Travelling team of specialised sex assault judges and magistrates could tackle postcode justice

A lack of facilities and daunting process deters sexual assault victims coming forward in regional NSW, but there is a way for the justice system to ease the burden.

A team of specialised magistrates and prosecutors that hears sexual and family violence cases around the state could help close the justice gap between the city and the bush.

That is the view of victim advocates who have backed calls for specialised courts but are cautious of “postcode justice”.

“Having the technology to do certain things is very important,” Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women’s Legal Centre principal solicitor Rachael Martin said.

“But in terms of having the support people, specialist prosecutors and judges, you would hope they could do it in Dubbo, Lismore and Wagga Wagga.

“They don’t need specialist buildings to provide that specialist court.”

There have been several improvements to the justice system for sexual assault survivors over the past decade.

That includes allowing victims to give evidence by CCTV, the use of safe rooms so women don’t have to see their perpetrator and banning brutal forms of cross-examination about a victim’s previous life.

However, support workers say the old and small courthouses in rural and regional areas don’t support much of the technology readily available in city courts.

“For example if a victim wants to give evidence by AVL, we don’t have the facility to foster that so it’ll be listed in Taree,” Lou Webber, from Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service Mid North Coast, said.

“If the case is in Macksville it will be moved to Kempsey. That holds up the process and you have delays.

“Then there are issues with public transport. They can’t just jump on a bus or in an Uber, we don’t have those here.”

Women’s Safety NSW has proposed to the state government designating a specialised judge and magistrate, with a team below them, that can rotate throughout the state to hearing cases of sexual and family violence, which are often intertwined.

Those judges would be specifically trained and educated on the complexities of sexual assault, the most trauma-informed way to take evidence from complainant and how trauma affects memory.

Christine Robinson, the co-ordinator of the Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women‘s Legal Centre, would also like to see expert evidence allowed in trials that speaks to the reactions of victims.

“Particularly for Aboriginal women, we know it’s an issue around women coming forward and reporting,” she said.

“So having people with cultural expertise and being able to explain some of those things why women won’t come forward and report it and why it‘s taken so long would be helpful.”

The Saturday and Sunday Telegraph campaign, in partnership with Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy (RASARA), is pushing for a pilot of specialist sexual assault courts to improve the justice system for victims.

The idea of specialised courts has been revisited by successive government over the past 20 years, including after the Sexual Assault Criminal Offences Taskforce in 2005.

Bob Debus, who was the Attorney-General under the Labor government at the time, said there was some difficulty persuading judges about specialist courts.

‘Because they are very stressful for the judiciary to actually conduct,” he said.

“Instead we accept the idea that there should be particular training for judicial officers in sexual assault cases.

“We moved to extra training for judges rather than specialist courts, which I thought was a reasonable thing at the time.”

Mr Debus said he “remained open” to the idea of specialised courts, even if it was a circuit of specialist judges, magistrates and prosecutors.