‘Monsters going unchecked’: Not enough police to check up on DV accused on bail

There has been a dramatic decline in checks on domestic violence offenders out on bail, as the government admits police don’t have enough staff to manage the problem.

There has been a dramatic decline in checks on coward attack domestic violence offenders released back into the community on bail, as Police Minister Yasmin Catley admits cops don’t have enough staff to manage the problem.

The number of compliance checks has declined by 15,000 instances, according to new data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research – despite NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb declaring when she took the top job domestic violence would be a top priority.

The NSW Policing Activity report confirmed cops had conducted a record 113,534 checks in the 2021-22 financial year, however the number dropped to 109,964 in 2022-23 before plummeting again to 97,690 in 2023-24.

Opposition police spokesman and former police minister Paul Toole said: “Domestic violence monsters are going unchecked across the state”.

“AVOs are designed and only work on the basis of regular compliance checks.

There are not enough officers for police to conduct checks on domestic violence offenders released back into the community on bail. Picture: iStock

“These checks reduce the risk of escalation and ensure accountability of people in front of the courts for these heinous crimes,” Mr Toole told The Saturday Telegraph.

“But this is a massive drop of the ball by NSW Police and the state government – they champion protecting women and combating domestic violence, but are allowing offenders accused of pure evil to be let off the leash.”

Police Minister Yasmin Catley and NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb. Picture: Damian Shaw

Mr Toole said the drop in compliance was “putting vulnerable people are risk and back in harm’s way”.

BOCSAR statistics, updated on October 22, revealed there were 100,111 active ADVOs in force in the second quarter of 2024, up from 93,198 during the same three months in 2023.

Police Minister Yasmin Catley told The Saturday Telegraph in the past year police received almost 150,000 calls for assistance for domestic and family violence matters.

“That’s around one call every four minutes,” she said.

“We’re over 2000 police short – our officers are stretched to the limit.

“The NSW government is working around the clock to fill these vacancies and we hope to significantly increase compliance checks once they are filled.”

The minister said the government needed to “prevent this behaviour before it happens which is why it’s so important for prevention, early intervention and crisis response initiatives to work together”.

A NSW Police spokeswoman did not answer why there had been a significant drop in compliance checks of offenders on ADVOs, instead referring to a series of programs and operations rolled out in the past two years.

She said the average response time in this past financial year was reduced by almost a minute across metropolitan Sydney, despite an increase in cases reported.

NSW Police Corporate Sponsor for Domestic Violence Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna told The Saturday Telegraph police were still doing compliance checks, but were more focused on those “high-risk offenders and victims as opposed to a broad brush across the spectrum”.

He said that over the same period of time the amount of domestic violence reports to police have increased.

“And being a significantly under-reported crime we welcome that because our legal action rates or the amount of time we are taking action by way of charge and prosecution has also increased.”

“Despite there being more domestic violence our response has not decreased it has increased commensurate.

Mr McKenna said it is well documented that the capacity of NSW Police is “lower than where we would like it to be and that means we have to take a more risk based approach to our pro activity across the board”

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