Woman successfully appeals against compensation refusal

A TASMANIAN woman will be able to seek compensation for personal injury she suffered as a victim of family violence.

A TASMANIAN woman will be able to seek compensation for personal injury she suffered as a victim of family violence after a Supreme Court judge ruled that violence can include emotional abuse and intimidation.

Justice Gregory Geason said the woman had sought compensation under the Victims of Crime Compensation Act for violence perpetrated by her former husband between 2008 and 2015.

The woman’s application for compensation was refused by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Commission because her former husband’s crimes did not involve actual physical violence, or violence in its “commonly understood sense”.

Justice Geason upheld the woman’s appeal in his judgment handed down in the Supreme Court in Hobart on Friday.

“‘Violence’, according to the mainstream definition of the word, is capable of accommodating acts which are intended to cause harm other than through the application of force to the person of another,” Justice Geason said.

“I consider that there is no warrant for the narrow interpretation which was adopted in this case.

“Accordingly I hold that an offence which involves the infliction of harm by coercion and intimidation, emotional abuse and intimidation, and economic abuse, falls within the meaning of an ‘offence that involves violence’ by one person against another for the purposes [of the Act] without the need for physical violence or the infliction of force.”

Family lawyer and chairman of the Law Society’s Family Law Committee, Trevor McKenna, said Justice Geason’s decision made it clear that family violence comes in many forms.

“It’s yet another example of courts recognising that in contemporary society, family violence … [is] recognised by the court as coming in different forms,” Mr McKenna said.

He said there may be more appeals of a similar nature in future.

Justice Geason said the woman married the man in 2000, and in 2008 the couple moved to Tasmania. They separated in 2013.

“In her application for compensation [the woman] described her former husband as a psychopath,” Justice Geason said.

“She said he would rant and rave constantly and get very drunk, refusing to let her sleep.”

Justice Geason said the man was described as having a “controlling personality” and he demanded to know where his former wife was at all times.

“She claimed that after they separated, he stalked her, and that she was in constant fear of him, and what he might do to the children,” he said.

“As a result, she started seeing a psychologist. In turn, and because her sleeplessness and anxiety were so severe, she was referred to a psychiatrist.”

Justice Geason said the man breached family violence orders several times.

He said the matter would be remitted to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Commissioner to be determined in accordance with the court ruling.