Western Australian Current Acts Western Australian Current Acts (1) In giving a
direction requested under section 39C or 39D, the trial judge may include any
of the following matters in the direction —
(a) that
family violence —
(i)
is not limited to physical abuse and may, for example,
include sexual abuse, psychological abuse or financial abuse;
(ii)
may amount to violence against a person even though it is
immediately directed at another person;
(iii)
may consist of a single act;
(iv)
may consist of separate acts that form part of a pattern
of behaviour which can amount to abuse even though some or all of those acts
may, when viewed in isolation, appear to be minor or trivial;
(b) if
relevant, that experience shows that —
(i)
people may react differently to family violence and there
is no typical, proper or normal response to family violence;
(ii)
it is not uncommon for a person who has been subjected to
family violence to stay with an abusive partner after the onset of family
violence, or to leave and then return to the partner;
(iii)
it is not uncommon for a person who has been subjected to
family violence not to report family violence to police or seek assistance to
stop family violence;
(iv)
decisions made by a person subjected to family violence
about how to address, respond to or avoid family violence may be influenced by
a variety of factors;
(v)
it is not uncommon for a decision to leave an abusive
partner, or to seek assistance, to increase apprehension about, or the actual
risk of, harm;
(c) in
the case of self-defence, that, as a matter of law, evidence that the accused
assaulted the victim on a previous occasion does not mean that the accused
could not have been acting in self-defence in relation to the offence charged.
(2) In making a
direction under subsection (1), the trial judge may also indicate that
behaviour, or patterns of behaviour, that may constitute family violence may
include (but are not limited to) —
(a)
placing or keeping a person in a dependent or subordinate relationship;
(b)
isolating a person from family, friends or other sources of support;
(c)
controlling, regulating or monitoring a person’s day-to-day activities;
(d)
depriving or restricting a person’s freedom of movement or action;
(e)
restricting a person’s ability to resist violence;
(f)
frightening, humiliating, degrading or punishing a person, including punishing
a person for resisting violence;
(g)
compelling a person to engage in unlawful or harmful conduct.
(3) If the trial judge
makes a direction that relates to subsection (1)(b)(iv), the trial judge may
also indicate that decisions made by a person subjected to family violence
about how to address, respond to or avoid family violence may be influenced by
such things as the following —
(a) the
family violence itself;
(b)
social, cultural, economic or personal factors, or inequities experienced by
the person, including inequities associated with (but not limited to) race,
poverty, gender, disability or age;
(c)
responses by family, community or agencies to the family violence or to any
help-seeking behaviour or use of safety options by the person;
(d) the
provision of, or failure in the provision of, safety options that might
realistically have provided ongoing safety to the person, and the
person’s perceptions of how effective those safety options might have
been to prevent further harm;
(e)
further violence, or the threat of further violence, used by a family member
to prevent, or in retaliation to, any help-seeking behaviour or use of safety
options by the person.
[Section 39F inserted: No. 30 of 2020 s. 94.]