White Ribbon Day

For all the progress we have made in bringing violence against women into the public gaze, our courts continue to excuse men who kill the woman in their life.

As the recent cases of  R v Sherna, R v Middendorp, R v Grimmett show,
the abolition of the provocation defense used to pardon my sister's killer in 1989 has not stopped the killing or the excuses being offered and accepted in our courts,


We need a parliamentary or judicial inquiry to consider the following questions:

(1) Are women more vulnerable than ever before to violence from the man in their life and if so why?

(2) Why do juries continue to find men not guilty of murder when they kill women in intimate partner settings.

(3) Can the law be changed to protect women from the kind of character assassinations, assassinations based on the premise that a woman has no right to leave or challenge a man, systemic in our courtrooms?

(4) Is family violence treated with the same gravity in the courts and in public life as other forms of violence and social ills?

(5) What can be done to protect women from violent men?

(6) Should there be a public apology to those families who suffered the humiliation and injustice of manslaughter verdicts under a provocation law, subsequently discredited abolished in Victoria on the grounds that it was is discriminatory to women?  

Beyond the broad political questions are the personal stories of grief and pain.  

My mother’s journey is typical of the experience of so many mothers in modern, civilised Australia.

When  Lorna May Cleary gave birth to her first daughter, Vicki Cleary , on 9 October 1961 – a first daughter after four sons –  her mum wrote a letter which in part said ‘Lorna I think you have been rewarded for your goodness...’

In time Lorna would write about how she lost that daughter to a violent man.

Sadly, Dad died in January this year and Mum in August without them ever receiving any apology for the manslaughter verdict and three year and eleven months gaol sentence given to Vicki’s killer.  They deserved one.

Mum spoke for and about all the mothers and families afflicted by family violence and courtroom narratives that continue to belittle some mother’s daughter. ‘Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve let a murder go free.’ Such were her words in the corridor after the verdict n 1989.

White Ribbon Day is an opportunity to not only remember those who’ve lost loved a mother, sister or daughter to a violent man but to link arms in the struggle to end the violence and our society’s complicity in it.