Court-issued domestic violence orders are at a 10-year high in the Hunter and Muswellbrook residents are more than twice as likely to receive an AVO as their city counterparts.
Latest figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show the Local Court issued 1764 domestic AVOs in 2022-23 in the Hunter outside Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, compared with 1888 across the two metropolitan local government areas.
In total, courts issued 3652 domestic AVOs, an average of 10 a day, across the region.
On a per capita basis, courts issued 692 domestic AVOs per 100,000 people living in the seven non-metropolitan Hunter Valley LGAs and 546 per 100,000 in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.
Muswellbrook LGA recorded 1266 domestic AVOs per 100,000 people, Cessnock 843, Dungog 298, Lake Macquarie 547, Maitland 647, Newcastle 536, Port Stephens 620, Singleton 613 and Upper Hunter 605.
The state average was 560 per 100,000.
The figures show domestic and non-domestic AVOs were far more prevalent in remote and regional areas.
Greater Sydney recorded 424 domestic AVOs per 100,000 people in 2022-23, compared with 1739 in the Far West region of NSW.
In the Hunter outside Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, domestic AVOs were up 19 per cent on the pre-COVID level of 579 per 100,000 people in 2018-19 and were at their highest level in at least 10 years.
Domestic AVOs were up 24 per cent on pre-COVID levels in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie and were also at a 10-year high.
The statewide figures show AVOs spiked during COVID lockdowns in 2020-2021 and have climbed even higher since then.
The BOCSAR court statistics show the Local Court finalised 9 per cent more cases in 2022-23 than in 2018-19 across the state, but this was in part due to a significant shift in the nature of those finalisations.
The prosecution withdrew 77 per cent more matters, guilty pleas rose 4 per cent and matters proven in the defendant's absence jumped 24 per cent.
Domestic violence-related assault finalisations accounted for 32 per cent of the increase in matters withdrawn in the Local Court between 2018-19 and 2022-23.
The Local Court finalised 5 per cent fewer defended hearings in 2022-23 than in the year before the pandemic and the median time to finalise a defended hearing rose 98 days from 198 to 296.
Sentencing figures show the proportion of proven offenders receiving a custodial penalty fell from 9.9 per cent in 2018-19 to 8.8 per cent in 2022-23.
