Domestic violence takes more forms than abusive text messages and bruises.
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It is Rachel, left with a vandalised home and a dog bashed to within an inch of its life by her ex-boyfriend.
Jason Robert Fordham was convicted of animal abuse and intentional damage to property in Wodonga Court this week, receiving a $3000 fine.
Rachel, sharing her story under an alias to protect her two young children, was shocked by the outcome of the court case.
“There’s this real community push about awareness, but then when you read about the sentences these people get, it doesn’t seem to be reflective of what the public’s thinking and feeling,” she said.
The Wodonga woman’s relationship with Fordham, 39, began in February 2015.
“We met online and we dated for about 12 months before he moved in,” she said.
“Everything was nice and rosy for the first six months, and after that I started to see a bit of a darker side to him.
“Nothing was ever his fault and he could never say sorry.
“He talked about friends, but I never really met many.
“I had a rescue dog that needed a lot of training, and he showed a lot of jealously towards it; he wouldn’t interact with it.”
I started to see a bit of a darker side to him ... nothing was ever his fault and he could never say sorry
Rachel ended the relationship in March of this year.
“The relationship got rocky towards the end, and after we had a big fight I said ‘That’s it, we’re ending this’,” she said.
“He didn’t pack anything for three or four days and I told him to leave and he said ‘I’ll do it when I want to’.”
On March 21, Rachel received a message from Fordham saying that if she was coming home from work, she should keep an eye out for her dog.
“I came home and asked what happened, and he said he’d opened the door and she had run out,” she said.
“I started driving around, and then he sent me a message that said ‘Your dog is at home, she’s lucky to be alive’.
“I got straight back home, and he said ‘I found her over the road, under the neighbour’s bushes’.
“She had cuts and bruises all over her.”
Two days later, Rachel had to put her dog down due to injuries described by the vet as consistent to being beaten or in a bad car accident.
Fordham finally moved out, but he did not leave Rachel and her family alone.
She went away for a long weekend on May 12, and came back to chaos.
“When I got home on the Sunday, the back door was wide open,” she said.
“I had flowers on the bench which were smashed all over the floor, the oven and heaters were on, and things were thrown everywhere, but no computers or valuables were missing.
“I went into my bedroom and all my clothes had been pulled out of the wardrobe, to the point the hangers had actually snapped, my bed had been urinated on and a necklace my daughter had given to me had gone missing.
“The police came and took a report, and after they left a neighbour came over and told me they had witnessed Jason bashing up my dog.
“He had seen it happen on the day Jason said my dog ran outside, and his words were ‘he was doing something to the dog no one should ever to do a dog’.”
Fordham continued to contact Rachel, so she enacted an apprehended violence order.
But it has not done much to ease her state of mind.
“I’m jumpy, if I have to park very far away at work I worry, I wonder if the car behind me is following me,” she said.
“Talking to the counsellors, they say you have to change the way you live – back your car into the garage so if you ever have to get away, you can get out easily – don’t put your bins near the fence, if you walk in the mornings, don’t go the same route.
“I have had to tell my kids ‘If mum does this signal, you have to ring triple zero’.
“I’ll never go back to being the way I was; I’ll always be making sure my gates are locked, and have CCTV on the house.
“It’s stuff you shouldn’t have to do.
“I don’t understand where it comes from – this behaviour these men think is acceptable – that they have a right to encroach on people’s lives like this.”
Aside from her own story, two women close to Rachel have experienced emotional and physical abuse at the hands of a partner, one who lost her life in tragic circumstances.
They are stories that resonate with the survivors behind a new community campaign, Step Out Albury-Wodonga, to engage men and women in ending gender-based violence.
Judy Langridge is among them – living through a serious physical attack in 1994, she felt ‘white hot rage’ when she was assaulted by Albury masseur Xiawen Shen.
“I’ve spent the last 23 years doing the best I can, in and out of counselling, and when he sat on me, I thought, it’s happening again … I’m still not safe,” she said.
“I was angry at the arrogance of him, and I’ve spoken to another woman involved in this case, and she said the same thing.
“He was so selfish about his own sexual gratification he could de-humanise us.”
It motivated Mrs Langridge to reach out to staff at Albury Community Health about beginning an event to empower survivors.
“Once you have been violated, you feel so small and wounded, you lose faith in humanity,” she said.
“The point of getting a march together is to show that there are people who care, who believe in you, and for perpetrators to get the message that this community is watching, and they will act.”
Albury Deputy Mayor Amanda Cohn will be among those marching this evening.
“We have survivors in our community, we have perpetrators in our community, and this is something that’s happening to people’s loved ones and in their workplace,” she said.
“Working in the emergency department, I’ve seen the results of physical assault, which is only one of the types of family and domestic violence.
“One woman a week is being killed by a partner or ex in Australia and it’s completely unacceptable.”
Mrs Langridge calls it a community problem.
“We can all watch each other – most of us are going to step in if they see somebody at work who hasn’t been there for a while, and talk to them,” she said.
“We’re teaching our kids about language, we have support groups, we’re starting that generational change within the community.
“This is one way people who might not know what to do can just come out and join us.
“You throw a stone into the pond and there’s a ripple effect.
“Let’s step out.”
If you need support, contact 1800 RESPECT.