Domestic violence: The way it was

My earliest experience of attending a domestic violence incident was in Townsville in 1976. At that time, as is probably still the case now, ‘domestics’, as these matters are labelled, made up the highest proportion of incidents police are required to attend.

I was then a newly minted police trainee being rotated through the uniformed coppers’ duties in Townsville. On this night, I was dumped on a young constable who had several years service, his name was ‘M’.

With my partner, M in a marked patrol car, we were sent to a job in an area between Garbutt and West End, in a high-blocked fibro box on stilts in a dead-end street backing onto tidal flats. It was about 10.00 PM on a quiet Sunday night. The family who lived in this run-down area were First Australians. The kids had run screaming to their neighbours and their non-Aboriginal next-doors had gone to a nearby phone-box and phoned police, saying: “Dad’s bashing Mum; Mum’s screaming, and the kids are terrified.”

When Constable M and Trainee Pyke arrived I was expecting to be shown how it’s done. I was not to be disappointed. M walked ahead of me up to the front door which was open, knocked loudly and when a sheepish-looking, wiry man wearing only a pair of work shorts about 30 sidled sideways up to the door, M said, “Is everything here OK, now?”

The sheepish-looking man nodded at M slowly, “Yeah, bro. Ever ting all right now.”

Instantly, M wheeled around like a well-drilled platoon of army cadets and went past me going down the stairs headed back to the police car. He had reached the car door before I entered the house through the front door, looking for the woman. There was no thought required. This was a threshold moment but I only see that now. At the time, I made the unemotional judgement that M had done all he was going to do for one reason or another and was just as useless as most of the General Duties cops I had worked with up to that point. But that was a side issue.  

As a trainee, there was nothing I could do about M except shoot him, which was a tad too drastic. As a sworn police officer, though, there was much I could do for the woman and kids.

“Where is she?”I asked. His eyes flickered towards the kitchen but he said nothing. Freud would not have missed the slip. I found the young woman cowering against a cupboard on the floor in the kitchen, nothing broken. I helped her up, at the same time two small missiles planed across the room and speared into the body of their mother.

“Are you all right, Mummy?”a small skinny boy asked his mother, hugging her hard while his big round brown eyes stayed focussed on mine all the time. His younger, skinnier sister had her face buried in her mother’s breasts and was silent. I could hear her breathing, hard.

“Yeah, I’m alright, my darlings,”the young mother told them, but as she spoke her eyes teared up, then small droplets welled from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. 

I’ve seen this so many times since. Women often cop the abuse on themselves but the effects of that abuse on their kids will trigger emotions which can lead to the understanding that something must be done.

I took the husband out onto the front verandah. M was sitting in the cop car, smoking, at least he had not driven off. “You hit her?”I asked the perp. “No. Never hit her, connable.”Then, giving his situation some thought, the offender decided to promote me, always a good move, “Never hit her, sergeant.  She always complainin’, you know?”

But I did know. My Lifeline telephone counselling experience had wised me up. Whatever he might have said, his wife was on the floor when we arrived, while he wasn’t, and the kids had run to neighbours and told them dad was bashing Mum. At 10.00 PM on a school night, kids this age don’t normally do this.

I told the liar to wait there and went back in. Although I explained that I was prepared to arrest her husband if she was prepared to make a complaint the young woman refused. The kids were silent.

“OK.  Anywhere else you can stay tonight?”I asked Mum. Someone was leaving, and I did not as yet have sufficient grounds to lawfully arrest the bad guy. “You goin’ take me?  Got no money for cab fare. If you goin’ take us, there’s Aunty Mary’s over dere in West End. She’ll take us in. If you goin’ take us?” The woman’s face was suddenly hopeful. The boy tugged his Mum’s arm. “Yeah, Mum. Let’s go to Aunty’s.”

I told her I would drive her and her kids anywhere in Townsville where they would be safe.

Slowly Mum agreed, she nodded. “OK. Kids, get some things. Get your school clothes. We goin’ to Aunty Mary’s.”

At that the kids rushed and got pillows and blankets and Mum threw some things in a big plastic laundry basket. Nothing much, just a few clothes for the kids, some milk out of the fridge and a cheap purse.

The silent man on the verandah did not attempt to talk to his wife or kids as they filed by. As his family went down the steps ahead of me towards the cop car, behind them I let the offender have both barrels. “Next time I’ll pinch you for assault. No [BS]. Your feet won’t touch the ground. If I come back here again you’ll be coming with me. What kind of a man hits a woman? [Bleep] disgrace your kids have to get dragged out of their own beds this time of the night to have to go somewhere else to hide from their own Dad. What kind of a piss-weak [bleep] excuse for a dad are you, anyway?” 

The woman and kids waited at the cop car. They didn’t get in, just stood there waiting for me, unsure of M. I opened the back door of the blue-taxi and the kids jumped in and slid across the seat clutching their pillows. M appeared neither amused nor unamused. Stoic. It certainly was tough being a cop, this was what happened when they dumped a trainee on you. 

Because I am a mind-reader as well as a smartarse, I just knew M was thinking, ‘Hasn’t anyone told this guy the job’s not fair-dinkum?’

On the way to Aunty Mary’s I got some names and wrote up my notebook. We hadn’t even done a person check on the baddie, which I could have done if M had stayed with me, but at least I got the woman and her kids out and gave old mate a mouthful. Later I would handle all of this a lot better, but this was a start.

In my smart-arsed opinion, Queensland coppers now handle violence against women as well or maybe better than the best in the world. The Queensland Police Service has come a long way. Now domestic violence incidents involving violence or weapons receive a ‘code two’ designation, regardless of the ethnic background of those involved, and action is usually unhesitatingly taken against perpetrators.

We’ve come a long way, yes, but as a society we have further to travel. All of us men must say and mean it: “Us men must stop our violence against women.”

Want to help? Go to the White Ribbon website and swear a bit.