Garda response to domestic violence ‘can be a lottery’

The response of gardaí to domestic violence “can be a lottery”, a study on victims’ experiences of the justice system has found.

Many women suffered “horrific” violence from intimate partners, with some reporting attempts on their lives and others stating perpetrators had waited for their children to be present before inflicting violence, the report, part of a wider EU project, states.

Although some victims “offered high praise for individual officers”, others found that gardaí “seemed to trivialise domestic violence”.

One officer asked a woman what she had done to “upset him”.

Gardaí were reluctant to “gather evidence, investigate cases and to prosecute without a domestic violence order” such as a barring or safety order, the report says.

Safe Ireland

The study, co-funded by the European Commission’s Justice Programme, was conducted between February 2014 and February 2016.

Its Irish findings were outlined by Dr Conor Hanly, of the NUI Galway School of Law, at an event in Dublin yesterday hosted by Safe Ireland.

Some 40 female victims of domestic violence were interviewed, as were senior gardaí, staff from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, State solicitors and judges.

The women were from across the State and from all social classes. Their average age was 40, with half of them in their 20s. The vast majority (95 per cent) had children.

The women had been in relationships with their abusers for an average of 11 years, ranging between 12 months to 39 years, with the violence beginning at different stages.

In one case it began after a month, in another after seven years.

“Once the violence started it almost always continued through the relationship. In many cases it outlasted the relationship.”

Some 90 per cent of the women had suffered physical abuse, 43 per cent sexual abuse, 98 per cent emotional/verbal abuse and 78 per cent had had threats on their lives.

Daily abuse

In 30 per cent of cases the victims had suffered physical abuse daily - in 38 per cent of cases it was weekly. Some 35 per cent suffered emotional abuse daily and 8 per cent weekly, the report finds.

The report said some of the abuse represented a serious threat to a woman’s life. Some 25 per cent of the women had suffered attempted strangulation, 45 per cent physical abuse while pregnant and 30 per cent threats to kill the children.

While some praised individual gardaí when they reported abuse, others were more critical.

The reports notes a “certain tension” between the criminal justice system – which aims to investigate and punish those who commit crimes – and victims of abuse who may simply want it to stop.

This could lead to Garda reluctance to seriously investigate domestic violence, given that victims may not be focused on prosecution, it says.