An inquest into the deaths of two Indigenous women has revealed the “stark reality that the criminal justice system fails to protect women from domestic violence”, the Northern Territory coroner found.

But many in Indigenous communities and the violence-prevention sector say this is no revelation, and it is well past the time for real change in government policy, police responses and a culture of acceptance in some Indigenous communities.

The coroner, Greg Cavanagh, decided to hold an inquest into the deaths of two Alice Springs women, Kwementyaye* Murphy and Kwementyaye McCormack, to examine the extraordinary rates of family and domestic violence in the Northern Territory and its Indigenous populations.

“In the Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory it is literally out of control,” he wrote. “As a local court judge I witness it most days. As the coroner I see the terrible lives these women endure and their horrifying deaths.”

According to NT government figures, more than 60% of assaults are related to domestic and family violence, and 73% of the victims are Indigenous women.

The rate of family violence presentations among Indigenous women in the NT is almost 23 times that of non-Indigenous women.

The NT police commissioner, Reece Kershaw, revealed last week his officers had responded to 74,811 reports of domestic and family violence in the past three years alone. The NT’s population is about 244,000.

“One child every day in the Territory is subject to domestic violence, and three children per day witness domestic violence in the home or on land,” Kershaw told ABC radio.

Cavanagh noted there had been 17 deaths related to domestic violence in the NT in the past four years, seven in Alice Springs.

Murphy was killed on 19 December 2014 in Alice Springs’ Hoppy’s town camp. McCormack died on 29 March 2015, also in Alice Springs. The causes of death were blunt head and chest trauma to Murphy, and a stab wound to McCormack’s thigh.

Police were aware of 45 clashes between Murphy and her then partner, Stanley Scrutton, between 2003 and 2014, and Cavanagh described at least 33 of them being cases of extreme violence by Scrutton against Murphy.

“It is a terrible truth that there were so many recorded assaults on Kwementyaye that it is not necessary to detail all of them to make clear the horrendous nature of the violence she experienced,” wrote Cavanagh.

After the first of more than 30 police callouts to youth carer McCormack and her partner Nathan Swan, police records noted a history of domestic violence for both individuals, but not with each other. The couple had two children together, and Cavanagh noted they too were allegedly often victims.

As well as alleged violent assaults against McCormack, Cavanagh noted that Swan was repeatedly picked up for breaking domestic violence orders, something Kershaw said occurred about 44% of the time an order was issued.



In one 2012 incident Swan threatened her and the children with an axe before fleeing to his mother’s house and having a standoff with police.

On the night McCormack died Swan changed his story several times, finally telling police that she had stabbed herself in the thigh and he had pulled the knife out.

“Throughout the inquest I heard not one scintilla of reliable evidence to suggest that Kwementyaye might have stabbed herself,” wrote Cavanagh.

Police have not charged anyone in relation to McCormack’s death. A summons was sought for Swan to attend the inquest but he stayed in Western Australia.

‘Within families we protect perpetrators’

Cavanagh wanted to know why the criminal justice system was unable to prevent the fate of Murphy and McCormack in the decade of violence preceding their deaths.

He noted slow processing and frequent adjournments of cases in the courts, and a lack of shame for perpetrators in going to prison. He said while police intervention had improved over the past decade, it clearly failed to stop the violence.

Cavanagh said while the criminal justice system had some part to play, it came at the “end of the spectrum”, which also included the socioeconomic disadvantage of Aboriginal communities.

However Cavanagh also found the most obvious reason was a lack of cooperation by the victims with police.



Murphy was routinely uncooperative once police had attended her call and defused a situation, the coroner found. Regardless, Scrutton served several sentences of varying length, and was locked up for 60% of the time between 2005 and when he murdered Murphy in what the judge called a “vicious and prolonged beating”.

Cavanagh noted Murphy’s infrequent victim impact statements during the time period which revealed she was concerned about him going to jail, and that she believed him to be “a good man when he is not drinking”.

Murphy had made that statement after the pair allegedly got into an argument at a pub, and Scrutton allegedly hit her and then later dragged her by her hair, kicking her in the head and torso, and stomped on her head.

McCormack, like Murphy, wavered in her cooperation with police. She and Swan had mutual domestic violence orders, and there was continued violence. McCormack and the children were in and out of an Alice Springs women’s shelter and were working with the Department of Children and Families.

“I don’t want Nathan to go to jail, I want him to go to anger management and get some counselling,” she said in one victim impact statement.

“It is all too easy to think that if the women had cooperated with the police that the system might have been more effective,” said Cavanagh.

“But it omits consideration of the likely consequences to the victim.”

Evidence was presented to the coroner that victims face intense pressure from families in Indigenous communities not to press charges or have partners jailed or removed from the community. It also noted a victim may face threats of her children being taken off her by family members, such as her mother-in-law.



“The family ties of the communities make it more likely that perpetrators would feel the effect of personal and community disapproval,” said Cavanagh. “That is something they currently do not feel.”

Jacinta Price, Alice Springs councillor and daughter of former NT minister Bess Price, told Guardian Australia: “Within families we protect perpetrators, and female victims can suffer repercussions from family members of the perpetrators.

“You have an obligation to your kin to the point where you protect perpetrators, and I don’t think enough of that is recognised.”

On Thursday Price told the ABC violence in Aboriginal communities was accepted as the norm. “Until our broader community can understand this and until our mob can say yes this is a deep-seated issue, this is something we do accept, we need to change this way of thinking,” Price said.

She told Guardian Australia the coroner’s findings were not surprising to her or many others, and she felt Cavanagh’s claim that violence was “out of control” was an understatement.

“It has been like it for some time and there doesn’t appear to be any improvement, and I’m upset about the lack of the issue being taken seriously by our leaders in Canberra, particularly those representing Indigenous people themselves.

“The issue of women dying at such an alarming late and the fact that our children are experiencing the high levels of violence should be at the forefront of all debate and the issue should be on everybody’s minds.”

The primary concern, she said, was for an “open dialogue” about cultural and practical hurdles and forms of oppression in Indigenous communities for women facing violence.

“I know for a fact the way Aboriginal men have controlled remote communities – culturally, secrecy is used a means of control, controlling women and controlling economies, and it has gone on far too long,” she said.

“Now it is time to be far more open and discuss these issues openly, but this is going to take cultural change to happen, and all cultural change, whether it is light change or positive change, to begin with it’s painful.”

Price said “guilt politics” had encouraged the blaming of others over taking responsibility for problems, and seen non-Indigenous people who voice concerns “too easily shot down”.

“These are Australian women who are dying and Australian children who are suffering the consequences. So all Australians should be able to contribute to this conversation in moving forward in a positive manner.”

Grassroots efforts have sought to address the violence and its acceptance. The Tangentyere Women’s Safety Group is a committee working from and in Alice Springs’ town camps, and is behind initiatives including the installation of a public phone with a direct line to police. The group has created anti-violence awareness and assistance materials and run education campaigns, including a men’s behaviour change program targeting perpetrators and male community members.

Part of the challenge has also been getting women to talk about the violence and recognise it’s not something to put up with or to excuse.

“For me I feel that’s something we have to have conversations about,” said Maree Corbo, the group’s manager. “We need to talk about those things. The women are very clear that is actually an issue and it’s something we need to keep talking about and keep educating women about what family violence is.”

Cavanagh’s report described a conversation between McCormack and Shelter staff on 14 March 2012 about the cycle of violence. “Kwementyaye suddenly stopped and smiled. She said, ‘I’ve just got it! It’s not because I’m doing anything wrong, it’s what he is doing!’” the report said.

But then during a meeting in 2015 with the department of children she described her and Swan as having a “good relationship even though there was lots of domestic violence”, it said.

Change needed in authorities

The changes needed will not come easily. Cavanagh called for new approaches by government, police and the courts. He said he found the investigation into Murphy’s death was of a high standard, but the investigation into McCormack’s was not and he would refer it back to police.

Among his recommendations, Cavanagh urged police to pursue the introduction of body cameras for officers, and for the courts to prioritise and speed up the processing of domestic and family violence cases.



He also recommended the NT government consider legislating to allow police to target and monitor repeat offenders and to explore alternative intervention options “that allow for a more flexible family- and community-focused approach that will both ensure the victim’s safety and give the couple the choice to remain together or to separate [and support them in their choices]”.

NT police have offered support for the recommendations and said a rollout of the cameras was under way.

The NT attorney general, Natasha Fyles, said the government was considering a range of issues, including a pre-election proposal for a specialist court, and was considering legislation in line with that passed in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory which would allow body camera footage to be used as evidence.

She said the newly created Territory Families portfolio brought together “key frontline agencies and stakeholders” to find a practical solution.

“We need to challenge the norm, and we need to make sure [we have] support services and pathways so we can stop this generational violence within families,” she said.

She would not commit to any timeline.

The NT budget, delivered at the end of May by the previous government, allocated $6.77m to support domestic violence prevention initiatives as part of the domestic and family violence reduction strategy. Also, a four-year strategy which began in 2014 focuses on prevention and rehabilitation in an effort to create a more coordinated approach.

Price said governments – both state and federal – should assist with a rising groundswell of change she was noticing in some communities by actively seeking out women who speak out about the issues but to date haven’t been among those setting the national discourse.

She said there is too much tiptoeing around and “the best thing government can do is actively seek out those voices and support them”.

Then there is funding, and much of it comes from the federal government. Much of that federal money has been cut.

Vanessa Lethlean, managing solicitor at the Top End Women’s Legal Service, said its legal advice numbers have almost doubled and legal case numbers have tripled in just the past 12 months.

“Sixty per cent of all clients have been subjected to domestic violence, and almost all present with a complex matrix of interrelated legal matters that require, and receive, a dedicated focus,” Lethlean said.

The demands for service provision are like a pressure cooker, she said, with the legal service facing a 30% funding cut from 1 July 2017.

She said the previous NT government had “significantly increased” its actions to address the rates of violence, with many excellent initiatives. But organisations like the legal service, which employed just three lawyers, required more support.

Towards the end of his findings, Cavanagh wrote that improvements to the “systems of the state” did not help McCormack and Murphy. The criminal justice system, he said, was “not suitable for purpose”.

“It does not deal with the important questions of why it happens and why it is getting worse. Surely addressing these questions is fundamental to finding the means to protect women.”

*The use of the forename Kwementyaye is in keeping with Indigenous cultural traditions for naming of the deceased