Australia's Devastating Week of Domestic Violence

Kylie Druett (0:00)

You know, to have your child, your son come to you and say, how, what are we gonna say? How are we gonna tell children, you know, that they won't say the mom again, is heartbreaking.

Meshel Laurie (0:19)

Australia has suffered at least five domestic violence deaths in the last seven days, way above our already appalling average.

We have two guests from The Coalface today. Later we hear from Karen Bevan, the CEO of Full Stop Australia. But first it's Kylie Druett, who has turned her own lived experience into advocacy for other survivors, especially children. She's the co-founder of Australian Voices for the Silenced. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

Kylie Druett (1:03)

So Sarah Brown is the maternal grandmother of my first granddaughter. So we were both grandmas together, yes, for 10 weeks anyway.

Meshel Laurie (1:15)

Okay. And did you know her well?

Kylie Druett (1:17)

Well, our kids had been together for some time, because they're childhood sweethearts. The common thing for us was the kids rather than a friendship, I guess.

Meshel Laurie (1:31)

I talk about this idea that if one woman a week is murdered in Australia by an intimate partner or a former intimate partner or family member, I wonder if next week's lady knows that she's in danger. Do you think Sarah knew that she was in danger?

Kylie Druett (1:49)

No.

Absolutely not. In fact, one of her friends had been killed earlier in the year, and that perpetrator was only arrested this year, so nine years ago. And walking into Sarah's house after her death, and seeing the photo of those two women was very disturbing for me.

Meshel Laurie (2:24)

It is disturbing.

Kylie Druett (2:25)

Yeah, that they were both gone.

Meshel Laurie (2:28)

She obviously had intimate knowledge of how these things can happen in a family, and to a woman, and still you say she, you don't think she felt that she could be a victim. No.

I believe that you don't like to speak specifically about the attack that took Sarah's life. Is that correct?

Kylie Druett (2:45)

Correct. Yes.

Meshel Laurie (2:47)

Do you think there is, and I'm not going to ask you to obviously, and I'm not going to, but do you think there is, normally we do, and I guess so it's made me self-conscious. Do you think there is a reason to, or do you think we should steer away from the details of the violence?

Kylie Druett (3:03)

Look, as someone who has experienced violence most of my life, actually talking about our family members that way is re-traumatizing, for one, and I know kids who've come into my orbit doing the advocacy that our group is, and they're kids when this happens and they become adults themselves and inquisitive. Lots of them, often they've lost their mom and their dad because the father was the perpetrator, he's in jail or he's taken his own life. And so they go into the foster care system, people are really not conscious of how they should have these discussions with those kids. And then they Google. And I have seen the distress that has come about from children reading these articles. So no, I don't think if we're talking about healing and healing is prevention, then I don't know why we need it out there in the world to re-traumatize a group of people who are already on the edges.

Because there's so much stigma around this. If you talk to people, even when we access services, if you're talking about a stranger homicide, you know, someone was killed while they were out, or frequently there's a fight at the pub or whatever, people find that more palatable than actually discussing a DV homicide. And I think that the reason for that is because that there's victim blaming. Why didn't she leave? All of this sort of stuff.

I've had people say to me, oh, I don't know what to say if I start dating. You know, where are your parents? Who are they?

So adding to their trauma by having those details is a way of them here, like protecting them and enabling them to heal. Because once the information is out there, it's used for other purposes that you can't control, and then that becomes hurtful as well.

Meshel Laurie (5:38)

In Googling Sarah Brown's murder, there's certainly details that are out there, and I take your point that they're out there for the whole world to see.