Seminar: Transforming legal understandings of intimate partner violence

ANROWS, The University of Western Australia and research partners hosted a seminar that explored the findings and implications of the research report: Transforming legal understandings of intimate partner violence (IPV).

This report examines homicide trials in which self-defence is raised by women who have killed an abusive intimate partner.

The seminar explored how legal professionals and experts understand IPV, influencing which facts are selected and presented as relevant and the meaning that is made of those facts. It was suggested that using social entrapment as a conceptual framework for understanding IPV provides a more accurate and complete picture of facts involving IPV and therefore a proper foundation for assessing whether a defendant was acting in self-defence.

Who was this event aimed at?

• Criminal lawyers (defence lawyers and prosecutors),
• family lawyers,
• judicial officers,
• expert witnesses in matters involving family and domestic violence, and
• family violence workers,

Speakers:

• Professor Julia Tolmie, Faculty of Law, The University of Auckland.
• Associate Professor Stella Tarrant, Law School, The University of Western Australia.
• George Giudice, legal counsel for Dr Chamari Liyanage.

This was a free event.