'How dare you': The ex-cop who lectured politicians on failing women — and how to save more lives
Criminology professor Vincent Hurley says that “we cannot arrest our way out of this” and that “money needs to go into frontline services now”. ()
“How dare you!”
Vincent Hurley listened to federal and state politicians debate what to do about family violence after a series of deaths that had shocked him and the nation. Then he teed off.
“How dare you go into politics, in an environment like this, when one woman is murdered every four days, and all you … can do is immediately talk about politics? That is just disgraceful,” he said, rage in his voice, on the ABC’s Q+A on Monday night.
“For God’s sake, how long do we have to listen to politicians like you … high-horsing about?
“You’re putting politics above these people behind me.”
Mr Hurley wasn’t an ordinary punter. He was invited into the audience to share his experience — both as a criminologist and as a former cop who’s seen the devastation of violence against women and children up close.
His emotional plea for real change — and direct demands to federal frontbenchers Murray Watt and Bridget McKenzie, and NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman — has now been viewed millions of times on social media.
Three days and multiple media interviews later, Mr Hurley isn’t quite sure where the anger came from.
“I only looked at it last night,” he said on Thursday, “and I thought, ‘God, is that really me?’
“It was a mixture of years of frustration triggered by those three politicians’ contempt for people in the audience.
“It’s not even a gotcha moment. They knew exactly what the agenda was. And they chose to put politics first.”
Experience from the front line
Mr Hurley lectures in criminology at Macquarie University. But for almost three decades he was a NSW Police officer and detective, stationed in western Sydney.
“I went to 20 domestics in one night when I was in the police,” he told Q+A.
“I held a 10-year-old child in my arms who died from the stabbing from her father.”
He says critical frontline services — addressing the drug and alcohol abuse, gambling addiction and mental illness that underlie many domestic assaults — have been underfunded for decades.
“And I know, because I’ve read 1,362 coroners’ reports in NSW over the last 20 years and that is the common element,” he said.
“You don’t need a royal commission. That money needs to go into frontline services — now.”
On Monday night, the politicians on the panel acknowledged Mr Hurley’s experience and vowed to keep listening.
“What you’ve had to deal with … the impact’s obviously phenomenal,” said Ms McKenzie, a shadow minister and Senate leader for the National Party.
“Most of the MPs that I work with on both sides do not want to see this continue, have had enough and want to do what we can to make a difference.”
‘They should not get bail’
Mr Hurley says the judicial system needs a big shake-up — and more accountability.
“Social attitudes have changed and the law and the judiciary … don’t reflect society,” he said.
Of the women killed by an intimate male partner in the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics dataset, 43 per cent of cases involved a current or historic domestic violence order.
Mr Hurley believes many of those men should have been detained.
“If a male has a history of crimes of violence, of any form of domestic violence, coercion, physical, emotional, they should not have the presumption of bail,” he said.
“They should not get bail. At all.”
He points to his time on the beat in the 1980s, when laws were changed to address an increase in armed robberies.
“Those offenders who walked in and shoved a shotgun under people’s noses … nobody was even injured yet they were refused bail. Here we have people who’ve murdered people who’ve got bail,” he said.
Mr Hurley understands the civil liberty concerns.
“But for the immediate concern of the women here, they need to have that offender taken off the street to give them breathing space to get away to a women’s refuge,” he told Q+A.
Support offenders to save victims
If offenders are released into the community while awaiting court appearances, Mr Hurley says they need support too.
“If there was some intervention so he could talk to someone, to vent his frustration, then that might be a safety valve … to defuse that really dangerous period,” he said.
“We have witness support officers in our local courts that help witnesses. Something along those lines might be worth exploring.”
He says that sort of program would need to be independent from police and the courts. Governments could fund groups “with good faith” like Saint Vincent de Paul and the Salvation Army.
“There would be NGOs [non-governmental organisations] out there screaming out for money,” he said.
“If that saved some person’s life it could really be worth it.”
Ultimately, he hopes his fiery rhetoric and overnight fame push governments to move faster and invest more.
“I don’t think it’s that hard at all,” he said.
Watch the full episode of Q+A on ABC iview.