Eleanor did everything she was supposed to do. She finally found the strength and courage to leave her abusive husband and seek a safe place. But when it came to going to the family court, an intervention order could do nothing to protect her and she found herself yet again under the control of her abuser.
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SHE was numb. Immobilised. Not thinking clearly.
How was it, Eleanor wondered, that after 11 years of abuse, after finally digging up the courage to leave her husband, she found herself back under his control?
And how was it, she thought, that the system that was meant to deliver justice was now putting her in this position: seated in the witness box in Bendigo courthouse, face-to-face with the man who beat her, kicked her, allegedly raped her.
One week earlier in the very same courtroom, a magistrate had put in place a 12-month intervention order that would keep him 200 metres away from her at all times.
A week later, mere metres separated them — that intervention order seemed to count for nothing in family court, where under federal law he retained the right to cross-examine the woman who, in all other jurisdictions, was his victim.
Eleanor only found out he was representing himself when she arrived at court that morning, and was still in shock as she took her seat; the police who had supported her were furious it was allowed to happen.
“It wasn’t what he asked me so much as the fact he was given full power back, where he asked questions and I was forced to respond,” she says.
“It felt like he had full control over me again.”
She held herself together until a break in proceedings — then bolted for the door.
“Not running, really bolting,” she says, “and I was crying and hyperventilating.
“All these people were in the foyer watching ... we went out the front and there are trams in Bendigo you know, and all I wanted was to throw myself under the first one I saw.
“I didn’t want to end my life, I just wanted the trauma to end.”
Afterward the pain subsided, replaced with an anger that grew, and grew, and grew.
It’s not OK, she thought this time, that the federal laws allowed that to happen.
It’s not OK, she resolved, for any woman who’s had the things happen to them that had happened to her, and for the person responsible for those horrors to be in that position.
“I’d left him, I’d done everything you’re told you’re supposed to do, and then I had to defend myself to him,” she says.
Like many women who suffer at the hands of men who supposedly love them, it took Eleanor years to leave. Years of being hit, kicked, or choked to the point she thought she would die. Of being told he would kill her and throw her body in the dam.
Twice, she alleges, he raped her “in the traditional sense”; most of the time, he just coerced her to fulfil his sexual wants.
Police have since told her had she not left when she did, she would likely have been dead within a year.
Why didn’t she leave sooner, people always want to know. It’s easier said than done, when you have children together, a home. When you’ve invested your whole life in something. When you hold out hope that maybe, just maybe, he means it when he says it won’t happen again.
Something snapped eventually though, and she packed up the car and drove to her parents’ house in Wodonga.
That’s where her lessons in the court system, with all its bureaucracy, began.
The first came when her ex applied for full custody of their three children as well as Eleanor’s son from her first marriage, and 70 per cent of all assets.
“I don’t even know if he really wanted it, or thought he’d get it,” she mused. “It seemed like he wanted to drag me through the system in a way that was financially, emotionally, physically exhausting.”
It took five years for everything to eventually be resolved in all courts, between the civil, criminal and family court matters. Five years for a not-guilty verdict in a rape trial; and a two-month suspended sentence handed down earlier this year after he pleaded guilty to kicking her with steel-capped boots. He couldn’t deny the photos of those bruises.
She’d wanted to believe that guilty plea was a sign he’d changed, but that was dashed when he was deemed unsuitable for a community corrections order, which would have forced him to undertake behavioural therapy.
“No remorse, they said,” Eleanor recalls as to why he was refused.
“To this day, he has still not done any form of anger management ... I don’t want him to do it for me, it’s for our children, he can still be a good father to them.
“I’m angrier now at the system than him. I know that’s just him now, it’s the system that’s devastated me.”
Today Eleanor has started a new life. She reunited with an old boyfriend in Wodonga, and started a small business. Her children are healthy and happy — she still shares custody of them with her ex, a tough situation but one she manages by “separating the father from the perpetrator”.
“For 11 years I eroded day by day ... and apparently you’re meant to suck it up and not say anything,” she says.
“That’s how it feels sometimes, that people would prefer you not to say anything, just move on with your life and be happy.
“And you know what? My life is good now — I wouldn’t let him or anyone else destroy me. But I’ll be damned if I let it destroy someone else who doesn’t have the support I did.”
NO JUSTICE IF ABUSER CAN GRILL HIS VICTIM
FAMILY violence victims are being forced to face off against their abusers in court because of shortages in legal aid funding and anomalies between state and federal laws.
Victims can be directly cross-examined by their perpetrators in Family Court proceedings — a situation family violence and sexual assault workers call “completely unacceptable”, while legal aid lawyers say funding cuts mean people have no option but to self-represent.
Now one Wodonga woman — who was cross-examined by her ex-husband who abused and allegedly raped her — is pushing for reform to ensure no one else finds themselves in this position.
Eleanor (not her real name) says in the five years she navigated Victoria’s legal system after leaving an 11-year abusive marriage, she was jostled between Victoria’s civil and criminal courts, and the federal Family Court, and believed there to be huge disconnects between them.
Her post-traumatic stress disorder was triggered when her husband — who she had an intervention order against — was allowed to cross-examine her in a final custody hearing over their three children.
That situation can’t arise in Victorian or NSW courts, with legislation in place to protect vulnerable witnesses under cross-examination.
“The federal government needs to make sure their laws are in alignment with the states,” Eleanor said.
“I see everything they’re saying on family violence, but they’re missing the mark - the real obstacles I faced were laws, and there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Eleanor, 43, said the cross-examination made her feel under her ex’s control again, and intimidated while on the stand.
“No perpetrator should be able to do that to their victim, regardless of gender,” she said.
“This is not saying he’s lost the right to his children, it’s simply saying he’s lost the right to cross-examine his partner himself.
“And it’s just not ever appropriate for the courts to say, ‘We will now let the man who beat and (allegedly) raped you cross-examine you now’.”
She has written letter upon letter to politicians, including Attorney-General George Brandis, calling for a law change.
Upper Murray Centre Against Sexual Assault chief executive officer Kerry Burns agreed the legal system had to change to better protect victims of crime.
“We are seeing reforms, such as the increased accountability of perpetrators through the Magistrates Court, and I’d hate to discount them but there are still other areas to address,” she said.
“One of the problems we have is when we go to the justice system, that very word ‘justice’ sets up expectations of a safe and just environment, and when it doesn’t deliver there’s massive distress.”
Allowing abusers to cross-examine their victims in any court, Ms Burns said, was tantamount to allowing them to abuse them all over again.
“Because he knows her so well, he can ask her questions he knows will put her in a position of vulnerability.”
Principal lawyer at Hume Riverina Community Legal Centre, Sarah Rodgers, said the problem linked back to a lack of funding for legal aid services.
The federal government last year cut $15 million from legal aid centres and $6 million from community legal centres, when a Productivity Commission report recommended at least a $200 million boost.
There are also restrictions on how far that funding extended; for example, funding will not cover a final hearing in Family Court no matter the circumstances.
“There is a high proportion of people representing themselves as they just can’t afford it or they aren’t eligible for help,” she said.
“Having said that, a specific provision that grants legal aid for cross-examination purposes in Family Court would be something we’d like to see.”