Victims of family violence faced “terror” at the possible consequences of standing up to their abuser, Rosie Batty has told the inquest into the death of her son Luke.
“If you could only understand the degree of fear it takes to stand up to somebody,” she said before the coroner, Ian Gray, at Melbourne magistrates court.
“If only you had any idea. I just want to make the point that when you make a stand, and when you realise you are alone, and you don’t know what you’re facing, there is an underlying fear and terror because you’re finally taking a stand and you don’t know what will happen next.
“That’s what abuse is.”
Batty’s former husband, Greg Anderson, killed their 11-year-old son Luke with a cricket bat and a knife on an oval in Tyabb, Victoria, in February.
Before Luke’s death, Batty said she suffered from severe anxiety as a result of constant court appearances to take out intervention orders against Anderson, or to have them amended so they were more stringent.
Anderson often failed to appear in court, she said, which led to hearings being adjourned.
“I started to wonder if this was was ever going to be resolved,” Batty said.
Despite her fears of what Anderson might do to her if she prevented him from seeing Luke, she said she went to court in April last year to have an intervention order tightened. The magistrate ordered Anderson to cease all contact after hearing he had held a knife up to Luke in a car and, on another occasion, threatened to chop Batty’s foot off.
“It was the line in the sand and I knew I had to make him accountable,” Batty said. “Look where it got me.”
Anderson ultimately challenged that order and it was amended again to allow him to see Luke at his cricket and football matches.
Batty also spoke of being treated at times insensitively by the judicial system. Last year, she and Luke were each awarded about $1,300 by the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal to help pay for counselling support services.
After Luke’s murder, the tribunal told her she was no longer entitled to that assistance. Months after the money was granted she still had not received it, because Luke was dead, Batty said.
Since the inquest began on Monday, Batty has faced at times gruelling and distressing questioning. Her evidence on Tuesday brought a police officer and a child protection officer to tears.
Distressed at repeated questions about decisions she had made on the contact between Luke and Anderson, she said: “Why am I having to defend the decisions I made about our son?
“Isn’t it unfair that I’m the one having to answer for all this? Did I ever think Luke would get smacked over the head with a cricket bat and stabbed to death? Of course I didn’t.”
The inquest also heard that despite physically abusing Batty, Anderson loved Luke and had never harmed or directly threatened him, prompting Batty to try to find safe ways for them to see each other.
But as Anderson’s aggression escalated, managing his relationship with Luke became increasingly fraught, Batty told the inquest she often felt she had to stand up to him on her own despite the involvement of police, courts and child protection officers.
She said she could only act according to what she knew, and that important information about Anderson’s behaviour had not been relayed to her, or was or given to her months after the fact.
The inquest continues.
