Call for overhaul of bail laws after mother’s murder

Anti-violence campaigners have called for an overhaul of Queensland’s bail laws after the tragic slaying of Gold Coast woman Teresa Bradford at the hands of her husband.

Bradford, 40, was stabbed to death by her estranged husband David in front of her children at her home on the northern suburbs of the Gold Coast on Tuesday.

The incident came just two weeks after David Bradford was granted bail in a specialist domestic violence court on charges stemming from an assault on his wife last November.

Gold Coast Centre Against Sexual Violence director Di McLeod said Queensland’s legal system isn’t pro- viding adequate protection to victims of domestic violence.

“Clearly things need to change there,” McLeod said. “There’s a presumption against the granting of bail where there’s a history or threat of domestic violence in most Australian jurisdictions. There’s not in Queensland. There’s no specific provisions in the bail act that cater specifically for domestic violence cases.”

Bradford’s death is the fifth case of a woman allegedly being murdered by her partner on the Gold Coast in 16 months.

McLeod says history shows domestic violence offenders regularly breach court-imposed conditions and re-offend. “We know that if someone’s hell-bent on harming their partner, the bail conditions won’t stop them,” she said.

Bradford was granted bail by the court on January 12. His lawyer, Mark Donnelly, told the Courier-Mail that there were “no indications whatsoever that he would do what he did”.

“He had accepted the relationship had irretrievably broken down and was accepting of the very restrictive bail conditions that had been imposed, including having no contact with his partner,” Donnelly said.

However, a friend said Teresa Bradford feared her husband would come for her again.

“I told her not to contact him anymore. I knew he was a very dangerous man,” said the friend, who asked not to be named.

Anti-violence campaigner Rosie Batty, who suffered years of violence at the hands of her husband before he bashed their son, Luke, to death on a Victorian cricket oval in 2014, said much more needs to be done to educate magistrates and judges about one of the most dangerous periods for victims fleeing family violence.

“It escalates — it always does — the danger that they’re in,” she said.

“That’s the time when a woman is at her most vulnerable and in danger of significant harm.”