National service to help families of sex offenders needed to prevent ‘human collateral damage’

Vital clues that could lead to young sexual abuse victims are being overlooked - but an unlikely source could help bring paedophiles to justice. See how.

Exclusive: Lisa found herself in a position no one would ever imagine themselves in.

Her husband was facing charges of possessing child abuse material and her home had been searched by police.

And then she made a discovery that chilled her.

Lisa, whose surname can’t be used for legal reasons, sent police images she found that “made me uncomfortable”.

That allowed officers to carry out more inquiries - and more charges followed, leading to him being jailed for more than a decade.

The clues hadn’t been noticed by police, but after the arrest, what she’d previously viewed as “happy snaps” took a sinister turn.

“I handed them evidence on a silver platter,” Lisa said.

“They still missed things that never would have been found. They took [a] photo to the child’s parents and that led to the first child molesting charge, and there were three more after that - without me having gone through that first one, they wouldn’t have gotten the other three,” she said.

PartnerSPEAK chief executive Natalie Walker is calling for a national service to help families of people charged with Picture: David Caird

Natalie Walker, the chief executive of Victorian PartnerSPEAK, said a national scheme that provides support for non-offending partners and family like Lisa was desperately needed.

A national service - recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Abuse and approved by the states and territories - has faced continued delays with no confirmed state date.

Ms Walker said an Australia-wide service would be a world first.

“Every day that we do not have a national response for non-offending partners and affected family members, Australia is leaving behind a trail of preventable human collateral damage,” she said.

Ms Walker said the National Office for Child Safety that sits within the Attorney-General’s Department needed to release the tender for the national service with urgency.

She has written to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to share “new and compelling” survey data that suggested how vital non-offending partners were.

Associate Professor Michael Salter said the delay in a national service was “inexcusable”.

PartnerSPEAK surveyed about 50 investigators they worked with - and the findings confirmed Ms Walker’s fears.

Investigators told her families could provide “identification of further victims... that law enforcement didn’t know of”.

“One hundred per cent of investigators had either direct experience with, or could imagine it being relevant, for an affected family member to provide additional information at the time

of a warrant,” she said in her letter to Mr Dreyfus.

“Families assist investigators in rescuing children.”

Associate Professor Michael Salter of UNSW said the delays were “inexcusable”.

“These are incredibly traumatising circumstances with the potential to cause long term damage to women and also to their children,” he said.

“This is not the only measure coming out of the recommendations of the Royal Commission that we have yet to see actioned by the Commonwealth Government, and it’s raising a lot of questions about the commitment of the Commonwealth Government to really effective interventions to support victims and survivors,” Assoc Prof Salter said.

A spokesman for the Attorney-General’s Department said it was “working to deliver” the service and it would be in development in the coming months.

“To ensure the integrity of the procurement process, the Department is not able to provide any further information regarding the time frames for this procurement,” the spokesman said.

An initial $10m has been set aside to establish the service.

Originally published as National service to help families of sex offenders needed to prevent ‘human collateral damage’