The forgotten victims of Australia’s female killings epidemic
In the Aussie suburbs right now, are 12 Aussie women, probably living in fear, who won’t survive the next three months. Here’s why.
Out in the Australian suburbs and currently alive are 12 women who will be murdered by their partners, ex-partners or a male acquaintance over the next three months.
Before politicians get together for a domestic violence summit in late July, it is all but certain around a dozen women, probably right now living in fear and under AVOs which cannot protect them, will die.
It’s an established statistic that one Australian woman each week is killed by a violent, controlling male she knows, and this is the subject of the Canberra summit in about 12 weeks.
This alarming fact, established by a landmark 2018 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, is Australia’s domestic violence crisis, unchanged today.
And just one tiny change of the law could help stop the rampage by obsessive males bent on killing.
Most Australians have heard of Hannah Clarke, whose estranged husband stabbed her and set on fire her three children in their vehicle in a suburban Brisbane street.
And, just last month, of Kelly Wilkinson, whose burnt body was found in her Gold Coast backyard, her three children aged under nine inside the house, but mercifully alive.
Members of Ms Wilkinson’s family claimed she had spoken with police “almost every day” about concerns for her own safety in the weeks before her death.
Ms Wilkinson’s ex-partner, Brian Johnston, has been charged with her murder.
But have you heard of Doreen Langham, a woman dubbed “the best mum in the world”, whose body was found in her fire-gutted townhouse on February 25?
Every day in May, as part of Domestic and Family Violence Awareness Month, news.com.au will tell the stories behind those shocking statistics.
RELATED: ‘Go of the throat’: Moment man ‘cracked’
Two weeks beforehand, 49-year-old Ms Langham had taken out a DVO out against her ex-partner, changed the locks, then called triple-0 when he turned up just hours before the fire.
His body was found next to hers in the charred wreckage of what police say was a deliberately lit fire and a murder-suicide.
Then there’s Celeste Manno, killed in northeastern Melbourne last November days before her 24th birthday, allegedly by a man she once tried to help.
Ms Manno had been the team leader of Luay Nader Sako, 35, at a Serco call centre in South Morang, Melbourne, when he was fired in 2019 and had comforted him before he left.
He had then allegedly become “obsessed” with her, contacting her via Instagram and dozens of online accounts until she took out an interim order against him.
Police allege he broke into her home as she slept, smashed a bedroom window and stabbed her before fleeing via a side fence.
Or what about Elaine Pandilovski who was allegedly killed inside her own home at Mill Park, Melbourne, in July last year and her body dumped underneath the house.
A mother of one and a special needs teaching aide at her neighbourhood primary school, Ms Pandilovski had separated from her husband and former high school sweetheart, Zoran.
Police allege he murdered her and then was involved in a car crash which injured two people on the same day.
Zoran Pandilovski has pleaded not guilty to murder and two counts of reckless conduct placing a person in danger of death.
RELATED: Domestic and family violence is Australia’s national shame
RELATED: Lynda Greenwood’s ex boyfriend charged with her murder
Most people have heard of the Edwards family, Olga and her teenage children, Jack and Jennifer, both 15, and their murderous vengeful father, John.
On July 5, 2018, John Edwards shot dead Jack and Jennifer at their West Pennant Hills home and then killed himself, knowing he had destroyed what his ex-wife loved most.
Five months later, Olga took her own life at the age of 37.
It was revealed at the inquest that the independent children’s lawyer representing Jack and Jennifer had worked to keep the teens in contact with their father, despite their expressed fear of him.
The lawyer was only obeying the Family Law Act, which required her to tell Olga that unless she encouraged her children’s contact with their father, the lawyer would recommend the court award him custody.
The Family Law Act has a presumption of shared contact between parents, no matter how violent or threatening one of them has been.
This is despite the fact, domestic violence legal experts say, that the majority of child custody and family matters involve domestic violence.
Statistics of Australian “intimate partner violence” show 79 per cent of these homicides are males killing females, 18 per cent are women killing men and 1.9 per cent are men killing a male partner.
Women’s Legal Services Queensland CEO, Angela Lynch said forcing mothers to share custody of their children with violent and threatening partners only puts them in the firing line to be killed or hurt.
RELATED: Sinister reason mum didn’t go to work
RELATED:Call for probe into how cops treated Kelly
Ms Lynch, who called for action but got none after the Hannah Clarke and children murders, told news.com.au that the law has failed to keep up with the increase of violence being a factor.
She said the Family Law Act today would still deliver the Edwards children into their father’s deadly hands.
One small change to the Family Law Act could change all that, by removing the presumption of equal access to children by their fathers.
But Ms Lynch said if the law was applied on a case-by-case basis, when violence was involved automatic access to children could be refused.
She said this would not necessarily overburden the system, and might in fact streamline it by removing children from the violent man’s zone or orbit, and decreasing the likelihood of breached AVOs.
She said the Australian Institute of Family Studies in a 2018 report, had deduced that 85 per cent of all Family Law Court matters involved domestic violence.
After every well-publicised domestic murder, as happened after Hannah Clarke was murdered, frightened women flood DV helplines reporting violent partners’ renewed threats to finally “get it over with” and kill them.
As Australia’s domestic violence situation escalates, there are growing calls for Canberra politicians to acknowledge it is a crisis and act instead of planning “another talkfest”.
On social media, the hashtag #Hernameis, which trended on Twitter in the wake of several brutal murders of young women – albeit committed by strangers – has been taken up by anti-DV activists.
#HERNAMEIS KELLY WILKINSON. Kelly’s burnt, tied up body was found in her home, with three children under nine inside. When will #FEMICIDE#COERCIVECONTROL and #DOMESTICVIOLENCE be a priority for you, @ScottMorrisonMP? Or are you only able to give meaningless platitudes? https://t.co/qP2BrlhapT
— Bethany Williams (@BethanyinCBR) April 20, 2021
Political hopeful Bethany Williams, a women’s rights advocate who was a candidate in last year’s ACT election, has challenge Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Twitter to take action.
Following Kelly Wilkinson’s violent death last month, Ms Williams tweeted, “Kelly’s burnt, tied up body was found in her home, with three children under nine inside.
“When will #FEMICIDE #COERCIVECONTROL and #DOMESTICVIOLENCE be a priority for you, @ScottMorrisonMP?
“Or are you only able to give meaningless platitudes?”
RELATED: Women swamp helpline fearing copycat Rowan Baxter murders
RELATED:Law change could have saved Hannah Clarke and her three kids’ lives
In response, @drmavrds posted on Twitter: “How about the government establishing a ‘war footing’ about this epidemic of #FEMICIDE?
“The horror. Those poor children will be haunted by this by the end of their days. may she RIP.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison came under fire in 2020 for cutting domestic violence funding while attending the funeral of Hannah Clarke and her children.
#HERNAMEIS CELESTE MANNO
— Tarang / तरंग (@tarang_chawla) November 16, 2020
23-year-old Celeste Manno has been killed in Melbourne's north-east. A man known to Celeste Manno has been arrested in relation to the crime as murder investigations are ongoing by Victoria Police. pic.twitter.com/qp6NL83MRQ
#Hernameis Elaine Pandilovski. She was a dedicated mother, a loving daughter and a special needs aid who dedicated her life to supporting children. She was killed inside her own home in Mill Park yesterday. Her husband remains under police guard in hospital. @9NewsMelbpic.twitter.com/1wA7d9rNKT
— Lana Murphy (@LanaMurphy) July 15, 2020
The head of a Queensland task force into domestic and family violence has recommended an independent examination into the way police responded to Kelly Wilkinson before her death.
The Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce is examining whether coercive control can be a specific DV offence, and the experiences of women across the criminal justice system.
The family of Celeste Manno have established a petition on change.org to draw attention to the fact “that violence against women has been an increasing issue in our world today”. “Violence against women resulting in death has been increasing. Many of these deaths can be prevented by introducing stringent laws to ensure that victims are protected,” the petition says.
It asks for “insufficient” laws to be changed so that women can be protected against stalking.
After Doreen Langham’s death last year in an apparent murder-suicide carried out by the ex-partner she feared, police announced her efforts to protect herself with police help would be examined.
Less than two weeks before the fatal fire, Beenleigh Magistrates Court granted Ms Langham a temporary protection order against Gary Hely, the man whose body she was found next to.
Deputy Commissioner Gollschewski said a review would aim to “establish a timeline” from the first time Ms Langham intersected with police.
“We have not been able to protect her,” he said.
He said domestic violence continued to be a scourge on the community, with police dealing with more than 105,000 occurrences in the last year in Queensland.
“This tells you the quantum of this problem for our community.
“And despite (Queensland DV program) Not Now, Not Ever, and despite what we’ve learnt and seen in other instances such as Tara Brown and Hannah Clarke and her children, here we are again,” he said.
Tara Brown was bashed to death with a fire hydrant in 2015 by her violent bikie ex-partner and father of her child, Lionel Patea.
Ms Brown sensed she was in grave danger a week before she was bashed to death by Patea who had intimidated her for days and then ran her off the road before killing her.
Patea bashed her to death with the cover of a fire hydrant.
He pleaded guilty in 2017 and was sentenced to life in prison.
Update on alleged Westfield bus stabbing
Police have issued an update after a man was allegedly stabbed with a pen and a woman injured during an altercation on a bus outside a busy Westfield.
Wild past of Sydney’s ‘worst property’
It’s been dubbed one of Sydney’s “worst blocks” due to its dark past - but residents have hit back after a man was stabbed to death at the address last weekend.
Man’s alleged horror act to woman
A man will face court over an alleged attempted sexual assault of a woman in the early hours of the morning as she came home from work.