The Cook Government has begun trialing a family and domestic violence (FDV) service that gives authorities a better chance of convicting offenders, while supporting victims of these crimes.
The $4.5 million pilot includes a clinical component that conducts forensic examinations of victims, provides medico-legal reports to support prosecutions and presents expert opinion and legal testimony at trial.
A community service component will provide FDV victim-survivors safety planning, case management and referrals to medical and other support services.
Under the first phase of the pilot, the North Metropolitan Health Service Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) will prepare medical reports and provide court testimony for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The service will be expanded in mid-2024 to include specialist forensic practitioners from the SARC team who will examine victim-survivors to gather evidence, following referrals from the WA Police Force.
The Department of Justice will engage a not-for-profit organization to provide the community services from next year. This component will provide victim-survivors wraparound support that is trauma-informed and culturally safe from the point of referral until legal proceedings are finalized.
The pilot was a Labor Government election commitment and will run for three years, with an evaluation of its performance expected to be completed in mid-2026.
According to a 2020 submission, it is estimated that 20.2 percent of all women and 6.3 percent of all men have experienced at least one incident of partner violence in West Australia. In 2022, there were 24,896 victims of FDV-related assaults in WA—64 percent of all assault victims, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In 2021-22, there were 5,923 people found guilty of FDV-related charges in WA.
"Clinical forensic evidence is increasingly being used throughout the criminal prosecution process and recognised as an important source of evidence," said Attorney General John Quigley. "This service aims to bolster the amount of high-quality information surrounding an FDV assault case to give authorities the best opportunity to secure convictions against offenders. The result should be a fairer justice system where more perpetrators are held accountable for their actions, and outcomes are significantly improved for victim-survivors."
Republished courtesy of West Australia Government.