TOUGH STANCE ON DV LONG OVERDUE
ABulletin investigation in May last year revealed that on average one man every month found guilty of choking his partner was released on suspended sentences or immediate parole after short periods on remand.
It was a queue at a delicatessen. Everyone take a ticket, wait a short while and then walk.
The soft stance on wife-beaters infuriated the community and the Bulletin, which had successfully campaigned hard for domestic violence reform following the deaths of loved mothers such as Tara Brown, Karina Lock and Teresa Bradford.
It included choking and suffocation being added as an additional criminal offence in April 2016, with a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. Those new laws have clearly failed to protect every vulnerable woman, but subsequent police intervention and awareness has helped many.
A perceived blight in the fight against domestic violence, particularly strangulation which has proven to lead to more deaths, was a reactive justice system that failed to meet societal standards.
Of the 15 examples in the 2019 Bulletin investigation, 10 thugs who choked their partners were allowed to walk on the day of sentencing, three would be in lock-up for just another three months, and two would be out after eight months parole.
The Bulletin wrote at the time: Teresa Bradford, Shelsea Schilling, Melinda Horner, Karina Lock, Tara Brown and Fabiana Palhares had at least two things in common.
They were all deeply loved Gold Coast mothers, sisters or daughters who put their families first, unlike the controlling current or former partners who killed them.
Society has gone to great lengths to ensure those women are remembered. Awareness, funding and resourcing around domestic violence has increased markedly since the two years of horror when this city lost them. Sadly, one of the final frontiers, the Queensland courts, has failed to grasp the seriousness of the epidemic.
If the full force of the law were to be applied, then men who bash and throttle their terrified partners would be locked away for a long time, up to a maximum of seven years, instead of being back on the streets within months.
Nearly two years on, finally, the justice system is slowly reflecting community expectations. The five-year sentence handed down to Brendin Luke Dodd for the prolonged and sickening attack on his former partner is one of the toughest since the new laws were introduced.
It will not ease the pain of that brave woman who fronted court on Friday, but hopefully tough sentences on grubs like Dodd act as a deterrent to stop the cowardly acts.