‘Our work is never complete’: A day inside a specialist family violence court

The woman with the long, dark hair and the tiny diamantes on her sandals stares straight ahead as the man who pinned her down on a bed, strangling her almost unconscious in front of their children, is hauled before a magistrate.

His record of violence against the young mother dates back years. On this day, he is fighting to have another family violence intervention order lifted.

A litany of cases in the state’s new family violence court shows that domestic violence is complex and comes in many forms.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

“He was under great financial stress at the time,” a lawyer, appearing for the grey-haired man fidgeting in his seat, begins to tell the court before being interrupted by the magistrate.

“This man has a history of abuse,” the magistrate says bluntly. “There are children living in this house. There are always going to be stressors in life. It does not mean he should always resort to violence when he is feeling stressed.”

She promptly refuses his application.

It has been a grim and fraught day inside Frankston Magistrates’ Court, where a magistrate trained in trauma and experienced in domestic abuse matters is dealing with more than 30 cases before her in courtroom seven.

There are harrowing allegations of violent and sexual assaults. Women being stalked. Cases of traumatised children watching their mothers being beaten. A father who has taken out a restraining order after being violently assaulted by his grown son. A mother desperately seeking to protect her teenage daughter from an abusive partner.

The newly built courtroom with light timber walls and sunshine streaming through a large window is among the state’s first specialist family violence courts, aimed at prioritising the safety and wellbeing of victims/survivors.

The magistrates, lawyers and court staff who work in the specialist family courtroom are acutely aware the justice system has historically re-traumatised victims.

They aim to deal with cases in a faster, more respectful and trauma-informed way by avoiding confusing legal jargon and crucially giving victim/survivors a voice, secure waiting areas, and more choices about the way they appear in court.

The mother and her teenage daughter had waited anxiously all day in a locked safety room next to the court for the skinny teenage boy in glasses and an ill-fitting black blazer to be called.

When the time comes, a lawyer walks with the mother and her young daughter, her cheeks shining with tears, into the courtroom, gesturing at them to sit on the far-left side of the room, reserved for complainants.

“He won’t be able to come near you,” the lawyer tells the girl gently.

The mother squeezes her daughter’s knee reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” she tells her quietly. “You’re a protected species.”

The teenage boy sits on the opposite side of the room, set aside for accused perpetrators, accompanied by his father. He has barely taken a breath before the magistrate swiftly extends an intervention order.

The boy nods his head obediently as the magistrate bans him from all contact with the girl. The mother wraps her arm around her daughter and kisses her on the cheek as they leave the courtroom.

Many other victim/survivors choose to attend court remotely. When The Age visited, several women had joined via video link into the courtroom after being given special permission to keep their cameras off.

One woman told the magistrate she did not want to show her face, her voice cracking with emotion as it was projected out into the courtroom. She was seeking to extend an existing family violence intervention order by another two years.

Her estranged husband comes into the court a few moments later, his eyes wildly scanning the room for her, and he demands to speak to her. He then turns his face to the black television, directing his rage at the blank screen.

“You are ruining my children’s future,” he tells her before a magistrate interrupts.

“I do not want you to refer to her,” the magistrate says calmly. “This is not appropriate in court. Focus on the application before the court.”

The specialist court is fitted with secure waiting areas and separate courtroom entrances for victims of violence, limiting the chances perpetrators will harass or intimidate them.

There is a privacy screen in the courtroom, which can be rolled out like a curtain at any moment and used as a layer of protection for people who do want to see their abuser while providing evidence.

Next to the courtroom, there are meeting rooms behind a secure locked door, including a remote witness room that allows them to provide evidence from the safety of another room.

Inside the space, there are toys for children, a vending machine, a mobile phone charging unit (often used by women who have fled their homes and slept in refuges) and a sea of calming, green indoor plants.

Colourful artwork by artists from The Torch, an organisation that works with Indigenous inmates to teach artistic skills and reconnect prisoners with their cultural heritage, fills the walls.

Family violence experts are also on hand to provide non-legal support to both victims and those accused of abusing them, connecting them to outreach services.

Those who work in the court hope it will do something to tackle an alarming epidemic of women killed in violent attacks. An Australian woman was violently killed every four days in the first half of last year.

In Victoria, police are called to one family violence incident every six minutes, and arrest three alleged perpetrators every hour.

In the 2023/24 financial year, Victorian magistrates finalised more than 38,000 family violence intervention orders and a further 10,265 personal safety intervention orders to protect a person from somebody who is not their family member.

The courts dealt with more than 146,000 listings related to family violence for the same period, up from 111,558 in 2019/2020.

In the specialist courtroom in Frankston, the complexities of domestic violence are on full and raw display.

The court hears how the woman with tiny diamantes on her sandals has allowed the abusive partner to breach the intervention order and quietly move back into their home.

And how a young woman, allegedly abused by her husband, is no longer able to sleep in the family home with her child. Each day before work, she sees her little girl for a fleeting window between the start of her shift and dropping the child at daycare.

At the front of the courtroom sits a man in his 30s with a gaunt face and tattoos snaking up his neck.

A few rows behind him, his father twitches nervously in his chair, jiggling his knee as his son is questioned by the magistrate about why he exploded into a fit of drunken rage and attacked his parents just before Christmas.

The specialist courts prioritise the safety of witnesses, including secure rooms in the court and options for giving evidence without having to face their abusers. Credit: Shutterstock

The court hears his mother has called police three times previously. She was too upset to attend court. The man tells the magistrate he has been off methamphetamine since September last year, and now he’s kicked the booze, too.

“I’ve got the history of it all, but I’m 37, and it’s time to pull my head in and do the right thing,” he says.

Asked what support he has in place, the man says, “a very good mother”. The magistrate orders him to do a behavioural change program. His father agrees to have the intervention order lifted.

Head of the Family Violence Division, magistrate Michelle Hodgson, says the specialist courts are making “a big difference” to the experience of everyone in court over domestic abuse matters.

Hodgson says there are now 13 specialist family violence courts in operation across the state, including at Frankston, Dandenong, Heidelberg and Shepparton. The courts were a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Family Violence in Victoria.

More are due to open this year and next, at Latrobe, Sunshine, Ringwood and Broadmeadows, while the Geelong specialist family violence court will soon be complete.

Hodgson says victims/survivors previously would have had little choice but to wait for an extended, unpredictable time at court in direct proximity to their alleged abuser.

“Now [they] have greater choice in how they take part in their hearing and may not have to come to a court building for their matter to be heard,” she says.

But she adds: “Our work is never complete.”

If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.