source : the age
Sue* will never forget the terror she felt when the ex-partner who had just broken her eye socket was released on bail. She was nursing a painful injury, she had two young children to look after, and her attacker knew exactly how to get into her house.
“Our world had been turned on its head,” she recalls. “I was on all kinds of painkillers. I was terrified. I had no idea what I was walking into or how I was going to cope.”
She called Carrie’s Place, a domestic violence service that, among other things, helps victims stay in their homes. It acted quickly; within hours, her broken locks were fixed, deadbolts had been installed on her doors, and Sue had been given a watch that operated as a panic button.
Molly Ticehurst’s body was found in the early hours of April 22, 2024.Credit: Stephen Kiprillis
Molly Ticehurst asked for the kind of help Sue received, but didn’t get it. She contacted a similar service, and had been waiting two weeks for lights, cameras and screens to be installed in her house when she died. Ticehurst’s body was found in her home at Forbes, in central-western NSW, in the early hours of April 22, 2024. Her former partner, Daniel Billings, who had been released on bail for sexually assaulting her, has been charged with her murder.
Demand is skyrocketing for services such as Carrie’s Place, which had 150 per cent more referrals in the past financial year compared with the one before, and will have even more this year. Despite the spiralling need, its budget has not increased.
It’s the same problem elsewhere. Around 96 per cent of specialist services reported increased demand between March last year and this month. There is a two-month average wait for critical support for domestic violence victims in NSW, and each service has an average of 33 people on their waiting list, a Domestic Violence NSW survey of services found.
There was nationwide fury when childcare worker Ticehurst died, 12 months ago on Tuesday, yet frontline services remain critically underfunded and haven’t had a baseline increase for a decade, says DVNSW chief executive Delia Donovan. “They are at breaking point,” she says.
With no extra resources, and despite the national reckoning on domestic violence after Ticehurst’s death – which led to tougher bail laws – frontline workers are burning out as they try to help victims of a crime that keeps growing in volume and complexity. Domestic violence-related assault has grown every year since 2021, apprehended domestic violence orders continue to climb, and 39 adults and children died from DV-related murder in NSW last year.
Perpetrators are aware of the penalties they could face if police and courts have evidence of their behaviour, so they are changing their approach, says Kate Hopkins from Carrie’s Place, who is a team leader but attended Sue’s urgent call herself because caseworkers were overloaded. “I’ve got a perpetrator who, instead of using his hands to strangle his client, would use his forearm,” she says. “We’re seeing a lot of sexual coercion and reproductive coercion.”
An Le from Bonnie’s Support Services agrees. “The perpetrators are more careful,” she says. “[They use] public phones, private numbers or burner phones. They hide cars so they’re not detected on CCTV. There are men’s groups on Facebook that will share tips or tricks.” Her service puts only basic information about escaping violence on its website because perpetrators read it and check if their partner is following those steps.
They’re harnessing technology by putting their AirPods cases in their partner’s car or buying AirTags to monitor them. “They’ll have tracking tiles in teddy bears,” said Le. Support workers have bags that can block a phone’s signal so they can reassure women that they can meet at a cafe in safety. “We’re having to become mini tech experts ourselves” to deal with the rapidly changing methods, says Hopkins.
The introduction of coercive control laws and the publicity campaign to educate the public about them have increased demand for domestic violence services as women realise what they’ve been enduring is neither normal nor OK. But there’s been no extra funding to help them respond – something about which the sector warned governments before the laws were introduced.
In the final six months of last year, the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found police recorded 157 coercive control incidents, mostly involving harassment, threats and intimidation, and humiliation. But BOCSAR captures only incidents with police involvement. “There’s a huge number of women self-referring [to services],” says Hopkins. “We’re now on our way to doubling our referral numbers from two years ago, prior to coercive control.”
Sue was lucky – the response to her call for help came within hours. She can’t bear to think of what might have happened if it had not been. “I would have had to have picked up my kids and left everything and gone,” she said. Carrie’s Place also gave her grocery vouchers and helped her navigate financial assistance, as her injury left her unable to work. During the most horrific time of her life, she had someone holding her hand.
“The government needs to support these places,” she said. “They help so much.”
But services say they’re far too overloaded to respond to every call. Erin Hunt works with victims going through the court process in regional NSW, where a few workers travel thousands of kilometres between cases. Her colleagues are “buckling under the pressure of increased workloads. We’re all passionate about what we do … but we are stretched thin.”
Hopkins says Carrie’s Place does everything possible to avoid closing its books, but “we’re going to have to if it continues the way it is”. Last year, the centre did 90 safety audits on women’s homes – fixing locks, providing sensor lights, adding fluorescent street numbers so emergency services can identify their home quickly. In the first three months of this year, it did 40.
“We worry about the longer wait times – [the women who have to wait are] living with a person using violence,” she says. “That’s got a huge impact on our staff as well – they’re worried they’re going to miss something. There’s a potential to make mistakes when you’re dealing with a high workload with a high level of risk.”
Le said her service was unable to help 108 women during a three-month period. “That’s just one service,” she says. She has lost experienced staff because funding is only guaranteed for a period of one or two years. And experience is important. “When a woman calls in the middle of the night and has nowhere to go, you have to know how to respond respectfully, kindly, effectively.”
Donovan said the sector needs an immediate injection of $163 million in the June NSW budget and sustained funding at that level thereafter. That would be a 50 per cent increase for all services, which haven’t seen extra funding for a decade. “Without funding the sector on the front line, we’re heading into dire circumstances,” she says.
“To hear that there’s an average of two months waiting list across those services fills me with dread and fear. Demand is so high but resourcing is so low; it’s like sending a paramedic to a major emergency with just one ambulance, and forcing them to make impossible choices about who gets help and who is left without lifesaving support.”
A government spokesperson said the 2025-26 budget process was under way and details would be revealed closer to the budget in June.
*Sue is a pseudonym, to protect the victim’s identity.
If you or anyone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, beyondblue on 1800 512 348, Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
