Strangling cases silence

Expert medical officers told not to help police

work to do without being asked to take on strangulation cases.

Rather than attend to victims, a forensic medical officer said he would prefer to analyse photographs to check bruising and would not take patients without a medical clearance.

“If the police want an examination done by us for whatever reason, they can come to the office during hours,” he wrote.

Police admit they are stressed because strangulation is difficult to diagnose, can be life threatening but symptoms like swelling of the neck might take up to 36 hours to appear.

“Only last month Labor’s Yvette D’Ath was reporting how many people had been business charged with attempted strangulation but we now know the experts are being held back,” Opposition MP Ros Bates said.

Health Minister Cameron Dick said he had asked Queensland Health to review research into health responses to non-fatal strangulation.

Data released last month showed 798 people were charged with a combined 894 counts of non-fatal strangulation since the offence was introduced a year ago.

The Gold Coast Centre Against Sexual Violence helped organise the education and training sessions for the Strangulation Prevention conference.

A Queensland Health spokesperson said the appropriate response to all instances of injuries arising from an alleged assault was for the victim to be seen by a treating clinician, and not a clinical forensic medical officers.

A Bulletin report last month detailed how Coast rape victims were being suited up and driven to Brisbane by police due to the lack of forensic medical officers.