‘Eight hidden iPhones’: This is the courtroom ammunition Hannah Clarke needed, says mum

Hannah Clarke’s killer husband had ‘six to eight iPhones hidden around the house’ as he monitored her every move – but penalising that will now be part of tougher stalking laws to combat coercive control.

A major overhaul of Queensland’s archaic stalking laws would have better protected Hannah Clarke, her parents have suggested, as the state government introduced the first tranche of laws to combat coercive control.

Wide-ranging laws introduced to parliament on Friday include updating Queensland’s archaic stalking laws, which date back to 1899, so that monitoring a person using technology, or going through their phone without their consent, will be captured.

The framework would also ensure the act of “doxing” or maliciously publishing a person’s personal information was captured under the broadened offence of “unlawful stalking, intimidation, harassment or abuse”.

Hannah and her three children were murdered by her estranged husband in February 2020 in a horrific act of domestic violence.

Hannah Clarke.

Hannah’s mother Sue Clark said her daughter’s killer had “six to eight iPhones hidden around the house where he would listen to everything she did” and even had one in the car watching where she went.

Ms Clarke said the strengthened stalking laws would have given Hannah “more ammunition” in a courtroom, had she been able to get to that point.

Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman said updating stalking laws would also have “broader effects when it comes to cyber-bullying and young people being harassed (and) intimidated online”.

Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman joins Sue and Lloyd Clarke, parents of Hannah, at Queensland Parliament House on Friday. Picture: NewsWire/Sarah Marshall

The reforms introduced by Ms Fentiman is in line with recommendations from the landmark Hear Her Voice report released by the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce in December 2021.

It also lays the groundwork for making coercive control an offence by the end of 2023 and includes broadening the definition of domestic violence to include a “pattern of behaviour”.

The wide-ranging law changes also include harsher penalties and ensure a defendant’s full criminal history of abuse – even if it happened in New Zealand – would be tabled to a court.

Once passed, the maximum sentence for contravening a restraining order will treble from 40 penalty units ($5750) or one-year imprisonment to 120 penalty units ($17,250) and three years in prison.

Hannah Clarke with her mother Sue Clarke. Picture: Facebook

Abusers found guilty of stalking, intimidating, harassing or abusing someone could face a maximum of seven years in prison if they were in a domestic relationship with their victim.

Separate to the recommendations of the Hear Her Voice report, the legislation will also make changes to terminology used for sexual offences in the Criminal Code, including getting rid of the archaic term “carnal knowledge”.

Ms Fentiman said changing the charge of “maintaining a sexual relationship with a child” to “repeated sexual conduct with a child” better reflected the “abhorrent behaviour by perpetrators who commit those acts”.

The legislation will go through the committee process, with Ms Fentiman hoping it will become law by the end of the year or by early 2023.