Hannah Clarke inquest: Lack of police DV training exposed

The deputy state coroner questioned every police officer who testified at the Hannah Clarke inquest, and what she found was disturbing.

Deputy State Coroner Jane Bentley questioned every police officer who gave evidence at the Hannah Clarke inquest about what domestic violence training they’d had, with one admitting he had not undertaken any for over a decade.

Ms Bentley has called for the Queensland Police Service to overhaul its domestic violence training, with Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll downplaying concerns, insisting they were already “increasing it in earnest”.

“Since 2017, there has been inadequate training provided to police officers considering that domestic violence accounts for up to half of their work,” Ms Bentley said in her findings.

Hannah Clarke and her children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4 and Trey, 3 were murdered by her controlling and manipulative estranged husband on February 19, 2020.

Rowan Baxter ambushed Hannah during the morning school run, doused her and their children with petrol and set them alight.

He then stabbed himself in the heart after stopping bystanders from coming to their aid.

The inquest into their deaths looked at whether more could have been done to prevent the horrific killings.

Ms Bentley said although new specialist roles had been created by police, as well as new policies of checking information logged by frontline officers, it was “uncertain” what impact that would have given those officers lacked domestic violence training.

Hannah Clarke and children

“I can only conclude that police officers are under-trained in relation to domestic violence,” she said.

“Specialist domestic violence police officers may, in fact, have had no training other than the minimal amount provided to all police officers.”

She said the majority of frontline police – officers who dealt with domestic violence constantly – had, at the time of the inquest, undertaken one online refresher program in the past five years.

One detective told the inquest he’d had no specific training in domestic violence since 2009, and that he was aware of annual online refresher training but could not say when he’d last completed it.

He told the inquest the specialist Vulnerable Persons Units needed more staff – specifically permanent staff with specialised training.

The domestic violence liaison officer assigned to help Hannah told the inquest she’d had no specific training offered to her in that role.

Another general-duties officer said he’d had training at the academy, during his first-year program, and did a written exercise on domestic violence for his constable development program in 2018 or 2019 – but nothing since.

And an officer from the Vulnerable Persons Unit told the inquest she’d had no specific training for her role at VPU – “just on-the-job training from other officers”.

Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll

Ms Carroll said police were increasing domestic violence training “in earnest”.

“What the coroner really spoke about is that additional training we really need to be doing over these coming years,” she said.

Ms Carroll said they had taken initiative with implementing coercive control training and that they were constantly learning how to improve their processes.

“Who would have thought four or five years ago that we’d be having conversations around coercive control?” she said.

“We need to learn constantly across the world and this is ongoing – new strategies, initiatives, processes, systems. It just doesn’t stop.

“This continues on forever.”

In her findings, Ms Bentley recommended the State Government fund a five day face-to-face domestic violence training program for all specialist officers, as well as an annual face-to-face training module for all police.

Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said police needed more training and more resources “so we can protect vulnerable people”.

He called on Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to immediately fund a multidisciplinary police station trial where domestic violence victims could access police, support workers, government departments and a lawyer, saying the money needed to come from outside the existing police budget.

After being contacted by The Courier-Mail, Ms Palaszczuk responded: “Of course I will.”