Domestic violence: Hundreds of people charged with strangling a partner or family member but just one per cent found guilty

More than 700 people have been charged with a serious new crime, but just a few have faced jail time.

More than 700 people have been charged with strangling a partner or family member since new laws were introduced two years ago, but just one per cent have been found guilty.

It equates to more than one person a day being charged since laws creating the offence of choking, strangling or suffocating a person as an act of domestic violence were introduced. The new figures reveal how common the brutal act is, while exposing the difficulties authorities face in holding violent abusers to account.

Between January 2019 and November last year, 707 people were charged with strangling a partner, ex-partner, child or other relative.

So far, just seven have been found guilty, including men who used their hands or legs to strangle a partner or suffocated a woman by pushing her face into a mattress. Other victims have told of having a cord tightened around their neck or a knife pushed hard against their windpipe.

The maximum penalty is seven years’ imprisonment. So far, the longest sentence handed down is about three years and six months.

A small number of other defendants have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing, while almost 100 other cases are moving through the system.

The vast majority of charges have been dropped because of a lack of evidence or victim participation, or negotiated or downgraded to an alternative offence, such as aggravated assault.

Victims and frontline domestic violence workers are heartened the crime is being taken seriously but warn the figures represent a fraction of the violence occurring behind closed doors every day.

Even when no physical damage appears to have been caused, strangulation can lead to internal injuries, brain damage, memory loss and anxiety.

Centacare domestic violence service manager Susie Smith said strangulation was a warning sign of escalating danger and occurred in about a quarter of relationships where a victim was eventually murdered.

“We know it has always been a tactic of maintaining power over a victim,” she said.

Law Society of SA criminal law committee co-chair Craig Caldicott said in most strangulation cases, police used to lay charges of aggravated assault, which generally has a lower maximum penalty.

Mr Caldicott said under the new strangulation offence, “the person is remanded in custody and you can’t get bail” and he believed that was part of the reason police were laying such a high number of charges. When she introduced the new laws, Attorney-General Vickie Chapman said the presumption against bail could help protect victims by keeping their alleged abuser behind bars in the short term.

Ms Chapman encouraged police with “any evidence of there being strangulation” to use the new offence.

“If it turns out … that aggravated assault is more suitable, that’s something they can deal with down the track,” she said. “It goes on the record, even if the matter doesn’t proceed, and that is an important piece of data as this behaviour is often a precursor to murder.”

Opposition spokeswoman for the prevention of domestic violence Katrine Hildyard said there was “frustration within our community that incredibly serious choking charges are too often downgraded or negotiated away in the legal process”.

“For a woman to come forward after such an horrific assault, and to have the assailant walk free with little consequence, is devastating.”

An SA Police spokeswoman said officers were trained to recognise the signs of strangulation and the force was monitoring “enforcement and prosecution rates … and the responses of the criminal justice system”.

She said police could continue an investigation or prosecution “even when the victim does not wish to give evidence in court”.

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