Domestic violence breaches skyrocket swamping Qld courts

Queensland courts were flooded with domestic violence order breaches from across the Easter long weekend, with experts saying public holidays often see a jump in family violence.

Domestic violence breaches are increasing.

Almost double the number of domestic violence breaches are swamping Queensland courts compared to five years ago, with a frightening spike recorded over Easter.

The state’s courts were flooded on Monday with domestic violence order breaches from across the Easter long weekend, with experts saying public holidays often saw a jump in family violence.

The new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed there were 20,040 domestic violence order breaches finalised in courts in 2023-24 compared to 12,635 in 2018-19.

Dr Brian Sullivan who specialises in training and education in domestic violence intervention and founded the organisation Sicura said public holidays, Easter, Christmas and football grand finals often saw spikes in domestic violence order breaches.

“There can certainly be a spike in DV incidents. And potentially some of those incidents may, in fact, be a man – typically a man – breaching a domestic violence order,” he said.

“Where people are gathering at home and where there may be extra drinking, or drugs that are more than usual.

“I’m not saying alcohol is the cause of the violence, but it actually is used as an excuse for violence, justification for violence in many cases.”

Dr Sullivan said there would be less breaches with consequences that were swift and certain.

“If our system isn’t responding appropriately and accordingly for breaching of a DV order, then we run the risk of emboldening a perpetrator thinking he can breach at will, with impunity,” he said.

“If we let breaches go, we are actually sending a message that we’re not taking breaches seriously, and that means we’re not taking women’s safety seriously.”

Criminal lawyer Bill Potts said there had been significant changes to domestic violence laws in particular broadening definitions including coercive control.

“The breaches of domestic violence are extraordinarily wide in their form, so a breach can be simply contacting somebody leaving a message on an answering machine on a mobile phone, all the way through to coming around to their house, performing a home invasion and assaulting somebody,” he said.

“So there’s an extraordinary range of breaches of domestic violence.”

Sixteen men – who cannot be named for legal reasons – faced Brisbane Magistrates’ Court on Monday charged with contravening a domestic violence order.

One of them — aged 52 — pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to one month in jail, wholly suspended for six months.

The court heard the man had a 14-page criminal history and had committed the breach while on parole for another contravention of a domestic violence order offence.

The current breach involved his former long-term partner who was collecting belongings from his unit on Easter Sunday, despite a no contact condition on his order. There were no allegations of family violence.

Magistrate Sue Ganasan told the man his ex-partner could have simply organised the pick-up through police and that he was “jeopardising (his) own liberty”.