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The police officer stood tapping his foot as the woman, beaten so severely that a welt had formed on her forehead, picked her way through shattered glass to search for her vape.
“You can’t help someone who won’t help themselves,” he muttered.
Late last year, I witnessed a police response to a domestic violence incident first-hand after a woman on my street was nearly murdered. I was there as a neighbour and did not identify myself as a journalist until after the incident concluded.
With knowledge of how the criminal process works, empathy for officers stretched thin, and an understanding that police must remain impartial, I was still shocked by how poorly the interaction went.
I hope a new police station sanctuary, The Cottage, which opened on Wednesday in the inner west, will help change how survivors access services and ensure their first interaction with police is very different from what my neighbour experienced.
Late into the night, my partner and I ran outside after hearing a woman scream, “Help, help, he’s going to kill me.”
‘Shaking under the stark streetlights and clearly intimidated by the group encircling her, the woman held my hand and asked to move inside. She requested I come too.’
Bystanders said they saw a woman dangling over a balcony and heard a man yelling. A young woman dressed in pyjamas ill-suited to the cool night air sprinted barefoot from the apartment across the road to the bus stop. Four police cars arrived incredibly quickly.
Eight officers – seven of whom were men – two paramedics, and onlookers stood around her. Four officers jumped in random order to pepper the woman with questions while her phone buzzed constantly from her partner’s calls.
Shaking under the stark streetlights and clearly intimidated by the group encircling her, the woman held my hand and asked to move inside. She requested I come too.
Glass littered the floor of her apartment. She pointed to a bent vacuum tube, saying he had used it to beat her. She told police – erratically, taking intermittent calls from him – that he had recently rented the place for her. It was her first proper home. She was about 20 years old.
She said the boyfriend, against whom she had an AVO, had keys and dropped in as he pleased. They’d spent the day shopping to furnish the new place, and at night, after consuming marijuana and opioids, which she said was at his request, he accused her of cheating. He turned violent, smashed glass, beat her and chased her onto the balcony, threatening to throw her off before a passerby scared him away.
As she talked, she picked up a camera from the floor and plunged it into a vase full of water. “He watches me,” she said. He had previously strangled her until she passed out.
She was scared about getting in trouble for drugs in the home; scared that the partner would find out she was speaking to police and escalate his violence; and scared about becoming homeless or being forced to move back in with abusive family after he stopped supporting her.
She switched between saying “it’s not worth my life” and blaming her own behaviour for his violence.
She told police the man calling was the one she had the AVO against, before flipping and saying it wasn’t. The female officer was curt: “Well, which one is it? You’ve changed your story five times.” The woman asked the officer, who had been making exasperated noises and rolling her eyes, to leave.
I asked officers if I could get her water and shoes to protect her from the glass. Paramedics – who were supportive, professional and warm – attempted to get her to hospital for an assessment where nurses could connect her with support services, but she refused, saying her boyfriend controlled her finances and she had no way home.
She asked police if they were there to protect her. “We’re here to figure out what happened,” one officer said. Officers have to rule out psychosis, self-harm or that the woman was the instigator of violence (which, given the injuries, AVO and witness testimonies, seemed unlikely). No one explained the reporting process to her until after I requested they do so.
‘With knowledge of how the criminal process works, empathy for officers stretched thin, and an understanding that police must remain impartial, I was still shocked by how poorly the interaction went.’
When an officer turned on his body camera for a statement, she froze and said almost nothing. Once it was off, she asked: “Was it obvious I was protecting him?”
She took another call in her bedroom, then emerged and asked police to leave. “He’s going to take me to Paris. We’re going to work this out,” she said.
An officer gave her a card with numbers for domestic violence referral services – the first mention of any such support from police. I put my number in her phone. “Don’t text me,” she said. “He’ll see and get mad.”
In the lift, police were visibly annoyed. The interaction had taken less than 90 minutes. I asked the senior officer if it was frustrating; he said police couldn’t force anyone to seek help. I mentioned that it takes a victim, on average, seven attempts to leave – a statistic he was unaware of.
It was a missed opportunity to provide a supportive space to break the cycle. Instead, she was left alone, suspicious of the police and probably regretting having spoken with them.
No one came out of that interaction feeling good.
I know she went back to him. I worry she will be killed, and I cannot reach out without putting her at risk.
Had she been able to attend The Cottage, I suspect her experience would have been different.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.
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Amber Schultz is a crime and justice reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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