Voice of the child must be heard, top cop tells inquest
Police need to influence victims to “confide in them” when domestic violence offenders breach no-contact orders, a senior police officer has told an inquest.
“The voice of the child” must be heard in proceedings when courts are considering varying no-contact orders, a senior police officer has told an inquest into the murder-suicide of a father and his infant daughter.
South Australian Deputy Coroner Ian White is inquiring into the deaths of nine-month-old Kobi Anastasia Isobel Shepherdson and Henry David Shepherdson, 38, at the Barossa Reservoir’s Whispering Wall, northeast of Adelaide, on April 21, 2021.
They died hours after a magistrates court granted a variation to a no-contact order to allow Shepherdson to care for Kobi while her mother was at an appointment.
SA Police Assistant Commissioner (Crime) John Venditto on Monday told the SA Coroners Court the “main issue for SAPOL” is how they can influence a victim to confide in them when orders have been breached.
“Particularly a victim that’s built up rapport with the police, particularly a victim that’s called upon us, relied upon us, and that we have delivered her safety, and we’ve done that through the police response, investigation and arrest,” he said.
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“In my experience, where a victim doesn’t confide in us (is) because they’re under enormous coercive control pressure.
“Which is the case here.”
The answer may lie in “the provisions of the Act… where a victim who may themselves breach an order is not prosecuted for the order”, Venditto said.
“Maybe we need to communicate better that they don’t get in trouble.”
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The second issue of great concern “was the interim order for the killer was lifted… enough to get access to the baby”, he said.
“In domestic violence situations where there’s a vulnerable person – by that I mean a very young person – we should examine how and why an offender moves from a no-contact order to some contact order without any psychological or psychiatric assessment or revision of the facts,” he said.
A change in circumstances where contact is allowed “should only be undertaken where the voice of the child is heard through independent examination or representatives”, he said.
The delay this would require would also “calm situations and allow more considered approaches”, he said.
About 8 per cent of homicides in Australia involved children under 15, “and the majority of those are babies under one… there’s a very distinct cohort”, he said.
In December 2020, Shepherdson was charged with false imprisonment and threatening to kill and a no-contact order was imposed to stop him from contacting Kobi and her mother Jenna Hutchins.
But while he was in prison, he breached that order by calling Hutchins 149 times, exerting coercive control over her and manipulating her into dropping the charges, the court has been told.
The calls were not known to police, investigators, prosecutors or to the magistrates court.
White has said he was aiming to deliver recommendations for government agencies – including SA Police and the Corrections Department for Corrections “so that nothing ever close to this happens to any other family”.
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