Western Downs woman faces Chinchilla Magistrates Court for Christmas lunch DV breach

A Western Downs woman has faced court after her well-intentioned mother invited her sister around for Christmas lunch, inadvertently breaching a domestic violence order.

A Western Downs woman has faced court after a Christmas lunch invitation breached a DV order. Picture: File

A mother has found herself in court after a late-minute Christmas invite forced her to breach her domestic violence order.

The 39-year-old faced the Chinchilla Magistrates Court on Thursday pleading guilty to one count of breaching a DV order made on April 14, 2022.

The court was told the woman, who legally cannot be named, had previously been homeless and was living at her mother and stepfather’s house with her daughter when they invited the defendant’s sister around for Christmas Day.

The woman had a protection order in place which prevented her from contacting or being within 100m of her sister and was unaware that she would be attending.

The court was told an argument then ensued with the woman asking her sister to leave as she was too intoxicated to drive away from the premises and did not want to walk the streets with her three-year-old daughter on Christmas.

The situation got so dire at 11.40am the woman ended up calling the police on herself and sat outside in her car until they arrived.

Magistrate Kathleen Payne described the offending as a “rare scenario” and it was clear her mother had “not understood the severity of the situation caused by inviting the sister around for Christmas”.

Police prosecutor Chris Hutchins agreed.

“You’ve done as much as she can, you even rang police and dobbed yourself in,” he said.

“I can’t see how you could’ve acted more reasonably”.

Ms Payne said while the woman had a significant history of DV offending this was “at the lowest possible end”.

No further punishment was enforced and no conviction was recorded.