Former president of the Collation Against Domestic Violence (CADV), Roberta Clarke, is applauding the landmark case last week, which highlighted the failure of the Police and the Judiciary to afford protection to Samantha Issacs, who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend.
However, Clarke believes more must be done to protect domestic violence victims.
Clarke says police officers are still not adequately trained to deal with cases of domestic violence.
She says there should always be an immediate response to victims crying out for help.
“You need training systemically,” Roberta Clarke points out. “At every stage of policing—at the stage of recruitment; you need continuous refreshment.”
“But it’s not just training,” she notes. “You need accountability, and a clear accountability pathway. So, if I go to the police and I report something and nothing is done, what do I do next in the moment?”
So, we also need immediate accountability mechanisms so that someone who does not get the response they think they should get has somewhere they can go right away to get immediate redress, and not after the harm is done,” the former CADV head stated.
“We at the Coalition have been calling for a clear accountability pathway for victims in real time—not after the harm has been done,” she added.
Clarke acknowledges that the dynamics of domestic violence are complex and very often prove difficult for police officers to navigate.
“Police are often frustrated, and we understand that on a human level,” she observed, “Victims come to them with a report, and they may go back to the perpetrator. There is a whole cycle of domestic violence which is about exercising power and control.”
She explained: “There are psychological and sociological dynamics. And the police have to understand those dynamics. They have to be trained not only in the hard skills of policing, but also to understand the dynamics of domestic violence, so they are not frustrated, and they can manage their frustration, and also be intentional about what they need to do.”
Roberta Clarke noted that a protection order is not enough to keep a domestic violence victim safe.
“The police often say—and they said it in the case of Samantha Isaacs—go and apply for a protection order, which is important and good advice,” Clarke says. “But a protection order application by the victim does not replace the need for police to act on their own where a criminal act has taken place.”
She added: “The police have a standalone obligation to investigate and to arrest, if appropriate, and to charge, if appropriate.”
The State was found liable for failing to protect Isaacs, who had made multiple reports to the police about the threats to her life by her ex-boyfriend.
However, her appeals for help never bore fruit and she was murdered in late 2017.
