‘Domestic violence is just foreplay’: Inquiry hears damning police talk

Queensland police officers have said “domestic violence is just foreplay”, “rape is just surprise sex”, “she’s too ugly to be raped” and “she deserved it”.

On-duty officers have also avoided victim callouts or said, “I can see why he did it to her”, “if I was in his position, I’d do that”, and “I don’t know what I’d do if I was in his position” while responding.

That was the testimony from a serving police officer to the Independent Commission of Inquiry into Queensland Police Service Responses to Domestic and Family Violence on Wednesday.

The officer, whose identity is subject to a non-publication order, was the first officer to speak out about cultural issues at the inquiry, headed by Commissioner Deborah Richards.

The officer said victim-survivors were also reportedly turned away at Queensland police stations and dehumanised, partly due to a misogynistic culture that he argued ran “wild” within the service.

The officer also referred to several male colleagues who he believed presented red flags of coercive control in their own lives, including controlling their partners’ finances, controlling what their partners wore, or emotional abuse.

He said his colleagues, some of whom were the subject of domestic violence orders, would openly talk of their partner or ex-partner being “basically, a deranged or crazy person” and discuss ways they could use their knowledge of the law to influence their family court outcomes.

“Or [influence] the [victim’s] willingness to proceed down a pathway for fear they have more knowledge than she does about how to navigate the legal processes of the Family Court and domestic violence applications,” he said.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Ruth O’Gorman, said one of the officer’s colleagues referred to women as “sluts and bitches”.

The officer said he would often get into the police car with a colleague who would declare “f*ck that, we’re not doing this job” in reference to domestic violence callouts.

He said such colleagues would purposely drive away from the callout location to avoid being assigned to it, or say things such as: “That’s a code 3, one of the other crews will pick them up. There are three crews on, let’s go to this suburb, I’ve got an inquiry I want to do there.”

The officer said some colleagues were reluctant to handle domestic violence order applications.

“If they [victims] don’t conform to whatever the officer’s standards of beauty are, if they’re not basically Rapunzel in a tower, if they’re demanding police action quite assertively, I’ve noticed there’s a real tendency to push back against what that victim wants and is asking for and not take action,” he said.

He said there was a myth often brought up by officers that female victims trying to apply for a domestic violence order were often trying to “screw him [the respondent] over in Family Court”.

Officers would often opt to help victims who were well-dressed, tertiary educated, and did not present with a background of drugs, mental health or a criminal record, the officer told the hearing.

The officer also said his colleagues would often make highly sexualised comments about female officers.

He said they would make comments to female colleagues about “needing to show more cleavage”, or say “I’d tap that”.

The officer said disparaging language was also used to describe victim survivors and female colleagues, including “c*nt”, “slut”, and “mole”.

“I could go on for ages about the kind of name-calling that goes on,” he said.

The officer said Queensland Police Service members needed significantly better domestic violence training.

The officer told the inquiry there was also entrenched racism within the service, and his colleagues often made comments such as “the ATSIs [Australian and Torres Strait Islander] are out of control”.

He said that as someone working in the QPS, you were “more likely to hear ‘grub’ than offender”, and “spoon, rather than a person experiencing vulnerability, or a person with mental health issues”.

“It’s part of the vocabulary of policing,” he said.

When questioned about an email sent by Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll in late 2021 in which she said she did not believe there were widespread cultural issues with police investigating domestic violence, the officer said he was devastated to read her response.

“That just said to me that either the Commissioner has no insight into these issues, or ‘we know and we’re not going to do anything about it because we’re the police and we’re always right’. I’m sorry to get so emotional, but that was the most disappointing email I’ve ever received,” he said.

“The misogyny is just so wild, and that underpins our attitudes towards female victim survivors, and we are a male-dominated organisation.”

The officer said the QPS needed better domestic violence training and better liaison with external support services.

“A lot of these beliefs the police have are myths. You only have to do three weeks of a graduate certificate in DV practice to be presented with all that evidence to know that your beliefs are actually incorrect,” he said.