued to block the man's phone number and hung up on him.

"But he goes to great lengths, using separate public pay phones to attempt to speak to her," she said.

She said the man continued to "blatantly disregard" the court-imposed intervention order, as well as his conditions of bail.

The magistrate said the alleged offending was "particularly persistent and controlling".

"Every time I pick up a paper at the moment, (it says) 'courts don't do enough to enforce family intervention orders'," he said.

"Just this morning a lady was murdered in Melbourne, or at least that is the suspicion, and that is here, today, let alone all over Australia. So when it comes to a bail application and it's told to me that 'there is no physical violence, therefore the risk (of reoffending) is somewhat diminished', well I do not accept that at all.

"Not one bit."

Mr Guthrie said victims were left in fear when intervention orders were repeatedly breached and that was "particularly harmful".

The court heard family violence also included behaviour that children could see.

Magistrate Ann McGarvie this week made the comment in an unrelated case involving a Warrnambool man who pleaded guilty to a string of family violence incidents, including erratic driving with his children in his car, downloading spyware on his former partner's phone and bombarding her with calls and messages.

The man pleaded guilty to charges of stalking, breaching bail, contravening a family violence intervention order and committing an indictable offence on bail.

The court was told that on August 2, the man was driving with the victim - his then partner - and two children in the back seat when an argument broke out.

After pulling over, the woman attempted to retrieve her children from the car when he sped off, driving west-bound along Raglan Parade then crossing over to the east in heavy traffic, causing the vehicle to skid and lose control.

Police prosecutor Senior Constable Kevin Mullins said the victims were in "extreme fear" for their lives.

"It placed the occupants in significant fear and at risk of serious injury," he said.

After pulling over, the argument continued on the side of the road where a witness saw the man grab the victim and slam her against the car bonnet and appear to strike her in the face.

On another occasion, the man watched the victim's house while an intervention order was in place.

"Their daughter had been at the window waving, stating 'daddy's outside'," Senior Constable Mullins said.

The court heard the man set up new phone numbers with the help of friends in an attempt to contact the victim.

She reported receiving many calls from the man, including no fewer than 76 calls between August 16 and 17.

The man contested the children being included in the intervention order.

But the magistrate said family violence was not just a matter between spouses.

"Family violence includes any behaviour that the children see - that is family violence," Ms McGarvie said.

"The argument in the car is family violence, the erratic driving is family violence, the unlawful assault is family violence.

"The children were all exposed to that and I can't imagine a magistrate not including the children on the intervention order even if it went to a contested hearing."

Lawyer Aleisha McCarron said her client, a father of four, had a "pretty average" childhood with a mother who struggled with money and an alcoholic father.

"He has a history of instability which increases the risk for mental health problems," she said.

"He had been trying to contact (the victim) to salvage the relationship and knows he did not take the intervention order seriously enough at the time.

"He has expressed sincere remorse since to myself and his psychologist which is why he's entering an early plea of guilty."

The man will be sentenced on December 13.

If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.

Warrnambool's Emma House can be contacted through 1800 EMMADV (1800 366238).

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