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This is a Bill, not an Act. For current law, see the Acts databases.
South Australia
Criminal Law Consolidation (Domestic Abuse) Amendment
Bill 2020
A BILL FOR
An Act to amend the
Criminal
Law Consolidation Act 1935
.
Contents
Part 2—Amendment of Criminal Law
Consolidation Act 1935
3Insertion of Part 3 Division 7AB
20BControlling or
coercive behaviour in a relationship
The Parliament of South Australia enacts as
follows:
This Act may be cited as the Criminal Law Consolidation (Domestic Abuse)
Amendment Act 2020.
In this Act, a provision under a heading referring to the amendment of a
specified Act amends the Act so specified.
Part 2—Amendment
of Criminal Law Consolidation
Act 1935
3—Insertion
of Part 3 Division 7AB
After section 20A insert:
Division 7AB—Domestic abuse
20B—Controlling or coercive behaviour in a
relationship
(1) A person commits an
offence if—
(a) the person repeatedly or continuously engages in behaviour towards
another person (the victim) that is controlling or coercive;
and
(b) at the time of the behaviour, the person and the victim are in a
relationship; and
(c) the behaviour has a serious effect on the victim; and
(d) the person knows or
ought to know that the behaviour will have a serious effect on the
victim.
Maximum penalty: Imprisonment for 7 years.
(2) For the purposes of
subsection (1)
—
(a) 2 people will be taken to be in a relationship
if—
(i) they are
married to each other; or
(ii) they are
domestic partners; or
(iii) they are in
some other form of intimate personal relationship in which their lives are
interrelated and the actions of 1 affects the other; or
(iv) 1 is the child, stepchild or grandchild, or is under the
guardianship, of the other (regardless of age); or
(v) 1 is a child, stepchild or grandchild, or is under the guardianship,
of a person who is or was formerly in a relationship with the other under
paragraph (i)
,
(ii)
or
(iii)
(regardless of age); or
(vi) 1 is a child and the other is a person who acts in loco
parentis in relation to the child; or
(vii) 1 is a child who normally or regularly resides or stays with the
other; or
(viii) they are brothers or sisters or brother and sister; or
(ix) they are otherwise related to each other by or through blood,
marriage, a domestic partnership or adoption; or
(x) they are related according to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander
kinship rules or are both members of some other culturally recognised family
group; or
(xi) 1 is the carer (within the meaning of the
Carers
Recognition Act 2005
) of the other; and
(b) a person's behaviour has a serious effect on a victim
if—
(i) it causes the victim to fear, on at least 2 occasions, that violence
will be used against the victim; or
(ii) it causes the victim serious alarm or distress which has a
substantial adverse effect on the victim’s usual day-to-day activities;
and
(c) a person ought to know that which a reasonable person in
possession of the same information would know.
(3) However, a person does not commit an offence under this section if at
the time of the behaviour in question—
(a) the person is the parent, stepparent, grandparent or guardian of the
victim or otherwise acts in loco parentis in relation to the victim;
and
(b) the victim is under 16 years of age.
(4) In proceedings for
an offence against this section it is a defence for the defendant to show
that—
(a) in engaging in the behaviour in question, the defendant believed that
they were acting in the victim’s best interests; and
(b) the behaviour was, in all the circumstances, reasonable.
(5) The defence in
subsection (4)
is not available to a defendant if it is proved that the defendant's
behaviour caused the victim to fear that violence would be used against the
victim.
(6) If a defendant
is charged with an offence against this section—
(a) it is not necessary to prove that each act constituting the behaviour
the subject of the charge had a serious effect on the victim or that the
defendant knew, or ought to have known, that each such act would have a serious
effect on the victim; and
(b) the information need not—
(i) allege particulars of each such act with the degree of particularity
that would be required if the act were charged as an offence under a different
section of this or any other Act; or
(ii) identify particular acts or the occasions on which, places at which
or order in which acts occurred; or
(iii) identify particular acts as having a particular effect on the
victim.
(7) A defendant may be charged with an offence against this section in
respect of behaviour even if some of the acts constituting the behaviour
occurred before the commencement of this section.