Add Category
She's one of the rare few police wives whose abusive partner, a long-serving senior constable, was convicted of a string of domestic violence offences — including an assault so brutal she lost consciousness and very nearly her life.
But years later Sarah* still questions her decision to report her ex to police in the first place. His colleagues quickly leaked her safety plan, pressured her not to report his intervention order breaches and warned her he could lose his job — as if that was more important than her safety.
Going to the police for help, she said, put her and her kids in greater danger.
One cold, dark evening a few years ago, as she recounted the trauma and expense of the whole ordeal, Sarah told me she suspected it would take a homicide — a cop killing his partner — for police in Australia to finally take perpetrators of domestic violence in their ranks seriously. Perhaps now, with the shocking murder of Sydney couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davies — allegedly by Senior Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon, with his police gun — that moment has arrived.
NSW police will allege the double homicide is domestic violence related, but it is still under investigation and yet to be heard by the courts — in other words, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. However, it is a chilling reminder of how high the stakes are when stalking and abuse goes unreported or unpunished. The allegations should also be a wake-up call to police forces across the country that for too long have been failing to take action against serving officers who commit domestic violence, fuelling cultures of impunity and putting victims’ safety at risk.
For years ABC News has been reporting police data and harrowing victim accounts that suggest police in every state are grappling with an accountability crisis. Relatively few serving officers are charged with domestic violence offences and a disproportionately small number are found guilty.
Perhaps most disturbingly, several officers who were convicted of their charges have kept their jobs and guns, and are potentially still responding to domestic violence matters in the community. In NSW, the Minister for Police Yasmin Catley last month confirmed 57 police officers charged with domestic violence were still employed, including three officers who were convicted of their charges.
A glimpse at victims' horror
Now, new data sheds more light on the problem, with documents obtained under Freedom of Information showing 37 NSW police officers were charged with domestic violence offences in the last two years: 16 in 2022 and 21 in 2023 — the highest number in six years. The NSW Police Force inexplicably decided that it would not release the gender of officers charged in 2022, but the majority of those charged in 2023 (81 per cent) were male, in line with trends in previous years and reflecting broader gendered patterns of domestic violence.
The charges — against constables, senior constables and sergeants — offer a glimpse at the horror victims have been subjected to allegedly by powerful police who swore oaths to serve and protect: ADVO breaches, assault, stalking, reckless wounding, property damage, rape, choking and kidnapping.
But these are only the matters police acted on; too many victims don't report violence by serving police because they fear they won't be believed, that no action will be taken or worse, that they will be targeted and charged themselves.
For NSW Greens MP Abigail Boyd, the murder of Baird and Davies, allegedly by a police officer, is "significant" because it brings into focus what makes police officer perpetrators in general so dangerous.
"They have access to guns, they can use police systems and contacts to control and harm their victims, and they are statistically a lot less likely to face consequences for their abuse," Ms Boyd said. "I have been contacted by so many women who tell the same story — they are in danger but are terrified of asking the police for help because their abuser is a police officer."
Even if victims do find the courage to report domestic violence, some say they feel as if they're up against an "army" in the police force: many have described a closing of ranks around their perpetrator and a system designed to protect the abuser, not the abused. "I was brought up to trust the police, I even married one," said one woman in regional NSW who was wrongly charged with assaulting her husband after an investigation by his colleagues. "But I've lost all faith in the system that is meant to protect me and others like me."
Police have long resisted reforms
One of the most urgent problems is that investigations are frequently managed by police from the same station or command as the accused, creating conflicts of interest and serious implications for victims' safety and privacy. In its review of police responses to domestic violence last year the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission recommended that DV investigations involving serving officers should be transferred to a different command. But the NSW Police Force rejected it, arguing it was "not always operationally practical".
The LECC also recommended that if an investigation cannot be transferred to another command, a commander's decision-making processes — including how conflicts of interest will be managed — should be documented and uploaded to the complaints system. The force agreed in principle, saying it had in October 2022 introduced a mandatory process for reporting officer-involved domestic violence matters to district inspectors, who must document conflicts of interest.
But experts insist that process is not good enough. "There is a significant difference between managing a conflict of interest and the public perception that a conflict of interest has been managed," said Delia Donovan, chief executive of Domestic Violence NSW. "DVNSW strongly supports the LECC recommendation for independent investigations … and continues to advocate for this to be implemented. If victim-survivors are assured of this impartiality and independence, it will be easier for them to report abuse."
I asked the NSW Police Force why it was so difficult to transfer these investigations to other commands and whether it could provide evidence that its new process for managing conflicts of interest was effective. Why won't it commit to publishing data on domestic violence matters involving serving officers? The force still has not provided a response more than a week later.
For police accountability lawyers, addressing the problem is a no-brainer: complaints about police should be independently investigated by a properly funded external oversight body. By contrast, the LECC has repeatedly raised concerns that it lacks the resources to perform its core functions and refers 98 per cent of its "firehose" of complaints back to police for investigation.
What good is a police watchdog if it doesn't have the capacity to fully hold police to account — if it cannot compel the force to implement even basic reforms?
A moment of truth?
In the meantime, some argue NSW should take the lead of Victoria Police, which in 2021 introduced a standalone policy for managing allegations of domestic violence among employees and stood up a unit in its Professional Standards Command to investigate high-risk cases.
Victims say it's still not functioning the way senior police claimed it would, but it's a step in the right direction. "If the police won't set up a specific unit to investigate domestic violence matters involving serving officers like Victoria has, then the government needs to direct them to do so," Ms Boyd said. "And if that involves legislation to ensure it happens, so be it."
But successive governments have refused to intervene. When contacted by ABC News the previous police minister and minister for the prevention of domestic and sexual violence deferred to police, while Yasmin Catley last month told a Budget Estimates hearing she had no intention of introducing legislation requiring police to conflict out criminal matters involving serving officers. "I am told by the police that having the local command there — knowing the circumstances, the officers and also the outcomes that we're seeing — doesn't suggest that it's an impediment," she said.
The minister's comments suggest she hasn't heard the testimony of victims whose lives have been up-ended, their mental health decimated, their access to justice too often blocked by virtue of their abuser's taxpayer-funded employment. But then that has also been a criticism of police: that they're too detached from victims' experiences, their judgement dangerously clouded by outdated attitudes to gendered violence.
It is hardly surprising: despite domestic violence making up nearly half of all policing work — though police in NSW attend some 180,000 incidents every year — officers do not routinely undertake specialist training.
Maybe some of that will now change. Under huge pressure NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb last week announced she had taken steps to dismiss Beau Lamarre-Condon. She has also asked Victoria Police to review her force's gun handling procedures, insisting she's trying to be "as transparent" as she can be.
It's a sign the commissioner understands the importance of impartiality and integrity but it's unclear whether she will take the same firm approach to the dozens of officers accused of domestic violence in her ranks.
Not so long ago she was adamant there wasn't a problem there — that police manage conflicts of interest well and "put victims' needs first".
Surely by now the jig is up.