No change for domestic violence policy

NSW Attorney General Greg Smith has resisted calls for policy change to prevent domestic violence victims who retract allegations being prosecuted.

NSW Attorney General Greg Smith has resisted calls for policy change to prevent domestic violence victims who retract allegations against their abusers being prosecuted.

Mr Smith said there were "no plans" to change the practice of local police prosecutors laying charges and running criminal cases against alleged victims who retracted claims of abuse, despite fresh calls from the Australian Law Reform Commission that such cases should be referred to the highest levels of the Office of the DPP.

The Australian this week revealed 20 cases in which Aboriginal women who had retracted the contents of their police statements were charged with criminal offences for either false testimony or public mischief.

None of the charges were the result of police investigation into the retraction of the claims; instead police used the women's own testimony to convict them.

Three of the women received jail terms, with all of the sentences overturned by higher courts.

The cases have triggered deep concern among lawyers and domestic violence advocates who are particularly concerned at the lack of oversight from the Director of Public Prosecution into such delicate cases.

There is provision within the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Act, under section 16, for the state's DPP Lloyd Babb SC to issue a direction to police mandating that particular types of cases be referred to the Director for consideration of prosecution. Mr Babb has declined to comment on the issue.

A similar directive was given recently by the United Kingdom's DPP following a public furore at the jailing of a woman who retracted a rape allegation.

Alternatively, under the same act Mr Smith could issue a guideline that laid out the circumstances in which the DPP should handle potential domestic violence retraction prosecutions, to prevent the criminalisation of genuine victims.

But a spokesman for Mr Smith said: "The NSW Government has no current plans to change the arrangement for prosecuting these offences".

Australian Law Reform Commission president Rosalind Croucher this week said if the prosecution of domestic violence victims was occuring in NSW in the manner reported, it represented a "blame the victim" mentality that must be changed.

Professor Croucher said the ALRC had recommended in a 2010 report into family violence that consideration of charges against victims who were alleged to have aided and abetted breaches of protection orders should only be handled at the highest levels of state police forces or offices of public prosecution.

She said false accusation or public mischief charges fell into the same category.