New South Wales has recently become the first Australian state to criminalize coercive control as a stand-alone offense. 

While intimate-partner violence is most commonly associated with verbal and physical abuse, coercive control is often a precursor to intimate partner domestic homicide with almost 77 out of 78 victims having experienced coercive control prior to physical violence.  

This step to criminalize the insidious nature of coercive control will potentially save hundreds of lives by encoding patterns of behavior, in law. This becoming a criminal offence will allow victims to access several resources and seek asylum.

Watch our Founder’s address to the NSW Parliament. Our advocacy has led to Australia’s largest state enshrining coercive control in law!

But what is coercive control? And why is it important that front line workers including healthcare employees understand it? 

Women’s Safety NSW described coercive control as “… the use by one person of controlling and manipulative behaviors such as isolation, emotional manipulation, surveillance, psychological abuse and financial restriction against another person over a period of time for the purpose of establishing and maintaining control….”  

The Youth Affairs Council of South Australia (YACSA) describes coercive control as a tactic to create a dependency on the perpetrator to render the victim completely powerless which includes actions like 

• Prohibiting victims from interacting with family, friends and wider society. 
• Controlling access to healthcare, education, resources like money. 
• Creating a climate of fear by including threats towards children. 

The national Essential Media poll of 1,074 Australians that was commissioned by White Ribbon Australia revealed that 70% of respondents support the idea of criminalizing coercive control.

Many Australians believe that a perpetrator would not get charged by police unless they physically injured or stalked someone, or broke a domestic violence order. Many thought that the pre-existing law did not protect people from a pattern of harmful controlling behaviour which the perpetrators could take advantage of. 

However, overwhelming support to criminalize coercive control means that Australians resonate and recognise the damage that coercive control does and condemn its prevalence in society. Many agree that one of the biggest advantages will be that the perpetrators will know that their behaviours are unacceptable. This step will allow for easier access for victims as well as improve training amongst front-line workers to watch out for more identifiers amongst their patients. 

Doctors have a vital role to play in reducing domestic violence. Over 1 in 5 women make their first disclosure of domestic violence to their GP. Research indicates one in 10 women attending general practice have been afraid of their partners in the previous 12 months, and one in three women have experienced fear of a partner over their lifetime. Click here to view this article by RACGP on coercive control.

Many suggest the police and the law enforcement to be the first step in reporting cases of violent threats however in many cases reports require evidence of apprehended violence. NSW’s criminalisation of coercive control, is an important first step to ensuring this.

And doctors and healthcare workers can provide a safer sanctuary to confess fears of abuse. Doctors can often provide statements of belief which can be used to obtain some emancipation from the perpetrator – especially in the cases of renting property. 

Considering that controlling partners sometimes insist on accompanying women to their sessions, women also expressed a desire for assurances about confidentiality and the ability to consult with a doctor alone. Women also want medical professionals to distinguish between a woman’s trauma and a mental disorder. 

Regulation will aid medical professionals and other front-line staff in learning trauma-based care and in becoming more alert to symptoms of abuse, even when the victim has not disclosed such information. It may be possible to avoid the long-term effects of violence and stop further abuse by identifying survivors, giving them appropriate referrals, and assisting them safely on a pathway to recovery.

The clinician’s duties encompass instances of identifying abuse, determining the patient’s level of safety and that of her family, and offering on-going medical care and compassionate support. This includes discussing the nature and progression of DV with the patient and determining their level of readiness to make changes. It also involves educating the patient about the variety of support services available and making the appropriate referrals. It also entails reviewing the results and ensuring follow-up. Doctors must have the necessary training, communication skills, and awareness of community resources in order to perform this function effectively. This is one of our key focuses at Doctors Against Violence.

This law is a monumental step towards ensuring safety of all victims from all forms of abuse and providing a safe recovery environment. 

If you or anyone you know are experiencing violence, below is a list of organizations that may assist you. This list is not exhaustive. We encourage you to see your GP who will have more details about services in your location. If you are in immediate danger, please contact the police on 000.

Both doctors spent time, amongst their fellow protesters, conducting interviews with the media and spreading the word about the demands of the March4justice (now rebranded Women’s Justice Movement). Drs’ Ahmad, Hutchison and Karen Williams culminated the day in a private meeting with MP, Tanya Plibersek.

Several plans are coming up for the Women’s Justice Movement and DAVTW.

On Monday 29/3/21, Dr Anita Hutchison is presenting at the NSW government inquiry into the criminalisation of coercive control. Dr Nithya Reddy will be presenting on Tuesday.

On Wednesday 31/3, it is the Trans Day of Visibility. Christian Porter is also returning to work WITHOUT FACING ANY ACCOUNTABILITY, so we are calling protesters to wear red arm bands and feminist regalia, sharing with the hashtags #wearestillhere and #justiceforKate. Follow the Women’s Justice Movement on twitter @womensjusticem1 – the event details are pinned to the top of the twitter profile page!

However, the fact that Justice Lerve thought that such an order was sufficient in the first place is evidence of larger societal issues. In particular, the increasing use of “consensual rough sex” as a defence for men in homicide cases, which allows men to avoid scrutiny for violent acts. Moreover, it reflects a tendency to minimise and dismiss violence against women, particularly transgender women.

Justice Lerve sentenced Toyer to a 22-month Intensive Correction Order, with conditions including community service, and with a reduction in sentencing due to a guilty plea. Cited reasons for the sentence include that Ms Bruno “not only consented to the act of choking but actually instigated it … [the first time the couple] had sex”, that the “choking had been committed in the course of a consensual sexual act” and that the matter was “at the lower end of the scale of seriousness.”

Not serious?

For us, it is always serious when the “consensual rough sex” defence is used for the murder of a woman. The normalisation of violent sexual practices through exposure to porn and sensationalised media, has led to a rise in the “rough sex” defence in homicide cases.

Yet. we know from research by the UK based campaign group, “We Can’t Consent to This”, that the “rough sex” defence is being used by men with a known history of domestic abuse. This group surveyed 82 victims of nonfatal assaults. Where the woman is alive and able to testify, every single one said that they did not consent to the violence.

The “We Can’t Consent to This” group argue that rough sex often occurs within a pattern of coercive control and abuse. Professor Elizabeth Yardley, a criminologist from Birmingham City University, sees the “rough sex” defence as a contemporary variation on the traditional “crime of passion defence” that allows men to get away with killing women due to momentary loss of control.

Ominously, non-fatal strangulation is one of the strongest risk factors for future domestic homicide. By letting men “get away with it”, we provide a benefit of the doubt for men, while risking cis and transgender women’s lives.  

In the UK, there are amendments to the domestic abuse bill in development, hoping to invalidate the defence of consent when the victim suffers serious harm or is killed. After all, how does someone consent to be killed?

Why aren’t we following a similar path in Australia?

It comes down to the value of a woman’s life.

In this case, the value of a transgender Filipina woman’s life.

As a transgender woman, Mhelody was at a higher risk of sexual violence than cisgender women. In fact, as a transgender woman of colour she was at 10 times the risk of sexual assault. She was also a 25 year old woman on vacation in Australia, valued by friends and family in the Philippines. Yet according to Justice Lerve, the loss of Mhelody’s life was not worth a custodial sentence.

In comparison, data from the Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria shows that for the offence of culpable driving causing death, 92% of perpetrators received a custodial sentence between 2013 and 2018, with a mean sentence length of 5-7years.

Presumably, most of these cases of driving causing death were tragic accidents, caused by recklessness, negligence or intoxication. Why is recklessness or negligence during sex less serious?

It isn’t easy to kill someone via strangulation. As doctors, we know that it requires considerable force and persistence. Critical care doctors in our group doubt that it can be truly accidental. In the BDSM scene, safety and consent during “breath play” is taken very seriously. It is not accepted that a practitioner could strangle their partner for a while, without noticing that they were unconscious.

What experts did Justice Lerve consult prior to passing his sentence?

Did he consider the broader implications of the sentence, or merely the impact on Toyer?

Justice Lerve’s sentence for Rian Ross Toyer is a reflection of our society’s tendency to victim blame and minimise violence against women, especially transgender women. The defence of “rough sex” allows abusive men to get away with coercive, controlling violence and reflects a misunderstanding of the BDSM subculture.

The re-sentencing next week is an important step in correcting this gross miscarriage of justice. However, in Australia, we must follow the UK in declaring the “rough sex” defence invalid in the case of serious harm or death. This is an essential step to ensure justice is served for victims, such as Mhelody. In the interim, I would suggest Sydneysiders attend the rally at Town Hall on Monday, to join our voices with Anakbayan Sydney and Migrante New South Wales in demanding justice for Mhelody.

In the wake of the Crikey article, Dr Ahmad has been inundated with messages from women telling her their stories of sexual assault, rape and threats, which shows yet again how pervasive but hidden this problem is. And yet again, her Crikey article met with intelligent, highly considered and empathetic commentary from a man, who sees the whole problem as uninteresting and persecutory towards men. I will leave you with his comment below.

Meanwhile, Dr Karen Williams went into overdrive correcting pervasive toxic myths, that allow perpetrators and the public to discredit a victim of sexual assault and doubt her testimony. In the meantime, Christian Porter gets a platform, sympathy and time off for mental illness (aka stress) and his friends in high places try to shield him from accountability.

If you don’t believe Dr Williams, an excellent article about the history of so called false memory syndrome is linked here.

The discussion was triggered by Crikey, a media outlet that unfortunately published a man’s unfounded suggestions that the victim had engaged in therapy to unearth repressed memories, which could have been false. Crikey has not retracted the article as yet, but they interviewed both Professor Louise Newman and Dr Karen Williams for an article entitled: False memory is a weapon often used to discredit sexual assault survivors.

As the furore is far from abating (I hope), there will be much to update on this blog in the coming weeks.

Audio is on youtube here and here.

***

As Psychiatrists, we deal with the survivors of family violence every single day.
We see the consequences in PTSD, depression, anxiety, self harming and suicide.
We know, intimately that domestic & family violence is not like other kinds of violence.

As much as we want to treat it the same as that of an assault at a pub, or in a brawl, domestic abuse is a vastly different beast.
The problem we have is that the systems we have traditionally used to manage violence, was designed for the other kind.

When someone hits their partner for example, it is different to when a stranger punches an innocent bystander.
It is much more complex. The innocent bystander does not share a bank account, with the person who hurt them.

The innocent bystander can stand up in court, & report what happened, freely knowing that the person that hurt them has no reason to hurt them again. The innocent bystander has not spent years being threatened & degraded by the person sitting opposite them.

The innocent bystander does not have to leave their children with someone they know to be dangerous.

In the discourse around CC, I keep hearing people talk about how it would be difficult to legislate CC because there are no injuries, there are no bruises they say…no broken bones

But I will argue that. There are tools involved in coercive control. There are predictable behaviours used by abusers that I can elaborate on. There are neurobiological changes or injuries that can be seen and measured.

You can’t fake being coercively controlled easily at all. The process of CC is an active one, well planned & sustained. In fact, it continues all of the time, even if there is physical distance between them. It is this behaviour that we suggest needs to be made illegal.

That the injuries of coercive control are more dangerous, long standing & life threatening than most of the physical injuries we may see in domestic violence. These injuries can last a lifetime & result in huge economic costs well after the relationship has ended.

Unfortunately our legal system as it stands, perpetuates fear & exacerbates the state of helplessness that coercive control induces. A system that repeatedly fails to keep victims safe despite the fact that there is a clearly defined & known perpetrator, this is a failure.

The fact that we do not have a deterrent at all for coercive controlling behaviour is what allows it to spiral out of control.
Almost every survivor & clinician will describe how it starts insidiously and slowly and progressively worsens.

The more the perpetrators get away with, the more obsessed with the control they get.
Legislation on criminalisation will act as a deterrent to this.

I will also argue that to leave the system as it is now, to leave victims with absolutely no legal pathway to escape this behaviour is not only negligent but an act of complicity in the ongoing abuses of women and children.

***

Follow Dr Williams on Twitter @drwilliams

Follow us @davtw2

“For our Centre (Illawarra Women’s Health Centre), a government funded essential service, to allocate significant time and additional money to compete with other community health and DFV services – also overwhelmed with relentless demand – for this small amount of funding is not just insulting, its abusive” said the Centre’s Chairwoman, Judy Daunt. ‘Drip feeding small amounts of money, over which services must compete, and for which we must feign appreciation lest we be later penalised is exactly the kind of financial control we see in DFV relationships – this time replicated and amplified by government.”

See this article for more details

Highlights from the week:
Dr Nithya Reddy speaking with Luke Grant on Tafio today about her involvement in pushing for CC legislation

The transcript of Jess Hill’s speech on Monday 12th Oct at the launch of the campaign to criminalise coercive control

SMH coverage of the campaign

Article by Marie Claire, who are part of the Are media group

Please sign Are media’s petition

The issue received an unprecedented depth of coverage in NSW, from major newspapers, to local publications and magazines. The hope is that widespread coverage will reach more of our population and build support for the campaign. Examples of coverage in the media last week:

In Media Week

Victor Harbour Times

The New Daily

Women’s Agenda

Mamamia