Domestic Violence Law Reform and Women’s Experience in Court: Th ...

Nine of the interviewees lived in either the inner city or suburban Melbourne, and hence had experience in some of the same courts that I observed. One now lived in a rural area in the State, but had attended suburban Magistrates’ Courts for intervention order proceedings. Three lived in a regional center just outside Melbourne. For intervention orders, they had attended a local Magistrates’ Court that I did not observe, but this gave me the opportunity to find out about similarities and differences between different Magistrates’ Court practices. People from this regional center did, however, attend the Melbourne Registry of the Family Court for family law matters. Eleven of the women had been to court to apply for an interim intervention order (3 had done so twice) and 8 had also applied for a full intervention order (again, 3 had done so twice, while 1 had done so 3 times and 1 had done so 4 times). Seven had been to the Family Court. Family Court proceedings tended to involve a number of interim hearings, directions hearings, counseling appointments, conferences, and so forth, before cases reached a defended trial. After a matter had been determined, there might also be further appearances for the enforcement of court orders where a party allegedly failed to comply with them, applications for variation of the original orders, or fresh applications for final orders. It was therefore difficult for respondents to say how many times they had attended the Family Court. Two had been through two defended trials, and 1 of these had also experienced an appeal to the Full Court. One respondent answered the question, how many times have you been in the Family Court? simply by saying “a lot,” while another said “too many to count.”

Finally, the demographic questionnaire asked about the nature of the violence these women had experienced and who had been the perpetrator. Ten of the women had been abused by their husband (5 women) or ex-husband (5 women), while 2 had been abused by an ex-partner, and 1 by her ex-boyfriend. Questions about the nature of the violence were based on the Duluth “power and control wheel” (Pence & Paymar, 1993; see appendix E).