I will never forget her distress and sorrow or the heart-wrenching plea she made to me as a lawyer. She was a domestic violence statistic and so were her three remaining children. With tears streaming down her face she begged me for help against her abusive husband saying, “I have already lost one child. Please help me not to lose any more.”

I promised her that I would do everything in my power to not only protect the children but her as well. Indeed, I couldn’t realistically do otherwise. This was one of the worst domestic violence cases I had come across. Where a spouse is the victim of an abusive husband, then the children are also. The psychological impact on children of knowing that one of their parents is abusing the other is not to be underestimated. Add to this family violence on the children directly - the results can be fatal!

The oldest son, who was seventeen years old, had jumped off the balcony of the top floor of a high-rise set of Units. He had taken the brunt of the abuse to try and protect his three younger sisters from it. Mum was the recipient of vicious spousal abuse and beatings – she couldn’t really help him. It all got too much and this young man decided that life was too horrible to bear.

There was only one way I could protect the other three children and their mother. It meant relocating them, changing their identities and obtaining Restraining Orders (based on domestic violence law) that the father be PROHIBITED from having ANY contact at all with them. While the Court granted the Orders I wanted, I remain especially thankful to the Principal and staff of the children’s school, the Lutheran Church and the Women’s Shelter for the extraordinary steps they all went to, so that I could deliver on the promise that I made to them and their mother.

Some months later the mother and children contacted me. They were so happy with their new life and couldn’t thank me enough. Everyone was completely different. No longer were the children tearful, fearful, stressed or depressed but relaxed, bright, witty and looking forward to life.

I sat quietly at my desk and reflected on the oldest boy. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting him, I realised why he took his own life. He knew that a life lived in fear was bad enough………….but a life without hope was no life at all.

© Barry J. Roche