VIC Police - Criminal Damage to Property?

[Tam74]

Hi everyone,

New to this forum, so please bare with me. I have to appear in court tomoz, there is an IVO brought against my other half by the local police, because of an incident at home a couple of weeks ago. He had a mental breakdown and completely lost his s**t, broke down and tore the house up while no one was home.

Now although I'm not excusing what he did, this is totally not in his nature to do anything like this, a one time thing and he has never shown any signs of aggression before. My kids and I have never had any reason to be fearful of him and everyone who knows him, agrees that he is just the sweetest man.

Anyway, suffering from mental illness just took its toll and hes doing what he can to make amends thankfully and assure himself as well as me, that this will never occur again. Problem is, how do we convince the Magistrate tomorrow of this? Does anyone have any tips for us tomorrow?

The cops are unaware of his mental state at the moment and how he's in recovery. He will not have any representation tomorrow so apart from just spilling our beans to the magistrate as best as we can, any tips or opinions would be really appreciated.

Thanks so much.

 

[Tony Danos]

You might agree to a limited intervention order which allows you to remain together but he would breach it with further acts of violence. Up to you.

 

[Tam74]

Interesting. So in a sense, an IVO still stays in place, but it’s varied?

 

[Tony Danos]

Correct. You remove the condition restricting living together but the other conditions remain.

 

[Tam74]

Thank you Tony. Appreciate your feedback.

 

[Tam74]

So just an update on yesterday...the matter was heard in court. I took the advice and asked for a limited IVO with the conditions of no family violence and no damage to property. This was granted along with other conditions of the IVO such as my partner cant come to within 200 metres of our house. Now although we are able to contact and see each other which is great news, my problem is this. The magistrate put this order in place for 2 years!!! That seems like an extremely long period of time for my partner to be out of our home. I know I have an opportunity to vary this and the Magistrate made it clear to me yesterday, so my question now is this. What would be a reasonable amount of time before I could apply to the court to amend it? Assuming we as a family are continuing to work on things, and everything is put in place for his transition over a period of time, how long do I give this?

 

[Tony Danos]

The courts should only intervene to prevent offences being committed, not stopping adults living together. So if you both agree then an application to remove that condition to allow living together could be made at any time.

 

[Tam74]

Is that right? Cause the argument from the Magistrate was that we need to protect my kids and make sure they feel safe in their own home. Understandably. However, knowing my partner and what sort of person he is, I have to prove to the court that this was a once off thing and not in his nature to act in this way. So basically I could technically apply to have this IVO varied or revoked at any time from now?

 

[Tony Danos]

The kids do add an extra dimension that may impact on the variation.

 

[Tam74]

Exactly my point. So how do I know what would be a reasonable amount of time before I show the court certain circumstances have changed, like kids are ok to have him home, steady job, ongoing family counselling in place etc, and that we're doing what we can to prevent further offences?