Constables are graduating from Queensland Police Academy with inadequate training to deal with domestic violence matters, a senior police officer has told an inquest.
The Queensland coroner is investigating the death of John Fredrick Schulte, who shot himself during a police siege in Townsville on Christmas Day in 2018, after repeated reports of domestic violence made to police by his estranged wife.
The inquest is also examining the appropriateness of the Queensland Police Service (QPS) response to Mrs Schulte's reports and whether further domestic and family violence (DFV) training by officers would prevent deaths in similar circumstances in future.
On Wednesday, the inquest was shown body-worn camera footage from an incident the day before Mr Schulte died, in which Mrs Schulte reported to police her husband's threats to kill himself, herself and their children, and a history of domestic violence.
The responding officer, a domestic violence liaison officer (DVLO) who cannot be named for legal reasons, was heard telling Mrs Schulte that "I can't do anything about that" and "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger".
"I just wasn't 100 per cent sure of her motives," the officer told the inquest.
Officer 'denied further DV training'
It heard the officer was disciplined for misconduct by the police Ethical Standards Command, but reinstated to her DVLO position on the same day after fulfilling a direction to complete an online learning product.
The officer also told the inquest she was denied the opportunity to seek further DFV training after Mr Schulte's death, in part because Townsville police station probably could not afford to release her from general road duties.
The inquest heard from Sergeant Alistair Rhodes, a specialist domestic and family violence (DFV) officer tasked with formally reviewing police responses to DFV callouts.
His review included the three DFV reports made by Mrs Schulte in the month before her husband's death, two of which were classified as street checks by attending officers rather than DFV incidents.
"I would say the allegations that Mrs Schulte made were quite serious and … in my view a police application should have been commenced [instead of classifying them as street checks]."
Sergeant Rhodes said the officer had failed to appropriately apply a classification tool – known as the DVPAF — used to highlight DFV risk factors.
But Sergeant Rhodes said officers never received any training on how to apply the DVPAF appropriately.
He said constables coming out of the Police Academy were not properly prepared to deal with DFV matters.
"I don't believe that their training is enough, there needs to be more detail," he said.
"We need to do more face-to-face training, I don't think that can be beaten."
'We were very incident-focused'
It comes after evidence on Tuesday from Sergeant Elise Feltham, who was the DFV coordinator for the district at the time of the incident.
She told the inquest that in 2018 the training given to officers was inadequate, but that the service had since worked to improve on its response to DFV matters.
"We were very incident-focused back then, so officers were turning up dealing with that one incident and weren't taking into account a holistic approach, discovering what had taken place in the entirety of that relationship," she said.
Sergeant Feltham has been involved in developing a three-day training course to be delivered to officers statewide across the ranks from constable to superintendent.
"There is a lot of cultural training for the QPS about changing our culture and how we are responding to domestic and family violence," Sergeant Feltham said.
"We have a large call for service in domestic and family violence so it's fatigue in responding to such an emotional job."
The inquest heard Sergeant Feltham was the only full-time specialist officer overseeing DFV matters in 2018 and only had capacity to review about 20 per cent of cases at random.
Numbers in the unit have since been bolstered to six permanent positions with another six officers who rotate through the specialist team, with 100 per cent of cases now reviewed.
