A Northern Territory police officer who faced criminal charges after an inquest found his partner died amid a “history of family violence” has returned to work after the case against him was dropped.
A coroner found the officer’s partner, who was herself a former police officer in her late 30s, died in 2020 after 17 complaints were made to NT police about violence and “domestic disturbances” in the five years before her death.
Judge Greg Cavanagh reported the officer to police and the director of public prosecutions in 2021, finding that offences may have been committed in connection with the woman’s death.
He found the death was caused by an untreated head injury that “would not happen spontaneously” and “required some form of trauma, likely a hit to the head, either due to falling or from another person”.
The officer, who with his former partner cannot be named, was subsequently charged with failure to rescue, as it was alleged he had not sought medical treatment for his partner.
But Guardian Australia can reveal the case has been dropped and the officer has returned to active duty.
The DPP said that “after review of all of the evidence it was determined that there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction of [the officer] for any offence”.
The NT police did not comment on whether he was subject to an internal investigation, but officers who are under investigation do not typically continue active duty during this time.
The force confirmed the officer had been suspended with pay for more than four years before returning to work.
The case comes as a force already riven with issues faces a reckoning on its broader police accountability measures and how it deals with family violence, including abusers within its own ranks.
There are concerns, however, that those pressing issues may not be addressed. The force, spurred on by a new Country Liberal party government which says it has a mandate for change, is instead expected to prioritise sweeping changes to its handling of youth offenders.
The force is also expected to have to respond imminently to broad recommendations arising from inquests into the family violence-related deaths of four Indigenous women and the death of Kumanjayi Walker. The family violence-related inquest will deliver its findings this month, with findings from the long-running Walker inquest expected early next year.
“Domestic violence … is the true crime and safety crisis we are facing here in the NT,” Justine Davis, the independent MP for Johnston, told Guardian Australia.
“It is imperative that we take immediate action to protect women and children from harm.
“There must also be zero tolerance for coercive control, domestic violence and insufficient investigations.”
The inquest into the death of the former police officer made four recommendations, which the force say it has implemented, including that an assistant commissioner oversees all “domestic violence” complaints relating to police, and that all police officers have training in the identification of “red flags” for coercive control.
Cavanagh, the coroner, said in his findings into her death that “domestic violence perpetrated by serving police officers is considered to be a significant issue and police appear to struggle with investigating their own members”.
He found that the reasons why a victim might not wish to report family violence are magnified when the perpetrator is a police officer.
These included fears that disclosing could result in further and escalated violence, that the offender had access to “inside information and [could] manipulate the system”, and that other police would minimise the reports and protect the perpetrator.
“Those fears were from time to time expressed by [her],” Cavanagh said.
“She said there was ‘no point’, she ‘knew how the system works’, that her partner was a police officer and ‘he would be informed of the complaint’ and she would have to ‘deal with the consequences’ … [and] she had spoken to the police and ‘nothing was done’.
“Those fears appear to have been realised … [an] assistant commissioner was of the view that there were a number of failures in the way police dealt with the complaints, [and] the head of the Domestic Violence Unit at the time provided the opinion that ‘throughout these incidents, we have failed’.”
The 17 reports outlined in the inquest involve allegations of violence, including reports made by friends of the partner and members of the public, and that applications were made for court orders protecting the partner and the officer at various times.
But Cavanagh found that many of the incidents were not identified by the force as involving domestic violence.
Many of the reports include references to alcohol, with Cavanagh finding the partner suffered chronic alcoholism due to post-traumatic stress disorder.
She was dismissed from the police force in relation to incidents related to her alcoholism.
Report 10 outlines that the officer received a formal caution from the force after an incident in December 2016.
Police received a report from a serviced apartment provider that the officer had come looking for the woman and identified himself as a police officer, Cavanagh said.
“He took a room near hers and jumped from his balcony on to hers and escorted her from the building. Police attended at their residence.
“Her partner told police that she had been intoxicated and he believed she might self-harm.
“They did not investigate as to whether [she] needed protection.”
Neighbours called police about a year later, after seeing a man chase a woman and drag her back into the house.
Cavanagh said the couple confirmed the report when police attended the house later that day, with the partner saying the argument started because the officer thought she was leaving to get alcohol. Police did not identify the incident as involving family violence.
As part of report 15, Cavanagh found the woman wrote in her diary in August 2019 that the officer “absolutely lost his shit”, hitting her about the head and shoulders and trying to drag her out of the house.
“She said he knocked her contact lens out and caused bruising to her neck, shoulders, arms and jaw. She did not call the police,” Cavanagh found.
The inquest heard that in 2019, the woman wrote an email to her mother stating: “today when he hit me I yelled for him to stop … so they knew I wasn’t making shit up … I have been hit about 4-5 times today … threatened me with a broom.”
In January 2020, Cavanagh found, she was planning on leaving the officer. She died two months later.
Cavanagh said there were “questions about what happened during those last five days [of her life] that needed answers”.
“However, when Counsel Assisting called upon the partner to provide evidence, his lawyer sought that he not be compelled to do so on the grounds that it might incriminate him in an offence or offences in relation to her death.
“In my 25 years as the Territory Coroner, that is the only occasion that a serving police officer has refused to answer questions because the answers might incriminate him or her in an offence relating to the death.”
Cavanagh was critical of a decision not to establish a crime scene at the couple’s house after the death, saying this was likely “affected by similar considerations to the failure to protect [the woman] after complaints were made”.
“In effect, the word of a fellow police officer weighed more heavily than it should, and her death was believed to be an overdose,” he said.
“In this case there was also the history of domestic violence including the recent reports that were at that very time being investigated.
“The Assistant Commissioner indicated that a crime scene should have been declared, saying all unexpected deaths should be treated as suspicious until proven otherwise.”
Cavanagh said that in 2015 a police superintendent wrote “from time to time, when he is under stress, he has acted aggressively and abusively towards others at work where he has lost control”.
A mental health nurse who was treating the woman told the inquest that they had been told the officer was easily angered and would say degrading things in the presence of their children.
Cavanagh said that after the woman’s death, the officer went to the nurse’s rooms and showed a video on his mobile phone.
The video was of the woman marching on the spot as she explained that she thought she was trying to turn on the shower.
“[The nurse] said: ‘I think that video more or less reflected the type of person [the partner] was that I did not see … he almost laughed and smiled while showing me the video … you could hear laughter in the background [on the video] as well’,” Cavanagh said.
“At the time the video was taken the deceased was sober and her confusion was likely the result of the haemorrhaging blood in the subdural space of her skull.”
The officer’s lawyer was contacted for comment.
• In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org
