Lawyers stunned by police course of action

IN the cells beneath Dubbo Court House in NSW's central west, Allyson Sullivan sobbed herself to sleep.

Allyson Sullivan

IN the cells beneath Dubbo Court House in NSW's central west, Allyson Sullivan sobbed herself to sleep. The 44-year-old had endured 20 years of extreme family violence but it was nothing compared to this.

"I just cried myself to sleep in the cells and when I woke up I thought it was all just a dream, but it wasn't," she says. "I was shocked, dumbfounded."

The mother of three had just been sentenced to 18 months in prison after retracting allegations contained in a police statement of domestic violence she had levelled against the father of her children, her partner of 23 years.

When Ms Sullivan told police she had lied when she relayed extensive allegations of repeated assaults, she knew she was playing Russian roulette with the law.

But the outcome - her de facto had promised that if she withdrew her claims against him during his criminal hearing he would leave town, and leave her and her children's lives forever - was too tempting. She never believed she would go to prison.

"When I was sitting there in the court I was trying to think whether I had pulled the chicken out of the freezer for tea," she says from her home in Gilgandra.

"It never came to my mind that I would go to jail. I turned around and I looked at my three kids and just to see their eyes and hear them cry . . . I was trying to do the right thing by them and it just felt like I had kicked them all in the guts. And no way in the world over my dead body was he going to have the kids."

It was late afternoon in Dubbo in November 2007 when Ms Sullivan called 000. Despite suffering two decades of assaults, it was the first time the mother of three had ever reached out to police.

"To start off with you just get pushed around, at the end he tried to cut my fingers off," she says. "There wasn't a day that goes by that you didn't have bruises or cuts. He'd take all of your clothes off and drop you somewhere on the road and if you weren't tied to the back of the car you were lucky."

As she spoke to police, they took notes and recorded a 12-page witness statement, taking photographs of her injuries. Three days later, her partner was arrested and charged with common assault and breaching an apprehended violence order. He was refused bail and remanded in custody.

But 2 1/2 weeks later, Ms Sullivan completed a statutory declaration claiming that what she told police had been "taken out of the context" and that she wanted her partner released.

"I felt I wasn't getting support from the law and by this time I knew I was serious about leaving him," she says. "He came to me and said if I was to withdraw he would leave town and leave me and the kids alone."

Ms Sullivan attended Dubbo police station on January 22, 2008, and told officers she had made a false statement. She was placed under arrest and charged with making a false statement to police under section 314 of the NSW Crimes Act.

That officers chose such a course - usually a measure of last resort that automatically results in custody - rather than issuing a summons stunned Ms Sullivan's lawyers.

In the court hearing that ensued, she entered a not guilty plea but on August 26, 2008, was found guilty and sentenced by magistrate Howard Hamilton to 18 months in prison with a non-parole period of six months.

While waiting for an urgent District Court appeal hearing, Ms Sullivan spent three days in Wellington prison. She was strip-searched on arrival.

"It was the longest three days of my life," she says. "I just cried and cried and cried."

When her case reached the District Court in Dubbo, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions handled the appeal.

Extraordinarily, the DPP offered no evidence in court.

Ms Sullivan's charge was dismissed and her sentence set aside. Justice, though delayed, had finally come.