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Protective Group Media

Media

Protective Group have featured on TV shows such as Channel Nine News, ABC News, 7.30 Report and Logies nominated TV documentary 'See What You Made Me Do".

We are often invited by media outlets to provide our experiences and expert opinion.

Contact media@protectivegroup.com.au for media enquiries.

Protective Group

Protective Group

Why Tracking Your Partner Is A Red Flag

Protective Group was invited on The Project to discuss Technology Abuse and a recent report that found one in ten Australians think it's perfectly fine to know our partner's location at all times.

Protective Group, CEO Stephen Wilson discussed the lengths perpetrators go to when constantly monitoring their victims.

Protective Group CEO talks to the Sunday Herald Sun about GPS trackers.

Protective Group CEO talks to the Sunday Herald Sun about GPS trackers.

Victorian laws leaving victims vulnerable to dangerous surveillance technology

Tracking of women through covert stalkerware is rampant in Victoria and new laws are needed to hold perpetrators to account, family violence experts say.

The call comes amid demands for stronger controls to be imposed on “disgraceful” spyware vendors which sell the dangerous surveillance technology to jealous and controlling men, promising to uncover the “truth” about their target for as little as $20 a month.

Security specialists who sweep the devices of women who fear they are being stalked say there’s been an explosion in the use of stalkerware by family violence perpetrators, particularly in the past six months.

These “cyber weapons” enable offenders to secretly track their victim’s every move – and are sold without oversight or restriction.

“Read their social media chats, review their texts (including deleted messages), see where they’ve been, find out who they’ve called, see what they’ve searched for (and) do it all without being detected,” one spyware website promotes.

Family violence specialists are demanding tech-enabled abusive behaviours be criminalised. Picture: Jason Edwards
Family violence specialists are demanding tech-enabled abusive behaviours be criminalised. Another company promises to “take complete control of the device, letting you know everything, no matter where you are”.

In one case this week, a Victorian woman sought help after receiving messages from her ex-partner saying he knew intimate details about her life, including what she was wearing and where she was going.

Her phone was found to be contaminated with spyware capable of remotely accessing her camera.

Tristan Wilson of Protective Group, which removes tracking devices and spyware from victims’ homes, cars and possessions, said women are often wrongly labelled as crazy when they share suspicious they are being stalked.

He says most women's’ gut feelings are correct, with stalkerware now detected by his company on a weekly basis, notably in cases where the victim and perpetrator are involved in joint court proceedings.

“When women say someone is listening to my calls, seeing my messages and knows my every move and is reiterating that back to me – some think that’s government level CIA stuff, but it’s not. It’s technology available for $20 online,” Mr Wilson said.

“A lot of victims aren’t believed and it’s put down to mental health or them going crazy.

Victorian women are increasingly being tracked through covert stalkerware, some of which allow remote access to mobile phone content.

“When we find spyware on their devices, they break down. In a way it’s awfully confronting but equally (it reinforces) a belief within themselves that they weren’t making it up or being paranoid – this was happening to them.

“It happens a lot before matters go to family court where the perpetrator hacks into the phone calendar to know what the next steps are with lawyers.”

In Victoria, there is no specific offence to punish this growing form of abuse; a known indicator of future physical or lethal violence.

Dr Chelsea Tobin, CEO of Safe Steps 24/7 Family Violence Response Centre, is among those in the family violence sector calling for immediate action to protect lives.

“This is a significant gap that must be addressed. The current laws are limited and leave victims quite vulnerable,” Dr Tobin said.

“We call for laws to be strengthened to specifically criminalise tech-enabled abusive behaviours through the establishment of clear legal prohibitions and penalties to deter perpetrators.”

Phillip Ripper, CEO of No to Violence, the peak body working with men who use violence, agreed that laws hadn’t kept pace with the modern reality of what women are experiencing.

“Spyware is definitely on the rise. It’s far more ubiquitous, readily accessible and easy to install,” Mr Ripper said.

He said many men don’t see tracking their ex or current partner’s phone as abuse.

“Men can be quite good at justifying their own behaviour to themselves. A lot of men write it off as not being a form of family violence. But for victims the torment of being tracked or stalked has a far greater psychological impact after the bruises heal.”

There are laws in place regulating data tracking by law enforcement, but not the general public.

Family Violence Command Assistant Commissioner Lauren Callaway this week conceded that perpetrators overwhelmingly do not respect intervention orders.
Stalking – a difficult offence to prosecute – and using a carriage service to harass or menace can be applied in spyware cases, but there are concerns they don’t appropriately address the crime.

Where intervention orders are in place, such offending can also be regarded as a breach.

However, Family Violence Command Assistant Commissioner Lauren Callaway this week conceded the state’s increasing number of breaches – one every 20 minutes – shows perpetrators overwhelming do not respect these orders.

Ms Callaway said “as far as the legislation goes, there is a perception things need to evolve with the technology”.

Victoria Police recorded 12,701 stalking, harassment and threatening behaviour offences last year.

However it’s widely accepted the problem is far greater, with only one in every five family violence victims coming forward to police.

Spyware vendors operate in Australia and overseas without safeguards.

Dr Tobin said these “cyber weapons” are complicit in the perpetration of violence against women and it was time they were subjected to robust regulation and enforcement.

“There needs to be stronger controls and regulations of companies who develop spyware for the purpose of stalking, monitoring or abuse,” she said, suggesting companies should implement a customer vetting process and restrict the sale of high-risk products.

Duress alarms can be worn by women to call for help and records the scene in dangerous situations.

Mr Ripper said spyware companies were “disgraceful and should be stopped”.

“No one should be expressly selling something to aid in abuse or family violence,” he said.

Stephen Wilson, of Protective Group, has helped protect an estimated 30, triple-0 women over the course of his career.

He’s removed thousands of hidden cameras and listening and tracking devices from their homes, cars, children’s toys and bedrooms.

Recently he helped a woman receiving disturbing pictures from her ex of herself asleep in bed.

“I see you’re still wearing the pyjamas I got you for our anniversary,” the man said.

Mr Wilson said the man was coming through the roof so he secured the manhole.

“She said to me, when I was with him, he was too scared to get a parking ticket but not now that I’m not his possession anymore. He doesn’t care how many times he’s done for breaching his IVO.”

Mr Wilson often loses sleep wondering how to solve the issue killing one woman every four days in Australia, and seriously injuring tens of thousands more.

He doesn’t know the answer but says “until we can solve this, we need to do what we can to keep people safe”.

Protective Group Channel 7 News Perth

Protective Group Channel 7 News Perth

Disturbing ways technology is used to control and track domestic violence victims

The disturbing ways domestic violence offenders are using technology to control and harass their victims have been revealed.

The problem is so widespread that victim support services are flying interstate experts into WA to uncover and remove hidden cameras and GPS tracking devices in homes and cars.

The red flags of coercive control

The red flags of coercive control

The red flags of coercive control

Coercive control is almost always the underpinning dynamic of domestic and family violence, and now, new Queensland laws are acknowledging just how dangerous and harmful it is.

Involving a pattern of abusive behaviours used against another person to exert power and dominance, coercive control overwhelmingly affects women, and precedes many domestic and family violence homicides in Australia, even in relationships with no recorded history of physical violence.

High-profile cases, such as the 2020 murder of Queenslander Hannah Clarke, and her three children, have brought this often unseen abuse onto the public agenda, and from next year, Queensland will join NSW and Tasmania in making coercive control a standalone criminal offence, with legislation colloquially known as ‘Hannah’s Law.’

Recent research reveals there’s still a significant way to go in building a broader level of awareness around the risk-factors, with an Australian National University (ANU) study last year finding 45 per cent of people either hadn’t heard the term coercive control, or didn’t know what it meant.

The behaviour of Hannah Clarke’s husband has been described as a textbook example of coercive control. The inquest following the firebomb murder-suicide that killed Ms Clarke and her children revealed that he would control what she wore, sought to drive a wedge between Ms Clarke and her family, criticised her, would lash out if she refused to have sex with him and had listening devices in her car and home.

Isolation, humiliation, gaslighting and surveillance are common features of coercive control, albeit with different characteristics, explained domestic violence educator and author Jess Hill: “Every relationship looks different, coercive control is bespoke, it amends to what will be most impactful in a particular relationship.”

According to Ms Hill, experiences across multiple cultural backgrounds tend to fit into the same basic architecture. “Victim-survivors will say things like, “it started off great, he seemed like an ideal man”,” Ms Hill said. “Then, slowly, he starts making accusations, becomes suspicious. It degrades from there to “he’s threatening me,” sometimes there’s also physical and sexual violence.”
Ms Hill’s book on control and domestic abuse, See What You Made Me Do, came out just months before Ms Clarke’s murder, and she said the case was a turning-point in understanding coercive control.

“We’ve spent so long focusing on the physical side of domestic and family violence, that the lived reality of coercive control victim-survivors is often invisible,” she said. “The murder of Hannah and her kids was such a breakthrough moment because there wasn’t a history of physical violence. People realised that coercive control can be so serious, it can lead to this kind of familicide.”

Ending a relationship does not necessarily mean an end to the abuse, or its associated dangers. Figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that violence often begins, continues or increases when women separate from an abusive partner, with one in 13 experiencing violence for the first time, and one in seven experiencing an increase in violence.

In the case of Hannah Clarke, her husband’s behaviour spiralled after she left him. During that period, he drove off with their daughter for three days, telling Ms Clarke “you have caused all of this, it’s your fault,” accused her of having an affair, and made various threats and demands, with her murder occurring 11 weeks later.

Technology has added a new dimension to the way people using violence are able to monitor and control their current or ex partners, or other victim-survivors. Former police officer-turned domestic violence victim-survivor advocate, Stephen Wilson, highlighted the increasing prevalence of hidden cameras, trackers and spyware in coercive control situations. CEO of Protective Group, his company helps find and remove surveillance technologies used in domestic and family violence. “On a daily basis we’ll find a tracker in a car, spyware on phones, parental software used for unlawful means and hidden cameras in homes, bedrooms and cars,” he said.

A study by Women’s Services Network and Curtin University illustrated the enormity of the issue, showing an almost 250 per cent spike in reports of domestic and family violence perpetrators using GPS tracking in the five years to 2020, and an increase of more than 180 per cent in the use of video cameras to monitor victim-survivors.

“It’s something that causes great anxiety,” Mr Wilson said. “He might log into her rewards cards to see when she goes to the supermarket and turn up at the same time, or read her emails to see she has tickets to a football match and book the seats next to her. Women I’ve spoken to have said ‘I’d rather have a black eye than the torture he puts me through with this emotional abuse’.”

Protective Group talks to The Age Newspaper.

Protective Group talks to The Age Newspaper.

‘I’m watching you bitch’: How even the smart fridge is being used as a weapon of family violence

In one day’s work last week, former detective Steve Wilson and his team removed four spy pens, one Apple AirTag tracker, and virtual access by an abusive man to a woman’s kitchen, to which he was sending threatening messages on her smart-fridge screen.

The tracker and camera pens – enabling the abuser to record video to a tiny USB stick – had all been placed on one woman trying to escape family violence, but that is by no means a record.

“One woman had eight AirTags on her car, all numbered and categorised, and spyware on her phone,” said Wilson, whose company, Protective Group, sweeps the homes, cars and possessions of women leaving family violence crisis accommodation.

“Another lady’s home had approximately 12 hidden cameras.”

Two days after Wilson’s son, Tristan, removed access to the Samsung Smart Fridge of a woman whose abuser was using the app to write things to her like “I’m watching you, bitch, I can see what you’re doing” on its notepad feature, the younger Wilson experienced first-hand how closely monitored some victim-survivors are.

The tough measures on the table to stop men killing women
On Friday, as he was removing the spyware which enabled the abuser to see and hear what the woman did on her phone at home in regional Victoria, it dawned on Tristan the man would most likely be aware his access was being cut, and might come around to confront her. Which he did.

“You can open the camera and microphone remotely [with spyware] and he’d seen me working on the phone,” Tristan said. The man lives about 30 minutes away in a different country town.

“Thirty minutes later, he arrived in an aggressive manner,” Tristan said.

Was he intimidated? “No, they’re usually OK with us; it’s the woman they want to get,” he said.

He activated the duress alarm he has on his watch, and police arrived quickly and served the man with an intervention order that had been issued by a magistrate on Tuesday but not yet served because police had been unable to find him.

This is not an unusual scenario. About once a month, Tristan has a perpetrator of family violence who has been stalking or monitoring a woman turn up as he disconnects their feed into the homes of the woman they want to control and keep living in fear.

“There seems to be a lot more [of these events] recently,” he said. “Because there are a lot more Wi-Fi camera systems, and doorbells that are compromised. [The perpetrator] will often see us within five or 10 minutes.”

One recent client of crisis support agency Safe Steps, whose car had been cleared of multiple surveillance devices, was escorted by police and Safe Steps to her home to collect belongings. The following day, when she left a radiology appointment, her perpetrator was there; he had put three new devices into her car while the group was inside the house.

In 12 years’ working to help keep women physically and psychologically safe from men who stalk, follow and monitor them – which research suggests is a very strong indication they are likely to escalate to use of potentially lethal violence – Steve Wilson has worked with somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 women.

Victorian woman Celeste Manno was stabbed to death in her bedroom by a man who had stalked her intensively after meeting her at work. Luay Sako was sentenced to 36 years’ jail on February 29.

As the nation protests against the fact one woman is being killed just over every four days in 2024 – often by a man who is a partner or ex – Wilson is as frustrated as many working in the women’s safety sector that strategies and policies in place are not keeping more women safe.

“I’ve seen 12 people this week, women with stitches all over their heads,” he said.

Wilson is, however, encouraged by signals that stronger responses to the breaking of intervention orders may be on the table as the Victorian government’s newly announced taskforce on violence against women starts discussions, but he feels more practical measures are required.

Assistant Commissioner Lauren Callaway spoke to media about proposals to register and track high-risk family violence perpetrators.

Assistant Commissioner Lauren Callaway, the head of Victoria Police’s Family Violence Command, said this week that the organisation’s 2015 proposal to Victoria’s family violence royal commission that a register of offenders be created to give women the “right to ask” if men posed a threat to them should be back on the table.

She pointed out that in 2023, for the first time, more homicides of women were perpetrated by ex-partners than current partners.

The number of charges for contravening family violence intervention orders has also been steadily climbing year on year. In the 2020-21 financial year, 7493 people were charged and brought before a magistrates’ court. In 2021-22, 10,601 were charged, and in the past financial year, that figure was 11,917. Perpetrators were overwhelmingly male and most walked away with a fine.

Wilson agrees safety strategies should be turned towards keeping men who would seriously harm women away from their intended victims.

Molly Ticehurst’s alleged murderer, Daniel Billings, was released on bail just weeks ago, after being accused of sexually assaulting her.

A woman is being violently killed in Australia every four days this year
“We’ve got to shift the focus; a lot of people over the last few years have hung their hats on plans and symposiums, but we need stronger bail laws and stronger intervention orders, and more police training around stalking – which is the big red flag,” Wilson said.

“The focus [of the national family violence discussion] has shifted from physical violence to coercive control, but we need to just keep people safe in their homes and when they’re not at home; all those practical solutions to remove the perpetrator’s ability to commit the abuse.”

His group does “50 to 60 jobs a week just in Melbourne where we’re going out and removing trackers”.

The cheap devices and software intended for benign means like ensuring kids are safe have been weaponised by family violence stalkers, who have been known to place them in soft toys, glassware, down the sleeves of puffer jackets or in the heels of shoes, says Dr Chelsea Tobin, chief executive of the 24/7 crisis service Safe Steps.

“Spy companies are becoming a lot more sinister and packing more tech into smaller everyday items,” she said. “We are seeing an explosion in the use of hidden cameras behind black glass in USB charging ports, battery packs, glassware, digital clocks.”

Victorian government considers new laws to tackle domestic violence

The Victorian government has said it is considering bringing in new laws to tackle domestic violence.

Tech use by family violence perpetrators was “the major frontier” in the fight against violence, Tobin said. Because it was changing so quickly, “responses need to engage corporates, banks, telcos to ensure they aren’t inadvertently facilitating abuse”.

“AI will change the landscape further very quickly,” she said.

Tobin said there needed to be more consultation and co-operation between the domestic violence sector and the telecommunications industry, so women were able to more safely and easily use new mobile technologies.

“Developers of smartphone technologies, such as Apple and Google, need to ensure that there are easier and clearer ways to minimise the possibilities of being stalked and tracked with their products,” she said.

Protective Group and The Project

Protective Group and The Project

Aussies Helping Women Rid Their Homes of Tracking Devices

Across Australia, spyware experts are debugging the homes of victims of abusive partners who go to extreme lengths to track their every move.

Georgie Tunny met them to find out how they do it.

Protective Groups talks to Channel Nine news about the risks of Apple Airtags.

Protective Groups talks to Channel Nine news about the risks of Apple Airtags.

The dark side of AirTags

Last night Protective Group talked to Channel 9 News about the Apple AirTag and how an innocent device can be turned sinister.

Tracking tiles have been readily available for years- a small device that works very similar to Apple’s well known “Track my iPhone” program.

The AirTag by Apple sends out a Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby devices in the ‘Find My network’ ( Apple ). These devices send the location of your AirTag to iCloud — then you can go to the ‘Find My app’ and see it on a map. It’s a small device designed to help you keep track of your phone, wallets and even your pets.

Such tiles/tags present a significant risk as perpetrators, disgruntled work colleagues, anyone with ill-intentions can place one of these in a victim’s car or belongings ( hand bag ) and it doesn’t require the perpetrator to be in proximity to locate the tag. Any Apple device will update its location.

Even if an unknown victim has an Android device which the location won’t update, someone else’s iPhone can transmit the location – Particular concerning if the victim has this device when going into a refuge or a safe location and a welfare or refuge worker unknown to them transmits this information back to the Perpetrator.

Another concern is the ability to conceal these devices as they are magnetic- A perpetrator could easily attach these to a petrol cap and underneath a car with ease.

The AirTags use the Ultraband frequencies to perform a handshake with Apple devices (Ultraband includes Bluetooth LTE),

They have a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip installed and when tapped on the top of a phone identify the serial number and how to disable it.

Technology Abuse is prevalent in Domestic and Family Violence- 99.3% of family violence workers have clients who had experienced technology facilitated stalking and abuse.*

Protective Group have seen a significant rise in Technology Abuse particularly in the last two years during COVID-19. With more people at home, working and spending time online it’s become the weapon of choice of perpetrators. We see each day the way the perpetrator controls their victim and the psychological and emotional effect it has on the victim, the victim questions themselves every minute of the day “ am I being watched, are they looking at me”.

The violence isn’t always physical but the intent is always the same- control their victim and their movements.

We thank Channel 9 News and Meg Sydes for allowing us to share our thoughts.

Protective Group spoke to ABC radio Melbourne about Domestic Violence.

Protective Group spoke to ABC radio Melbourne about Domestic Violence.

They're tracking you and they know your every move

Now imagine this, you're out and about shopping and running errands and everywhere you go you just happen to bump into your ex -partner. Just a coincidence but there they are again and again. Now imagine that person's an ex -partner for a good reason, they're controlling or maybe they could or would have been violent and then the penny drops. They're tracking you and they know your every move. Sounds like something out of a spy movie doesn't it? But But for a lot of victims of domestic violence, technology -facilitated abuse, it's actually got a name, TFA, is a harsh reality. Steve Wilson is a former detective, he's the founder of the Protective Group, and for the past 12 years he's been working to help keep women and sufferers of domestic violence physically and psychologically safe from those stalking, following and monitoring them...

Stephen Wilson talks to A Current Affair

Stephen Wilson talks to A Current Affair

Domestic Violence warning over Apple AirTags

Apple's new AirTag is incredibly cool, and if anything, works too well.

With this large-button-sized gadget, losing your keys, travel bags, or your car in a shopping centre, might actually be a thing of the past.

Some Apple users have even attached it to their cats and dogs.

All you need to do is connect it with your phone, and it will literally point you in the right direction of whatever item you're tracking - just like a kids game of hot and cold.

"Every Apple device will be constantly searching for Bluetooth signals and these little AirTags are emitting a Bluetooth signal so it's constantly updating its location based on any device around it," technology expert Trevor Long said.

"The people walking past don't even know they're part of the search party, but you've found your keys."

If social media is any indication, the device is going to be very popular, and that's where the concern comes in.

Critics said the size and cost of the AirTag (just $45) opens the door for some users to do the wrong thing.

Domestic Violence New South Wales said in 85 per cent of cases of abuse, devices are used to stalk or track.

"We know that one in six women can confirm that they've been stalked by technology," CEO Delia Donovan said.

"This is now another weapon for perpetrators."

There are laws in all states of Australia which prevent stalking and tracking people, and also protections like Apprehended Violence Orders.

Delia Donovan is the CEO of Domestic Violence NSW. (A Current Affair)
But the Protective Group said it comes across a case everyday where the victim is unaware they are being "monitored", and in most scenarios, the stalker already knows the location of their home and work.

Apple has built a number of security features into the device like alerting someone that a tag is near them.

A Current Affair tested the AirTag and found it took over two days to get an alert.

Stephen Wilson is the CEO of Protective Group, which works with domestic violence victims. (A Current Affair)
The owner of the tag knew the A Current Affair reporters home and work locations and was able to watch as the reporter had lunch, went to the supermarket, gym and the pub – travelling a distance of 25km.

While trackers have always been an issue when it comes to domestic violence the profile of other devices has been relatively low when compared to the high profile of Apple.

Now that Apple has entered the market, some fear it's a game changer because the AirTag is not only easy to use but is also easy to get.

A Current Affair tested the AirTag. (A Current Affair)
Apple told A Current Affair in a statement: "we take customer safety very seriously … AirTag is designed with a set of proactive features to discourage unwanted tracking— a first in the industry".

Having the latest software and an Apple phone as opposed to an Andrioid, can make a big difference, but that is cold comfort for anyone who is on the other end of an AirTag.

If an AirTag user believes there is someone using their AirTag who doesn't have their authorisation the AirTag can be disbabled.

Users can tap it on their Iphone or other compatible devices and instructions will direct users to disable the AirTag from there.

Statement by an Apple spokesperson:
"We take customer safety very seriously and are committed to AirTag's privacy and security. AirTag is designed with a set of proactive features to discourage unwanted tracking— a first in the industry— and the Find My network includes a smart, tunable system with deterrents that applies to AirTag, as well as third-party products part of the Find My network accessory program. We are raising the bar on privacy for our users and the industry, and hope others will follow."

Statement by eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant:
"We know that technology-facilitated abuse is prevalent in nearly all domestic violence cases. While it may not leave physical marks, technology-facilitated abuse can be extensive and cause enduring harm. It may also serve as a red flag for future catastrophic physical violence.

"Women need to be aware of the risk of any device that has tracking abilities. Tracking devices can be small and easily hidden, and reveal a lot about daily patterns, such as where someone exercises or when they leave the house.

"Privacy protections need to be balanced with user safety considerations, particularly if that technology can be weaponised. This is why eSafety has been working with the technology industry for the past three years on our Safety by Design initiative. This would require a company like Apple to assess a range of potential risks upfront and build in safety protections to engineer out misuse.

"We know that domestic abuse perpetrators will exploit any available technology. AirTags use the Find My Phone feature - which is a common method of tracking used by perpetrators.

"While Apple have taken steps to build-in safety features into the design of the AirTags, no device that involves a Find My Phone feature should be considered absolutely safe as determined perpetrators may find creative ways to misuse to engage in coercive control.

"The most important piece of advice - particularly if someone is concerned about their safety - is to disable location services on all their devices (phones, computers etc) and be wary of any tracking items hidden in objects.

Statement by the Attorney General, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, and Minister for Families, Communities and Disability Services Mark Speakman:
Stalking, including by using a digital device, is a reprehensible practice designed to instil fear in and control its victims. NSW has strong laws in place to hold the perpetrators of such crimes to account. Under the Surveillance Devices Act, a person convicted of using a tracking device to monitor a person's movements without their consent can be imprisoned for up to five years or fined $11,000 or both.

Joel Svenson from Protective Group spoke to ABC News about technology.

Joel Svenson from Protective Group spoke to ABC News about technology.

What role does technology play in protecting women from violence?

Protective Group Risk Specialist Joel Svensson spoke to ABC Breakfast TV about his thoughts and experience with Technology Abuse in Domestic and Family Violence situations, and perpetrator behaviour.

At Protective Group we find the use of Technology Abuse is prevalent in nine out of ten Domestic and Family Violence cases that are referred to us.

Technology Abuse isn’t only prevalent when there is a breakdown in a personal relationship but can occur as normal abuse would, just not physical.

We see each day the perpetrator controls their victim and the physiological and emotional effect it has on the victim, the victim questions themselves every minute of the day “am I being watched, are they looking at me”.

We thank Joel for taking time and to share his experience, and ABC News Breakfast for allowing Joel to share his thoughts.

Protective Group spoke on the Kylie and Jackie O Show.

Protective Group spoke on the Kylie and Jackie O Show.

Ever get a sneaky suspicion that you're being watched?

Ever get a sneaky suspicion that you're being watched? Whether it's in an Airbnb, on your phone or at home? Risk Management Specialist from Protective Group joins the show to give everyone the 411 on all the spyware we need to look out for...

Protective Group spoke with the Daily Mail about Spyware and covert surveillance and tracking.

Protective Group spoke with the Daily Mail about Spyware and covert surveillance and tracking.

Technology advances put EVERY Australian mobile phone, and your privacy, under threat

An Australian spyware expert has issued an urgent warning that technology advances mean every mobile phone - and their owners' privacy - is under threat.

Mr Wilson, who is so security conscious he checks for hidden cameras and listening devices when he stays in a hotel, said Australians need to become more aware of threats to digital safety, especially on their phones.

Mr Wilson, chief operating officer of the Protective Group, told Kyle and Jackie O on KIIS FM that in the past, a person needed physical access to install spyware on a mobile phone.

'But now you only need the victim's Apple ID credentials or Google Gmail log-in credentials to actually impact the device,' he said.

'Gone are the days where you need physical access to the device. It can all be done now through the cloud environment.'

An Australian spyware expert has issued an urgent warning that technology advances mean every mobile phone - and their owners' privacy - is under threat. A woman looking with concern at her phone is pictured

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Mr Wilson said his company gets 'a lot of calls' from concerned people renting Airbnbs and serviced apartments where they may be there for a couple of months.

He said spying technology can now easily be hidden in very normal household items, such as power banks used to charge phones with, which can have hidden cameras and listening devices in them.

'Quite often we find USB charging ports that have a little micro sim cards in them that are transmitting back to a person that's obviously wanting to spy on their spouse or partner.

'So, pretty devastating stuff, power boards these days are (often) Wi-Fi enabled.'

While such secret surveillance is illegal, Mr Wilson said much of it is being sold as parental control software.

'So they don't really come out and say, it's spyware (or) "we're spying on your partner, we can see their every movement and location".

'The work around is keeping an eye on your kids.'

Mr Wilson said a lot of online retailers often call such devices 'nanny cams, probably to evade the fact that they are actually spy cameras and hidden cameras'.

A small camera hidden in a household plant is pictured. Such cameras are often also hidden in air vents and air conditioning units.

Air vents and air conditioning units are the most common places used to hide spy cameras.

'They're quite inconspicuous and these days they don't even have the little led lights on them a lot of the time,' he said.

As the technology used for spying has improved, so has the technology used to find spying hardware.

'Modern phones have really good cameras so you can get some pretty good apps for your phone that can search the room for any camera lenses,' Mr Wilson said.

He said 'phones aren't great when it comes to finding GPS trackers and other wi-fi enabled type devices', but there are apps available which can held find spyware.

Even televisions can be used to spy on people, the expert said, with smart TVs integrated with online accounts that can be viewed on mobile phones to see what a person has been watching.

'So if anybody does have access to some of those accounts, there is always the possibility that those cameras can be opened remotely and that internet history accessed as well,' he said

His company always reminds people to regularly check the devices that are logged into their accounts.

One of the problems they regularly come across is when people stay in an Airbnb or hotel room and log into their YouTube premium account on the TV to watch videos.

But they often forget to log out and the next person who stays in the room has got free access to previous person's account.

Mr Wilson said there are warning signs to watch out for which indicate your phone has spyware on it, such as extra data being used, the battery draining or the phone heating up despite not being in someone's hand or in the sun.

'We've had clients before where their batteries actually got up to 85 degrees and their screens started to warp and the plastic started to melt,' he said.

'It's important for the user to follow their gut feeling as well because with this sort of software, you can open the camera remotely, you can open the microphone remotely, and it's as cheap as $15 or $20 a month.'

To counter the threats to devices, he recommended using antivirus software, but cautioned that 'They're not going to give you full 100 per cent protection.

'So it's always still worth changing your passwords regularly (and) also checking the password managers' that come with Apple and Google devices.

'With spyware, it does need to save its password and user name somewhere on the device and it tends to save it in those password managers. So it's always good just to check those,' he said.

Mr Wilson also warned about hackers and scammers using USB charging ports at airports and hotels to transmit and send malicious code to victims' phone, which can then be used to access details such as bank account log ins.

'Phone safety and security is really important ... to stop everyday scammers getting into your phone and stealing your identity, extortion (and) blackmail ...

'If we keep our phone safe, it'll also keep some of those other unwanted parties out of our devices,' he said.

If applications are appearing on your device that you have never seen before, be suspicious.

Search your phone's storage to find out if there are any apps you do not remember downloading that could be disguised as something else.

Look out for any pretending to be legitimate apps like Kaspersky Safe Kids, Norton Family, Net Nanny and Qustodio.

Does your phone need charging more often than usual?

If there are applications continuously running, your phone's battery will drain very quickly.

If you notice that your phone is running out of charge at a quicker pace than normal, check if any recently used apps are responsible.

Electronic monitoring in the context of Domestic Violence

Electronic monitoring in the context of Domestic Violence

Electronic monitoring in the context of Domestic Violence

ANROWS acknowledgement
This report was produced with funding from the Queensland Department of Justice and
Attorney-General (DJAG). Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety
Limited (ANROWS) gratefully acknowledges the financial and other support it has received
from DJAG, without which this work would not have been possible.
The findings reported here are drawn from the analysis of interviews and focus groups in
light of the available literature on electronic monitoring and the literature on risks and risk
management of domestic and family violence. The analysis, and therefore the reported
research results, cannot be attributed to those who participated in the research project.

Protective Group Submission at Royal Commission into Domestic Violence and Family Violence

Protective Group Submission at Royal Commission into Domestic Violence and Family Violence

Protective Group submission to the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence

Royal Commission into Family Violence
WITNESS STATEMENT OF STEVEN SCHULTZE
I, Steven Schultze, Senior Partner of Protective Group, Melbourne, in the State of Victoria,
say as follows:
1. I make this statement on the basis of my own knowledge, save where otherwise
stated. Where I make statements based on information provided by others, I
believe such information to be true.
Current role
2. I am the Senior Partner at Protective Group and Executive Director (Operations) of
Protective Services Ply Ltd (Protective Services). Protective Services is a private
risk management and investigation company specialising in community safety and
family violence.
3. Over the past two years I have operated within the family violence sector alongside
family violence services and State and Federal Government Departments. My
duties involve dealing directly with these services and their high risk clients in areas
such as risk, safety and lethality assessments, and implementation of safety
recommendations.
4. I also consult to Government and senior members of Victoria Police in relation to
various aspects of family violence, Safe at Home strategies and specific case
management.
Background and qualifications
5. I hold Advanced Diplomas of Integrated Risk Management, Work Place Health and
Safety, and Business from Churchill Education. I hold a Diploma in Security from
Churchill Education. I hold a range of security certificates, including a Certificate IV
in Security Risk Management and in Correctional Practices.
6. In June 1985, I joined the Victoria Police as a police officer and at the completion of
my training, I was stationed at stationed at Sunshine Police Station. In 1989, I was
WIT.0079.001.0001
recruited to the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence as a Detective Constable -
Surveillance/Covert Operative. I progressed to Detective Senior Constable at the
St Kilda Criminal Investigation Branch, before being stationed at the Armed
Robbery Squad and the Homicide Squad, in turn. I am a recipient of the Police
Integrity Medal.
7. In November 2000, I resigned from the. Victoria Police as a Detective Senior
Constable within the Homicide Squad and moved into the private sector and into
the security industry in particular. I have since occupied a number of management
positions and directorships at private companies, where my responsibilities have
included the implementation and management of security compliance systems.
8. I have provided project management and consultancy services to the private
security and commercial investigation industries. I am a safety consultant and
provide an emergency response for high risk clients of the Mary Anderson Family
Violence Service, within the Salvation Army. I am also a project consultant to the
Safe Futures Foundation Victoria (Safe Futures) and to Domestic Violence Victoria
(DV Vic) in relation to establishment of the State-wide "Safety in the Home" Project.
9. I am a Director and Partner of International Student Care Consultancy Group Ply
Ltd (International Student Care), and I have provided risk and safety assessments
relating to existing and potential international students. I am also a Director and
Partner of Protective Services.
10. In March 2014, I attended and completed Advanced Domestic Violence Training
conducted by the International Family Justice Alliance in the United States of
America. This training included attainment of competency in:
10.1. Intimate Partner Homicide Investigation;
10.2. Lethality and Perpetrator Assessing;
10.3. Advanced Strangulation Investigation;
10.4. Child and Adult Sexual Abuse;
10.5. Human Trafficking;
10.6. Elder Abuse;
10.7. Cultural Impact and Diversity relating to Family Violence;
10.8. Victimology and Victim Impact relating to Family Violence; and
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10.9. Stalking.
Protective Group
11. Protective Group is a private group of three companies: Safeguard Security
Solutions, International Student Care and Protective Services, that specialise in
security and safety risk management within the family violence sector and
international student sectors.
12. Attached to this statement and marked "SS-1" is a copy of Protective Group's 2015
Annual Report.
Protective Services
13. Protective Services are specialists in risk management in the family violence sector.
We work in partnership with Government, the not-for-profit sector, the Department
of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Victoria Police to implement strategies
to keep women and children safe in their own homes.
14. We have been very successful in this field and trials resulted in a State Government
project that will see, with Protective Services' assistance, 200 high risk family
violence survivors provided with Close Circuit Television (CCTV) and SafeTCard
personal duress alarms.
15. We are currently developing new technology that looks into perpetrator tracking and
has the ability to connect to our existing personal duress devices worn by the
victims/survivors. We are determined to wrap a safety net around family violence
victims and their families, and understand that while many societal changes are
needed to put an end to this insidious issue, in the interim we must protect those
that suffer at the hands of present and former intimate partners.
16. Protective Services has also consulted to family violence services and actively
participated in training workers in areas such as conflict resolution, hostile
environment training and the use of safety devices.
17. We have conducted risk assessments and recommendations in relation to premises
including offices, refuges, transitional housing, safe housing and longer term
accommodation.
WIT.0079.001.0003
Family Violence Risk Management
18. Since the middle of 2013, Protective Services has worked closely with a number of
agencies, including the Salvation Army, Safe Futures, WISHIN Foundation and the
Uniting Church, to develop strategies to reduce the risk of violence posed to family
violence victims by their partners.
19. In a nutshell, a risk assessment is conducted on the victim, the perpetrator and the
property, and strategies are put into place to wrap the victim in a safety net.
20. We have worked with The Crossroads Family Violence Service, at the Salvation
Army, to provide 28 primary interventions and 66 secondary consultations. A
primary intervention involves active participation in risk assessment and ongoing
case management. Secondary consultations include services such as:
20.1. a review of risk assessment and any safety plan;
20.2. issuing and training the woman with the personal duress alarm, including
training in hostile environment awareness, conflict resolution, cyber
awareness and security training; and
20.3. a review of the case file and any police investigation.
21. We have similarly provided in excess of 60 primary and secondary support
consultations to women engaged with Safe Futures.
22. We have worked with and for approximately 200 victims of family violence.
23. Our focus is on the protection of people and not the protection of property. The
purpose of CCTV cameras, as well as the other technology detailed below, is
always safety first: it is about protecting people. Safety is the primary purpose,
rather than deterrence.
24. You can implement the most robust and effective safety measures on a client's
property, however this still cannot always guarantee their safety. Protecting the
individual/s at risk is what is imperative. There is a range of measures that we can
implement to improve women's safety. Some of these measures can also assist in
evidence gathering for those cases where a woman has not been able to prove
breaches of an intervention order occurring at a property because no concrete
evidence existed to utilise in a court hearing: it was only her word against his.
WIT.0079.001.0004
25. I can state that no women or women with children that we have worked with have
been physically assaulted or harmed when having implemented our unique safety
measures.
26. Intervention order (IVO) breaches involving my clients have been significantly
reduced, with only three instances of breaches being reported since the end of
2013. On these occasions, either the woman's verified personal duress alarm was
activated and police attended, or evidence was gathered by CCTV cameras and
utilised to remand the perpetrator.
Risk Assessment
27. If we are referred a client from a family violence service, we will firstly gather, by
phone or by email, as much information as possible about the woman, her children
and the perpetrator.
28. We request the family violence service provide their intake assessment, risk
assessment, details of any IVOs, past statements, and police information. We ask
that they send as much information as the client will consent to; ensuring that we
can gather information relating to the past actions of the perpetrator. We try to
understand the ways that the perpetrator is likely to behave and then create
protection mechanisms based on that understanding. It is not just a question of
how vulnerable the client may be, but also how the perpetrator operates.
29. We will meet with the client at the family violence service or, if they believe a Safe
at Home program may be available to them, we may meet at the property to
conduct a physical risk assessment. We talk with the client's worker, usually at
length, and ask imperative questions in the most sensitive way possible. We may
ask, "What have the police told you? Do we need to speak to the police on your
behalf? Is there any more that we are not being told?" We may ask the police,
"What is your assessment of the victim's risk? What can you tell me about this
man?" The questions we will ask are subject to the level of detail already obtained
from the documentation provided. Where possible, we try to minimise the number
of times women are required to re-tell or re-visit their family violence experiences,
avoiding any possible re-traumatisation or distress for the victim.
30. We will then provide a realistic appraisal of what we think the situation reflects.
WIT.0079.001.0005
31. We have worked with Safe Futures to develop a risk assessment tool, and that is
what we utilise. We also have an additional lethality assessment, which draws
upon the training from the United States, set out above.
Interaction with Victoria Police
32. The frustration, from our perspective, is that when we deal with these women, and
their support agencies, they say to us they have fallen through the cracks with the
Victoria Police. The Police cannot be expected to respond to the 67 ,OOO response
call outs that they receive. However, the reality is that women and children's violent
experiences are not being validated, being left unseen, unheard and unprotected
because of system failures, and in some cases, the failure to conduct proper
criminal investigation of family violence matters.
33. Where Police are required to attend because of a reported breach of an IVO, good
practice is to conduct a forensic examination of the scene and a proper
investigation of what occurred, and gather evidence. If they did so, not only would
they be able to charge perpetrators for being there in breach of the order, they may
find from the evidence (for example, evidence of attempted strangulation shown in
bruises or marks) that they have an attempted murder, or an unlawful
imprisonment: a serious crime may well have been committed and the perpetrator
should be charged accordingly. I have seen cases where the response from
Victoria Police has been completely inappropriate given the victim's circumstances.
In saying that, I appreciate that first responders often face considerable difficulty
with victims being reluctant to fully disclose details of the family violence incident. It
is my experience that, in these cases, the abuse has been ongoing for years and for
a number of reasons victims will minimise or be unable to fully disclose the extent of
the abuse.
34. Additional challenges are faced when police respond to incidents where women are
not only victims of family violence but also perpetrators of crime, or have a history of
crime. I have worked with clients where they have been subjected to serious abuse
by their partner and, during their relationship, the client has, for a number of
reasons, also committed a crime. For instance, I have clients who by their own
admission are or have been drug users. This however does not negate the fact that
they have been subjected to serious abuse by their intimate partner and require
extensive outreach assistance. However in some instances, it has affected the way
WIT.0079.001.0006
that they have been treated by police. It is my experience that developing rapport,
trust and keeping an open mind is the key to any investigation.
35. Where a victim alleges or the evidence suggests serious injury it should be
investigated accordingly. You cannot consent to a serious injury. However when
you have got inexperienced police officers providing the first response to family
violence, they can pigeon hole people or form an opinion/perception based on the
victim's demeanour, for instance, at the scene, or perhaps even based on their
knowledge of the women prior to attending. There are issues around how first
responders interact with victims of family violence; how victims of family violence
disclose their abuse, and then the first responders' impression.
36. Those inexperienced officers may fill in the L 17 form at the scene or they may not.
You need to have a senior member of the police at the station educating and
training officers that they are attending a crime scene. If the police do not evidence
gather right away, that evidence may be lost. For a young detective confronted with
an assault or a rape, I cannot understand why the approach would be different
depending on whether or not it occurred domestically or it happened on the street.
Information sharing
37. I have experienced occasions where family violence services and the police have
not worked together: I have witnessed an 'us and them' mentality. We try to educate
family violence workers on how to better interact with police officers. We will
provide a number of tools to assist workers, including questions for the workers to
ask police, and advice on any procedural questions the service or the client may
have. I have also had the opportunity to discuss specific case management
strategies with attending police.
38. If we could get the family violence service, DHHS, the police, medical services; all
of the relevant agencies talking together, sharing information and generally working
together, then we could put measures in place to improve women's safety much
faster. We are all working together towards the same end, however in reality for
various reasons this does not happen.
39. A lot of the work we do at Protective Services is filling the gaps between the family
violence service and the police. We will often be asked by the client, "Can you tell
us how this part of the police process works?"
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Risk Management
40. After we have conducted the risk assessment, and discussed with the client and her
support worker what we consider the risk to be, and why, we will make
recommendations to improve her safety.
41. My recommendation to the service will usually commence with "further liaison with
the police is required/ ongoing risk assessment and safety planning is required". I
will discuss with the client and the service provider whether more outreach support
would be of assistance, and then we will discuss physical treatments, which may
include CCTV, shutters, and so on. We try to give the client general advice as well,
for instance, about letterbox security, and training around cyber safety. We have
electronic equipment and we can sweep for bugs, if necessary.
42. I will say to the client "by sitting here with us, you are actually in control of the
situation, you decide what goes on", and sometimes you can immediately see the
effect that has on a client, when they start to feel empowered.
43. Our recommendations in relation to risk and safety are also provided to the client in
report form. Attached to this statement and marked "SS-2" is a de-identified report
provided to a Protective Services client.
Court processes
44. I have attended the Magistrates' Court, Children's Court and Family Court with
clients and family violence workers as a part of our risk management service. My
role has included support, security of the client and to assist Counsel in relation to
particular aspects of the case. My clients have included family violence services
staff, DHHS, the victims themselves and solicitors representing the parties to the
case. I have personally observed the exposure of clients in this environment and
the terror experienced when seeing the perpetrator in these surroundings. Often
this is the first time the victim has physically seen or been in the presence of the
perpetrator since the violence.
45. On one occasion at the Family Court I watched the Respondent maintain
surveillance on the "secure entry and exit door". I was able to liaise with the police
officers in attendance and we were able to formulate a strategy to allow the client
and her small child to leave the court unseen. Other court hearings have allowed
associates of the Respondent to attend the hearing in numbers and display what I
WIT.0079.001.0008
will describe as nothing short of intimidating behaviour toward the victim. As a
general comment, there is an obvious lack of risk assessing and subsequent safety
planning for clients attending court.
Improving Safety in the Home Project
46. The Improving Safety in the Home response is an early intervention initiative
between Protective Services and Safe Futures to enhance the safety of women who
have separated from their abusive partners, yet are still at risk of further abuse.
The primary aim is to support women and their children to stay in their own homes
when safe and appropriate.
47. The key components of our Improving Safety in the Home program are set out in
the Protective Services document entitled "Capability Statement and Executive
Summary June 2015", which is attached to this statement and marked "SS-3".
48. In some instances, to make a woman feel safer, we focus on particular rooms in her
house, for instance, the bathroom. If a perpetrator was to force his way into the
house, we have a room, which looks outwardly looks normal, which he will not be
able to get into. That allows us to buy some time, during which the woman can use
her SafeTCard or mobile phone to call the police.
49. There are circumstances where the perpetrator is going to present at the property
and breach no matter what we do to improve the safety of the home - and where
the Improving Safety in the Home program is not going to be appropriate. I have
observed that this is in the minority of instances.
CCTV.
50. CCTV cameras are one strategy we deploy that can protect women in the home,
because the perpetrator knows, with that camera present, he cannot go there
without there being evidence of his presence.
51. We connect our CCTV cameras to a static internet address, rather than having
ongoing monitoring of the video. We can give the woman an application on their
phone, so that they can check the cameras before they go outside or before they
arrive home. We can also retrieve the footage for use as evidence in Family Court
and criminal proceedings, which we have done on a few occasions.
WIT.0079.001.0009
52. The other side of the coin is that our clients feel safer knowing that they have
cameras at their property. SafeTCard offers another layer of protection, as do
doors, locks and screen windows. Rather than replacing anything, or relying on one
thing in particular, these services all complement each other, and that feeling of
safety. It is as important for women to feel safe as it is to actually be safe.
SafeTCard
53. It is widely accepted that the use of a mobile phone in a situation where there is a
threat of abuse or attack is not only difficult but the movement of trying to locate the
phone can often inflame the situation.
54. The SafeTCard is disguised as an ID card holder. It provides discrete dual
verification in a dedicated purpose unit, allowing users to alert an operator, and the
operator to then assess the situation and take appropriate and proportionate action.
The operator is located at a 24/7, A 1 accredited, monitoring station. The monitoring
station has an Alpha status with OOO, meaning that, prima facie, if that monitoring
station contacts OOO, and says "I have a verified alarm, voice confirmed, we need
the police at this address, family violence situation", the police will be sent. It fast
tracks the process. The operator also has the client's history in front of them which
they can provide to the police as appropriate. The Safe TCard is designed to
complement rather than replace the police response. It helps provide the police
with the evidence they need for each particular case, and support workers as well,
to give them the tools that they need to support their clients. Attached to this
statement and marked "SS-4" is a Protective Services document entitled
"SafeTCard - Functions (Summary)".
55. The device can also be used as a chaperone service. A woman can activate the
SafeTCard and say "I am at Doncaster Shopping Centre, I am just returning to my
car, I am parked near Myer, there is a suspicious vehicle, I am a bit worried", and
the monitoring station will listen to that. She can request that the monitoring station
call her on the phone, and they will do so, and speak with them as they walk to their
car. She may then say "everything is OK" and then they can go through the
process of deactivating it.
56. The SafeTCard is an excellent tool in the fight against domestic violence and
provides peace of mind to survivors. It gives women and children the confidence
that if they activate the SafeTCard, they have the knowledge and the ability to say "I
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need police now, there is an intervention order". That is empowering to women and
children, and we provide training about how to use the device, should that become
necessary.
57. We do not give a Safe TCard to every client, but of the 100 or so that we have
issued, we have not had a serious assault or death yet, and in fact we have had
some considerably improved results. When the device has had to be activated, the
police have responded in a timely fashion.
3G Safety Watch
58. 3G Safety Watch is a 24/7 monitored alarm that can be worn discreetly by the victim
and when in danger the red alert function can be activated. This will automatically
activate GPS and opens a line of communication to the monitoring centre. The
monitoring centre is .able to hear what is happening at the scene and can record the
information for up to 2 hours. As with SafeTCard, that recording can be used later
as evidence in either the Family Court or in criminal courts in relation to !VO
breaches. The monitoring centre can then call OOO, as described above, as
appropriate.
59. One advantage of the 3G Safety Watch, compared to the SafeTCard, is that instead
of reaching for a button on the latter device and holding it, with the watch the
woman just needs to touch her wrist, and then she can have her two hands free,
and speak to the monitoring centre. The watch is also connected to a phone
application, and an alarm sends the user's GPS location as a notification to that
application. The woman is able to determine who can see that notification,
including friends and support workers. Those people can then direct call the
woman on her 3G Safety Watch, through that application. The woman call also call
OOO directly from the 3G Safety Watch.

Steven Schultze
Dated: 22 July 2015

Why was child-killer John Edwards, who had a violent history, able to hire a PI to spy on his family

Why was child-killer John Edwards, who had a violent history, able to hire a PI to spy on his family

Why was child-killer John Edwards, who had a violent history, able to hire a PI to spy on his family

In December 2016, John Edwards hired a private investigator to follow his estranged wife, Olga. They were to track her at home and at work, to establish if she was seeing anyone new.

Edwards had met Olga in Russia when he was 50 and she was 19. They had two children together in Australia but their marriage broke down as he became increasingly controlling and angry. He had a “propensity for domestic violence and a history of psychological and physical assaults stretching back to the early 1990s”, a coronial inquest would later hear, and apprehended violence orders dating back to 1993.

A year and a half after he paid for his wife to be surveilled, the 68-year-old retired financial planner entered Olga’s home in Sydney’s Hills district and murdered their son and daughter – Jack, 15, and Jennifer, 13. Afterwards, he killed himself.

He died with a piece of paper in his top left pocket that appeared to describe Jennifer’s afternoon movements from her high school to her Pennant Hills home.

It emerged during the inquest into the deaths of Jack and Jennifer that Edwards had a history of using private investigators. He also hired one in 2010 to track down the current name and address of his older daughter, according to the coroner’s report. They had been estranged since she was a teenager after he subjected her mother, a previous partner, to a terrifying campaign of abuse.

He then showed up at an open house at the daughter’s home, giving a fake name to the real estate agent.

“[She] felt scared and physically ill after she realised her father had been in her home and took to leaving the house during the day, until her husband came home from work,” the report states. Edwards later approached her at her daughter’s preschool, and she reported him to the police.

Lack of scrutiny on PIs and family violence

In the years since the Edwards inquest concluded in 2021, the use of private investigators in situations where there might be family violence and stalking concerns or where there are AVOs in place has gone largely unscrutinised – in an industry with few obligations to screen clients or targets for such concerns, meaning investigators may operate unaware of these risks.

There are 1,769 private investigator licences active in New South Wales, according to NSW police, but no requirement to check clients for AVOs or any mandated training around family violence risks.

Eighteen licences have been revoked since 2019, according to NSW police answers to a question on notice from the NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson. These include 13 for convictions related to an indictable offence (which could include crimes such as assault, theft, fraud and drug offences) and two due to breaches of the Surveillance Devices Act.

Separately, there were 32 complaints about private investigators in that period, but none had their licence removed after an investigation.

Guardian Australia has identified cases around Australia where private investigators were used to track down addresses when there have been family violence orders.

There is the paternal grandmother who hired a private investigator to track down her daughter-in-law’s address, per a 2024 family court judgment, despite the existence of an apprehended domestic violence order between the parents for the mother’s protection.

And the man with a 12-month apprehended domestic violence order who hired a PI to locate his former partner’s new residence – behaviour he later acknowledged, according to a 2021 family court judgment, was “inappropriate and caused the mother distress”.

In Queensland a man was convicted in 2018 of the attempted murder of a baby after he tracked down a woman he was obsessed with, broke into her home and used a knife to attack her and her 10-month-old son. He also pleaded guilty to wounding, grievous bodily harm and break and enter.

The man used a private investigator to track down the victim. “He engaged one such investigator under the ruse that she had allegedly defrauded him of about $200,000 and he needed her address so his lawyers could pursue her,” according to court documents.

Most Australian states don’t have a requirement for private investigators to check clients’ domestic violence histories – although Queensland’s laws are set to change in 2025 to address this issue.

‘Why aren’t we training investigators?’
Some private investigators advertising online specifically promote their expertise online in tracking down “cheating spouses” and providing “peace of mind” for those worried about whether their partner is seeing other people.

Several of these companies also sell spyware, including hidden cameras and trackers. A 2024 investigation into the criminal use of tracking and surveillance devices by the NSW Crime Commission examined the sale of almost 6,000 devices over about 12 months. It found that 25% of customers had a recorded history of domestic violence.

More than 120 of the 3,147 customers it examined were apprehended violence order defendants when they made the purchase, including some who bought a tracking device in the days after an AVO was enforced. It identified one instance where a tracking device was sold to a customer who had been charged on 13 occasions with contravening an AVO.

The NSW Crime Commission’s report particularly noted the potential risk of the private investigation and “spy store” industries, and that PIs have no requirement to do due diligence on customers before providing services or selling spyware. “In fact, it is likely some private investigators remain wilfully blind to their client’s criminal involvement and intentions,” it concluded.

NSW’s crime commissioner, Michael Barnes, said he personally found the marketing of spyware as a means to track romantic partners “abhorrent”.

“We were shocked to find that the high proportion of those who had purchased [spyware devices] were also in those databases as serious DV offenders,” he said. “That’s why our recommendations make suggestions to tighten up that industry, [and] to license the sale of the devices.”

Stephen Wilson, the chief executive of Protective Group, said it was “unethical” for investigators to also be selling spyware. He’s worked with family violence victim-survivors to assess their risk and find devices – from car trackers and smartphone spyware to hidden cameras. On occasions, the use of physical surveillance has also been a likely threat.

“We’re now teaching hairdressers around the risk,” he said. “Why aren’t we training investigators? Why aren’t we training them on family violence, how to identify it, how to respond to it?”

“We know that abusers are systematically looking for ways to thwart the system, and we urge police and magistrates to be aware of this,” said Karen Bentley, the chief executive of Wesnet, a peak body for family violence services. “Any regulation of [private investigators] should consider the safety-first principle we need to prioritise the safety of victim-survivors.

“There’s no legitimate reason to be selling spyware in the domestic market. There is none.”

The state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan, who investigated the deaths of Jack and Jennifer, described their deaths as “preventable” at the conclusion of her inquiry in 2021, noting errors made by firearms registry staff, police and the family court.

“It is difficult to imagine the pain that Olga felt when she returned home from work on 5 July 2018 to find police at her home and [realise] her two children who she loved dearly had been killed,” O’Sullivan said at the time.

Olga, who had taken to sleeping in her son’s bed, would kill herself five months after the deaths of her children

Protective Group

Protective Group

How DV thugs are tracking their victims

MORE than 500 Gold Coast families have sought safety checks on their homes and vehicles as domestic violence thugs use tracking devices to stalk them.

As the Government struggles to provide GPS tracking bracelets to police perpetrators, the Gold Coast Bulletin can reveal how violent partners are using technology to harass victims.

At least 200 women have been referred to a private company by Queensland Police and another 350 from a government-run home safety program for urgent security checks.

“That victims of domestic violence whose perpetrators are known to the police as high risk, have to seek out private companies to ensure their safety is appalling,” Opposition frontbencher Ros Bates said.

“The LNP introduced some of the toughest domestic violence in laws in the country, from Opposition, because the lazy Labor Government didn’t protect Queensland women. GPS trackers, which have alerts for both the perpetrator and the victim was part of the LNP policy.

“However, Labor didn’t seem to think that the victims needed security, and decided on a different option.”

Protective Group has found listening devices placed by DV offenders in the dashboards of the cars of former partners and ceilings of their family home.

The former Queensland police officer, who was the personal protection officer for ex-Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, said the tracking devices were often secured before relationships “exploded”.

“If you have access to their mobile phone you can install a program on their phone and you can’t see it on the phone,”

“I found a couple (of listening devices) in the dashboards of cars. There was a voice recorder hidden in a house, hidden cameras in the roofs.

“It’s called gas lighting. What they do is try and stalk and harass. They will say to you (the victim) that ‘I saw you in the red jumper I bought you for Christmas’. And the person will say ‘how do you know that?’”

Hearts of Purple CEO Michelle Beattie said she had worn one of the watches for almost a year and it gave her a stronger sense of protection.

Ms Beattie went public last year about safety concerns and what she saw as the reluctance of the courts to put GPS trackers on perpetrators.

“What these watches do is give you the confidence to walk out of the door and do things, to be able to do the normal,” Ms Beattie said.

“There are times I’ve forgotten mine, gone to the supermarket and come back home to get it to do the shopping. They give you a piece of mind as a parent. There’s ones for kids as well.”

Protective Group and the Gold Coast Bulletin

Protective Group and the Gold Coast Bulletin

DV offenders using technology to keep tabs on victims

DOMESTIC violence offenders are using spy technology and putting tracking devices in prams, bags and cars to stalk their victims.

Police from the Gold Coast Domestic and Family Violence Taskforce have given an insight into the lengths perpetrators are prepared to go to keep former “loved ones” in their sights.

Taskforce Detective Inspector Marc Hogan said stalking was “common” among family violence offenders and the use of technology made it easier to do so.

“If the stalking gets into the technology side, the amount of technology used is a good indicator (of DV),” he told the Bulletin.

“(Some spy technology) tells you where the (victims) are, where they’ve been, their phone calls, everything.”

Det Insp Hogan said the Taskforce started work alongside the Salvation Army Crossroads Network, which incorporates the Safer In The Home program, soon after it formed last year.

The program, which uses federal-funded Protective Group specialist services, helped to prevent social media “leakage” of domestic violence victims, he said.

“I got on to this guy and we started to bring him up here because we have women that just cannot explain how (the offender) knows where they are all the time, so then you ask ‘Well, how does that happen?,’” Det Insp Hogan said.

“So you shut down the social media stuff and he still knows, so how does that happen?”

General manager of risk for family and domestic violence at Protective Group, said the customised program incorporated a complete risk and security assessment for victims, including cyber security.

“We find out the details of the perpetrator, details of patterns,” he said.

“(Victims) are being monitored by iCloud, tracking devices, spyware, and key logging software (where offenders can see what exactly is being typed by the victim).”

Associate professor of criminology at Bond University Wayne Petherick said technology was well used in family violence situations.

“It does change when you’re talking about stalking in domestic violence (settings), probably because ... it’s emotional type behaviour where there’s a prior level of intimate relationships,” he said.

“It’s about keeping tabs where (victims) are, when they’re there and who they’re with.

“(Offenders) could be adding apps to their ex-wife’s or girlfriend’s phone, burying them many layers deep or using apps already on the phone ... knowing they don’t use it.

“Instead of jumping in a car, you can use a phone. Technology has made it easier.”

7:30 Report ABC Protective Group

7:30 Report ABC Protective Group

A great national shame

With more than 60 women killed in instances of domestic or family violence so far this year, the government has announced a multi-million dollar package to combat what PM Malcolm Turnbull describes as a national shame.

Protective Group Technology Abuse

Protective Group Technology Abuse

How technology is being used by hackers to spy on DV victims

CYBER creeps are hacking into cars and household appliances to stalk, spook and spy on former partners, in an alarming wave of hi-tech harassment.

The Federal Government’s e-Safety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, on Saturday revealed the first case of an Australian “car-hacking” in a domestic violence case.

“One Australian perpetrator hacked into the computer program of his ex-partner’s car to limit the kilometres she could drive,’’ Ms Inman Grant told The Sunday Mail.

“Every time she drove more than 5km, the car would stop.

“The mechanics had a hard time identifying the issue, because the car would just stall.’’

Ms Inman Grant would not identify the model of the car, but said the offender had accessed it while still living with his wife.

A Sunday Mail investigation has revealed that cyber-savvy offenders are misusing the “Internet of Things” to change security alarms, control lights and airconditioners and monitor the movements of former partners.

So many DV offenders are tracking women through their phones that some women’s shelter have banned smart phones.

Ms Inman Grant said one man had changed the password of the smart TV before leaving the family home.

“Every time his wife or children turned on the TV, an evil or threatening message would show up on the TV,’’ she said.

“You can have surveillance devices stuck in a teddy bear, under a pram, in the lining of a purse, under floorboards with CCTV (closed circuit television) cameras set up inside and outside the home.’’

Protective Group chief executive Stephen Wilson, who checks the homes of 80 new domestic violence victims each week, yesterday said he had found a drone parked on top of a woman’s skylight, “filming her in bed’’.

“We’ve found bugging devices in a teddy bear, in a walking stick, sewn into shoes and children’s backpacks,’’ he said.

“In one house there were a dozen cameras installed, and the perpetrator could log into his phone to play around with the garage door turn the lights on and off, change the volume of the speakers, turn the heating up and close or lock the gates.

“If you’ve shared your Apple ID or wi-fi password, they can remotely control your wi-fi and the devices connected to it to see what’s going on.’’

Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk said some women who had fled domestic violence feared their partners were still “keeping tabs on them’’.

“We know that the use of technology by perpetrators to monitor control and frighten is a very real concern for victims,’’ she said.

Ms Palaszczuk said the State Government was providing “cyber audits’’ to scan homes for spyware, as part of a trial of technology to help 270 women stay in their homes in Cairns, Caboolture, Rockhampton and Ipswich.

The women have also been given personal safety devices to alert a security monitoring service and police if they are under threat, as well as CCTV cameras and dashcams to record evidence.

Ms Inman Grant said the average Australian house has 17.5 devices that could be controlled remotely through bluetooth or cloud-based internet services.

She said the Office of the eSafety Commissioner was negotiating with 30 hi-tech companies to build-in better security for “smart’’ appliances.

“It’s an important cultural change for technology companies to undertake,” she said.

Women’s Services Network (WESNET) has given 15,000 free Telstra phones to women fleeing domestic violence, after their partners tracked them on their old phones.

“I’ve got one case where a woman’s abuser, while he was still in the home, used to beam himself onto the television by connecting his phone to the TV and live-streaming,’’ Karen Bentley, the director of WESNET’s SafetyNet program, told The Sunday Mail.

“He had put a television in every room so it was as if he was omnipresent - as if he had eyes on them everywhere.’’

Ms Bentley said she was concerned that federal funding for the Safe Connection phone-swap program would run dry in June next year.

Niel Mitchell speaks to Stephen Wilson from Protective Group about Domestic Violence

Niel Mitchell speaks to Stephen Wilson from Protective Group about Domestic Violence

“I thought I was going to die”

Jade Benham is a survivor of harrowing domestic violence at the hands of her former partner. She's also a Politician; And she's choosing now to share her very personal story with the world.

In this episode, I'm also joined by Stephen Wilson, the founder and CEO of Protective Group, a support service providing safety and security solutions to vulnerable people.

7News Perth

7News Perth

Technology is fueling the Domestic Violence crisis

Technology is fueling the family and domestic violence crisis in Australia, security services say they're under pressure like never before.

They fear authorities aren't keeping up with modern tracking and monitoring by perpetrators.

Protective Group tracking tiles.

Protective Group tracking tiles.

Apple and Google join forces to crack down on Bluetooth tracking devices

Apple and Google have teamed up to find a solution to devices like AirTags being used to track people without their consent.

Bluetooth tracking devices, like AirTags, were conceived to help people locate their items such as keys and luggage.

However, some people have misused such devices to track people without them knowing.

Since the release of AirTags, Apple’s bluetooth tracking device, there have been many incidents where people have found them hidden on their vehicles or in their bags, allowing the owner of the device to track their location.

Given this serious concern for people’s safety, Google and Apple outlined a proposal to set standards to prevent unwanted tracking or stalking.

“Today Apple and Google jointly submitted a proposed industry specification to help combat the misuse of Bluetooth location-tracking devices for unwanted tracking,” a statement released by Apple said.

“The first-of-its-kind specification will allow Bluetooth location-tracking devices to be compatible with unauthorised tracking detection and alerts across iOS and Android platforms.”

The draft specification offers best practices and instructions for manufacturers if they opt to build these capabilities into their products.

Samsung, Tile, Chipolo, Eufy Security and Pebblebee have all expressed support for the draft specification, the press release stated.

The specification has been submitted to standards development organisation, the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Over the next three months, interested parties are encouraged to review and comment on the submission, after which Apple and Google will come together to address feedback and release a production implementation of the specification for unwanted tracking alerts.

It is expected the rollout will begin before the end of 2023 and future versions of iOS and Android will support it.

“We built AirTag and the Find My network with a set of proactive features to discourage unwanted tracking — a first in the industry — and we continue to make improvements to help ensure the technology is being used as intended,” said Ron Huang, Apple’s vice-president of sensing and connectivity.

“This new industry specification builds upon the AirTag protections, and through collaboration with Google results in a critical step forward to help combat unwanted tracking across iOS and Android.”

Dave Burke, Google’s vice-president of engineering for Android, said Android has an “unwavering commitment to protecting users” and in the future will develop strong safeguards and work to combat the misuse of Bluetooth tracking devices.

‘Significant step forward’
Several people and advocacy groups have warned about the dangers of Bluetooth tracking devices.

AirTags hit the market in 2020, but other Bluetooth tracking devices pre-date them.

In 2020, a survey conducted by Curtin University and the Women’s Services Network found the number of domestic violence victim-survivors tracked with GPS apps or devices had increased by more than 244 per cent since 2015.

Stephen Wilson, the CEO of Protective Group, a company that utilises technology to keep safe domestic violence victims, previously told The New Daily AirTags had been found in everything from car boots and doors, to children’s toys and underwear.

In 2022, two women who allege their ex-romantic partners used AirTags to track them filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, CNN reported.

In a separate incident last year, a woman from the US allegedly attached an AirTag to her partner’s vehicle, tracked him and killed him after catching him cheating.

Additionally, there have been several incidents documented on social media of people being notified on their iPhones that an AirTag is potentially tracking them.

In the statement released by Apple, the Centre for Democracy and Technology’s president and CEO Alexandra Reeve Givens said the draft specification was a “welcome step”.

Ms Reeve said a “key element” to minimising the risk of Bluetooth tracking devices was to have a solution that could detect trackers made by different companies on a variety of smartphones.

“The National Network to End Domestic Violence has been advocating for universal standards to protect survivors – and all people – from the misuse of Bluetooth tracking devices,” said Erica Olsen, from the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

“This collaboration and the resulting standards are a significant step forward.”

Jenny* lost her phone one day and went onto her computer to use the “find my phone” function - only to discover that her ex-partner was logged into all her devices, including her car - and had been tracking her every move.

Jenny* lost her phone one day and went onto her computer to use the “find my phone” function - only to discover that her ex-partner was logged into all her devices, including her car - and had been tracking her every move.

Criminal Domain will expose the ways we leave ourselves open to hacking and phishing attacks

Protective Group featured on The Criminal Domain and discussed in a world where we are so dependent on our phones, our computers and the internet, we explore what happens when you don't protect yourself online.

Criminal Domain will expose the ways we leave ourselves open to potential hacking and phishing attacks, and how perpetrators use technology to manipulate us.
Protective Group talk about the hidden dangers that are hiding on your devices.

World renowned futurist Mark Pesce and respected investigative journalist Claire Aird speak to victims of cyber crime to inform us how to better protect ourselves online.

Protective Group CEO Stephen Wilson speaks to Gary Adshead about the rise of Domestic Violence.

Protective Group CEO Stephen Wilson speaks to Gary Adshead about the rise of Domestic Violence.

What can be done to stop violence against Women

CEO of Protective Group and advocate of Domestic Violence Victim Survivors, Stephen Wilson talked to 6PR mornings with Gary Adshead.

“Not all men behave in such a manner but clearly its mainly men that are perpetrators,” Mr Wilson said on 6PR Mornings.

Stephen Wilson told Gary Adshead “We find trackers and hidden cameras on a daily basis” and detailed his thoughts on early intervention to stalking and tracking.

In the last decade as technology has become entwined in our day-to day lives and has many advantages, it can also be used as a tool for abuse. Some family violence perpetrators go to great lengths to locate, stalk and control their partners and families.

We see each day the way the perpetrator controls their victim and the psychological and emotional effect it has on the victim, the victim questions themselves every minute of the day “am I being watched, are they looking at me”.

Joel Svensson from Protective Group

Joel Svensson from Protective Group

The fact my job exists shows just what men will do to harass ex-partners

“He said he won’t stop until he’s ruined me.”

My client was pointing to where her ex-partner had hidden in her front yard, commando-crawling through her garden, under her house, to find a way inside. He’d been to jail many times for breaching intervention orders, but every time he got out, the violence continued. Even losing his high-flying career hadn’t put him off.

This was October last year, when family violence was having one of its cyclical – and crushingly brief – periods of prominence in the headlines. Media, community leaders and politicians around the country lamented the murders of five women in just nine days. “Will I be the sixth?” wondered my client.

Now more women are in the headlines, and the stories are appallingly familiar.

Just before Molly Ticehurst was allegedly murdered in NSW, for example, her ex-partner Daniel Billings was charged with stalking, rape and animal cruelty. If a terrorist had displayed as many red flags as Billings had waving around him, a special tactics squad would have been kicking down his door. Instead, despite the recommendations of police, Billings was granted bail.

The UK is trialling a program that tracks men flagged as dangerous the way police might monitor someone who’d sent threatening letters to an MP. It’s been proposed here too in recent months. And while it might seem radical, my time on the front line tells me it’s necessary.

I work in security support for victim-survivors of family violence – we sweep homes and cars for trackers and bugs, add CCTV systems and proper locks to homes, scour online accounts for infiltration, sometimes help women and children flee. The fact that my job even exists shows the lengths some men will go to stalk, harass and attack women.

We find microphones and tracking devices secreted in pot plants, sewn into children’s toys, dropped into strollers. My colleagues have found ex-partners hiding in ceiling crawlspaces, under beds. They’ve been chased out of homes with machetes. Last year, I was confronted by a man who’d been staking out his ex-partner’s apartment, waiting until she’d left so he could plant more tracking devices in her things (he found me and my bug-sweeping equipment instead).

We’re always booked solid, assisting upwards of 50 clients across the country every week, most of them referred from refuges and NGOs. There’s some government funding, but not enough.

By the nature of our work we arrive late on the scene, and by the time we meet most of our clients, their lives have already been upended. We can make them safer now, but we can’t undo the crisis that led them to us.

For some women (about 60 every year, in fact) that moment of crisis is also their last. And for many of them, it was all entirely, heartbreakingly preventable.

We know the warning signs and risk factors. We know how bone-deep, how irrational, how deadly the motivations of the perpetrators. We know the slow work of cultural change won’t change much for the women and children in danger today.

We have to do more, earlier.

Some clever tech already exists to help women, including smartwatches that double as safety alarms, recording footage and briefing police with specific perpetrator information as they’re called to the scene.

But we need to turn our tech and expertise to prevention. We need specialised units assessing and tracking high-risk offenders so we can disrupt them before the attack cycle peaks and another woman becomes a headline. We need politicians to stop the hand-wringing and actually invest in a protective intelligence framework for family violence so that we might finally, finally get off the back foot.

I think of another client who laughed, embarrassed, as she watched me crawl under her car to check for GPS trackers. “I can’t believe you’re doing all this for me,” she said. “I feel like president Obama.”

We often think of security as something reserved for the wealthy or famous, something only worth police resources if it’s related to the national terror threat. But it’s everyday women – not politicians or celebrities – who are being killed by men at the rate of one every week (or as of this year, one every four days).

I’m terrified of those statistics. I’m terrified one day a client will be right about becoming one of them.

Tom Elliott from 3AW talks to Protective Group CEO Stephen Wilson

Tom Elliott from 3AW talks to Protective Group CEO Stephen Wilson

Why Tom Elliott thinks its time to crack down on male violence

Tom Elliott thinks it time to address why male violence continues to be a prominent issue in our society.

He believes that offering services such an counselling for men may be a potential answer to this serious problem.

“I don’t feel like I should be responsible for the actions of a minority,” he said on 3AW Mornings.

There are calls for tougher penalties for violence against women amid a recent surge in male and domestic violence.

CEO of Protective Group and advocate of Domestic Violence Victim Survivors, Stephen Wilson told Tom Elliott “men need to change their attitudes in general”.

“Not all men behave in such a manner but clearly its mainly men that are perpetrators,” Mr Wilson said on 3AW Mornings.

Protective Group shared their experiences with Thats Life Magazine,

Protective Group shared their experiences with Thats Life Magazine,

My mission to SAVE LIVES

Glancing at the large holes in the wall in the hallway, and the elderly Greek lady standing in front of me, I sighed.

All cases of domestic violence are sad, but elder abuse – abuse against older people – is particularly hard.

‘Does he punch holes in the wall?’ I asked, meaning the poor lady’s grandson.

She shook her head.

‘No, he puts my head through the wall,’ she said quietly.

It sounds shocking, but, as a security and risk consultant, it was one of so many heartbreaking stories of domestic violence I’d heard. I was just glad I could help.

My family always taught me and my siblings the importance of helping others.

So it wasn’t a surprise when, at 16, I joined the police force as a cadet.

As a young officer in the patrol van, jobs often came in for domestic violence cases.

‘It’s hard, they often go back to them,’ fellow officers said sadly.

Back then there just weren’t the refuges for women to go to.

I always had a good sense of humour and a calm head.

It came in handy when I was sent undercover for 14 months, running an antique shop to infiltrate the Italian mafia in Australia’s first long-term undercover operation.

I came across my share of menacing characters, and held my nerve when guns were pulled and my car was set on fire.

I loved my job, but sadly it took its toll on my life and my marriage, so I left the force in 1992.

In 2012 I bumped into an old friend, ex-police officer Steven Schultze.

‘The ex chased me down the road with a machete’
Steve and I both hated bullies and wanted to help victims.

So together we set up Protective Group, a security firm and social enterprise performing risk assessments to keep the vulnerable safe from violence in the home – and ultimately save lives.

At first we worked on alarms for Salvation Army workers posted alone in the field.

Then, in 2015, the government gave funding to help keep people safe from domestic violence. We visited victims referred by the Salvation Army and other organisations to check on safety, perform sweeps for trackers and assess their online security.

We got a staggering 80-100 referrals a week.

When I knocked on a victim’s door, I sometimes saw children clinging onto their mother, eyes wide with fear.

‘I’m hear to listen,’ I’d tell the victim.

Often I was the first person who’d actually listened to their story of abuse or coercive control.

Steve and I assessed victims’ houses, changed locks, and secured fences and windows.

Once or twice I went to a job, knocked on the door and the woman’s ex-partner answered. They were back together, but I understood how hard it could be to escape, physically and mentally, from someone who’s controlling and manipulative.

Once Steve came back a bit ruffled from a job in Kempsey, NSW.

‘The ex-partner chased me down the road with a machete,’ he said.

During the pandemic, perpetrators took to technology abuse.

Scarily, they didn’t just hide secret cameras, they monitored emails or used Apple AirTags or Tiles.

We found tracking devices in places you’d never imagine – behind car numberplates and in teddy bears. Ex-partners even used gaming devices they’d played remotely with their children to listen in and see if their exes had new relationships.

Some of our cases were absolutely chilling.

‘Your partner has been filming you with a drone,’ I told one poor woman. ‘Through the skylight when you are asleep.’

Domestic violence affects people from all walks of life, and predominantly women.

Possibly one of the scariest cases was a woman who kept receiving strange texts from an ex-partner – a professional man without even a speeding ticket to his name.

‘He texted to say he was glad I was wearing the pyjamas he’d bought me for Christmas,’ she said, confused.

Incredibly, he was removing part of the roof, clambering into the attic, then climbing down and watching her sleep.

When you leave a relationship, it’s advisable to change all your passwords.

People can track you through toll accounts or ticketing website accounts.

‘My partner tracked me down through reward points,’ one woman heartbreakingly revealed.

Her ex-partner had gone on to her online rewards account which detailed which supermarket stores she shopped at and when she usually visited.

He went to the car park, and put her vehicle’s registration number in the parking machine to confirm she was there. Then he lay in wait to attack her and her new partner.

Earlier this year, Steve and I were invited to Alice Springs to work with people in the Aboriginal community there. Indigenous women are 32 times more likely to experience domestic violence nationally.

We’ve also developed a smartphone app and a device which victims can use to send their location to a monitoring centre, which will then alert police. It’s called the Tek Safe alarm.

There is also a camera and live audio, and some of the recordings have been used as evidence against abusive partners.

We’re not Batman and Robin – we don’t have all the solutions – but we’re hoping to make a change to make life safer for victims of domestic violence.

Protective Group CEO Stephen Wilson speak to The Sydney Morning Herald about his policing and professional career.

Protective Group CEO Stephen Wilson speak to The Sydney Morning Herald about his policing and professional career.

30 years ago, he was deep undercover. Now he helps women find safety

Stephen Wilson might have been one of Australia’s first deep undercover cops more than 30 years ago, but today even I can pick him. It’s 10 to noon, already sweltering outside and the pub isn’t open yet. Yet here comes Wilson, looking as if he’s just walked off the set of The Bill, straight-backed and silver-haired and slipping around to the back entrance.

Moments later, we’re in. There in the cool of the Ascot Vale Hotel (turns out Wilson knows the owners), he grins as I compliment his “resting cop face”.

“I can’t even walk onto a construction site,” he says. “They say, ‘oh no, the jacks are coming’.”

But 30-odd years ago, Wilson was undercover. Deep undercover “like Donnie Brasco”. “One of the bosses had actually read about what the FBI did then [infiltrating the New York mafia] and wondered if they could do the same here.”

Wilson was 28 with a young family back in Melbourne at the time. Suddenly, he had a new identity in Mildura running an antiques shop, “wearing gold chains” and cruising nightclubs looking to set up drug deals – feeling his way closer to the centre of the Italian mafia growing cannabis out there.

Wilson hadn’t even planned to be a cop. He joined the force at 16 after tagging along to a police open day, living above a hotel in Spencer Street in the old police cadet dorms, “getting up to mischief” and shadowing officers in his crisp cadet uniform: “Looking back, I think I was like a scout really.” And despite graduating dux from the academy and rocketing up the ranks as a detective, he never planned to stick around either.

Until that ambitious 14-month sting in Mildura, his only undercover gig had involved waltzing into a notorious sauna, usually in just a towel and thongs, looking for signs of underage prostitution and human trafficking for the vice squad. “They must have seen the blond hair and earrings and thought: ‘we’ll just use him’,” Wilson chuckles. “But no one had really done infiltration then.”

The Mildura sting, which was later recognised by Victoria Police as Australia’s first long-term undercover operation, was as much about proof of concept – gathering intelligence – as it was about busting crooks.

This was before the internet, and local cops didn’t know him. Wilson was constantly being pulled over and hassled by his unknowing colleagues who thought he was “shady as anything”.

“I’d tell them to f--- off,” he says. “I had to act tough.”

He recalls the spine-tingling moment he locked eyes with one cop in town, “a bloke I knew from years back”. “I looked at him and he looked at me but out of context, he couldn’t place me, and I just thought: be cool.”

Fourteen months is a long time to keep your cool. Wilson had guns drawn on him, his car was torched and the house he shared with his fellow undercover detective was burgled (including a certain grandfather clock with a trick bottom for stashing cash). How did Wilson do it? He shrugs. “I’m not an angry person.”

Indeed, he’s disarmingly friendly. Lunch is on The Age today but as we order (steak for me and the lamb for Wilson, plus the pub’s famous dim sims to share), Wilson repeatedly offers to buy photographer Joe Armao lunch on his own dime “to keep your receipts in order, Sherryn”. The lunch offer is a first, Armao tells me, in all his years on the job.

As easy as it is to imagine Wilson getting hardened crooks to divulge their secrets, I can also see him sitting down for a cuppa with domestic violence victims in his current job: running security sweeps for vulnerable people. Protective Group, which Wilson started with another ex-detective, Steve Schultze, over a decade ago, is Australia’s only security firm specialising in helping domestic violence victims escape abuse.

While their work is not directly funded by governments, the two Steves (and a staff of mostly ex-cops) work with charities across the country supporting victims. “Whether that’s dashing out to Bunnings and installing locks, or doing a sweep of her car, her phone for trackers and bugs before she goes to the refuge, or her house,” Wilson explains. “We get so many calls for help, but we can usually find the funding somewhere. We look after probably 80 to 120 women a week now.”

As the food arrives, Wilson admits he didn’t have to completely fake it undercover: “I really do love antiques.”

But the job took a toll. He rarely saw his family. His marriage fell apart. He lost touch with friends like Schultze, whom he knew when Schultze worked in homicide downstairs and lived at the end of his street. “It wasn’t like I could go to the police pub on a Friday night.”

After he left the force, Wilson owned and ran a pub himself. Then, 15 years ago, he reunited with Schultze, and decided to go back to investigation. Both men had a brood of kids at home. “And both of us ... well, we hate bullies.”

When the Salvation Army was given funding under the Turnbull government to help keep women at risk of violence safe in their homes, the charity turned to the two Steves. And soon refuges and other support services did, too, as well as private clients.

Wilson describes men climbing through roof tiles at night to photograph their ex-partners sleeping; trackers sewn into teddy bears and children’s backpacks, hidden in glove boxes or under cars; and eerie arrays of cameras discovered in ceiling vents.

“Some of these men are lawyers, doctors, they’ll go to jail, get out and do it all over again,” he says. “COVID drove a lot of the technology abuse [as more of life moved online]. It’s really skyrocketed.”

Wilson’s voice shakes as he recalls the vicious assault of a woman outside a supermarket – her ex had tracked her down via her rewards card points.

His team has to be careful, too. Schultze has been chased off a property with a machete. “I’ve gone to houses and the bloke’s still there hiding under the bed or in the cupboard,” Wilson says. “Perpetrators do not like us.”

At the pub when he tells people what he does now, he inevitably gets an earful from “blokes saying, ‘oh but domestic violence happens to men, too’. I know it does, but you look at the numbers. You’d have to be blind to say it’s not mostly women. And kids. You see terrible things. I can’t make any excuses for my gender any more. I think a lot of blokes have grown up without empathy.”

Not so for Wilson. The eldest of four kids, he grins as he mentions his “square” parents. “Mum’s never had a drink. Dad’s the sort of bloke, he goes to his [favourite] fish and chip shop one night and they wouldn’t give him a receipt. And he thought: ‘Ah, you’re dodging tax’. So he never went back.”

At home, “there was never an angry word”, but on the job aged 18, Wilson was being called to dozens of domestic violence incidents a day. “And back then, no cops wanted to go to them. The old attitude was ‘she’ll just go back to him’. Victims didn’t have the support they do now. I think it’s changed. I hope it’s changed.”

Now, Wilson rarely tells clients he used to be a cop. He wears polo shirts, not suits. “Sometimes, they’ll say, ‘you’re the first fella who’s ever listened to me. My ex didn’t, and I don’t feel like his family did or the police or the magistrate did’.”

He’s particularly passionate about helping Indigenous communities. The only women’s refuge in Alice Springs recently called in the two Steves as unrest in the community made headlines.

“We’re not Batman and Robin flying in to fix it,” Wilson says. “It’s very complicated, but we’ll see what we can do. I’d love to train up some local Indigenous workers in what we do.”

Billions of dollars have been poured into stopping domestic violence since Rosie Batty’s direct appeal for change following the murder of her son nearly a decade ago. “Some things are better, but there’s a lot of talkfests, too,” sighs Wilson. “We wanted to do something practical, even if it’s a Band-Aid.”

He taps his watch. Speaking of practical, Protective Group have also developed an app that turns smartwatches into safety alarms. If a client is in danger and activates the alarm, live audio and video from their watch will be streamed to a 24/7 monitoring centre, which can then call police “with a special alpha code” and brief officers on the perpetrator’s history while they’re en route. “And those recordings have stood up in court as evidence before,” Wilson says.

There’s other evidence he sees on the job, too: holes in plaster where a son has put his elderly mother’s head through a wall. Or blood and scratch marks in the bathroom of a young mum. Forget the high-stakes world of undercover work – how does he keep his cool now, in the face of so much cruelty and fear? Does that idyllic upbringing – church on Sunday and loud family dinners –make Wilson feel more responsibility to protect others?

He puts down his fork, his hand shaking a little. “Yeah, maybe. I got lucky, the home I was born into.

“You go to houses and you look at kids holding onto mum’s arm, and you think ... well, it’s just not fair is it?”

Protective Group launch services in New Zealand

Protective Group launch services in New Zealand

Protective Group extends support into NZ

Help is on its way for New Zealanders suffering from tech abuse. Technology facilitated abuse (TFA) uses tech to coerce, stalk or harass someone.

It is overwhelmingly gendered with 96 per cent of perpetrators being male and 93 per cent of victims are women.

Now, thanks to the Help@hand Trust, help is on its way for New Zealanders suffering from this abuse.

Help@hand is taking inquiries and referrals for a remote tech assessment service which provides support for victim survivors to identify and remove unwanted tracking, hacking or surveillance from their devices.

Help@hand founder Sir Ray Avery says working to support New Zealanders suffering from family violence he became aware that TFA is a major problem in Aotearoa.

“That’s why we are thrilled to announce that, in partnership with Protective Group Australia, we will be offering remote assessments and prevention methods for New Zealanders suffering from TFA.

“We have already conducted trials in New Zealand with great success using the protective group’s novel, remote assessment tools of TFA.

Protective group chief executive Stephen Wilson says they find in Australia that TFA is prevalent in nine out of 10 family harm cases referred to them.

“We need to adapt to the ever-changing tech landscape to ensure we are not only disrupting TFA but eliminating it. While assessments of TFA have traditionally been delivered face to face, our ground-breaking, remote assessments, allow us to intervene earlier to ensure that more people feel safe.

“Our values very much align with Help@hand’s and we are honoured to play a part in supporting New Zealanders suffering from TFA.

“We are also very encouraged by the positive feedback already received through our New Zealand trials and look forward to empowering more Kiwis in protecting their technology and safety as we have done in Australia.”

Avery says the old adage that sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me, is not true in the tech world.

“I am pleased that we can now offer a proven, remote solution to combat TFA and let families get on with their lives free from fear.”

Protective Group speaks to THE NEWDAILY about Apple Airtag dangers.

Protective Group speaks to THE NEWDAILY about Apple Airtag dangers.

Apple AirTag threat: ‘Insidious’ technology

Apple AirTags have come under fire after social media users exposed how the technology was used against them by people with malicious motives.

In late June, Irish actress and writer Hannah Rose May posted tweets detailing how she discovered an AirTag had been tracking her without her knowledge for two hours.

Her posts have since gone viral on Twitter, with thousands of other users commenting on the dangers of trackers or describing their own experiences of being tracked.

Unfortunately, the AirTag is not the first commercially available product that people have used to track others.

In 2020, before the AirTag had been released, a survey by Curtin University and The Women’s Services Network found that the number of domestic violence victim-survivors who had been tracked with GPS apps or devices had increased by more than 244 per cent since 2015.

But experts warn that AirTags pose greater safety risks than other devices because they are cheap and easy to access.

Marketed as the solution to lost belongings such as house keys or hand bags, AirTags send out a Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby Apple devices in the company’s ‘Find My’ network. These devices send the exact location of an AirTag to its owner.

Victoria Police warned this week that the popularity and ease of use of AirTags could lead to increased use of tracking devices in family violence incidents.

Apple’s popularity adds to danger
AirTags are not the only portable tracking device on the market, with similar products offered by the likes of Samsung and Tile.

But Domestic Violence New South Wales interim CEO Elise Phillips said AirTags pose a particularly high risk to abuse victims and survivors because Apple is a well-known brand and a single AirTag costs just $45.

Such devices not only expose people to the malicious intent of random strangers and previous abusers; they also make it more difficult for people to escape abusive relationships.

“We know that women are at the greatest risk of homicide when they are preparing to separate or have separated,” Ms Phillips said.

“They might not have made that step yet – they might be looking at rental properties, they might be seeking support from services, and if the perpetrator were to use this technology to track them, then it potentially could put the victims at greater risk … [by making] it easier for perpetrators to know if and when women are preparing to take those steps”

Even when no physical violence occurs, victims of cyberstalking report similar experiences to victims of in-person stalking, such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and constantly being on high alert.

Trackers hidden in cars and toys
Stephen Wilson is the CEO of Protective Group, an Australian company that provides security services and technology to keep people safe from domestic and family violence.

Mr Wilson told The New Daily that Protective Group regularly finds AirTags hidden in everything from car boots and doors, to children’s toys and underwear.

“So 99.9 per cent of times, it’s probably used to legitimately find your lost car, or your lost bag, or your purse,” he said.

“But we’re certainly increasingly now seeing that they’re used to track kids [and] ex-partners by sticking them in cars and clothes and toys.”

In addition to trackers, stalkers often used hidden cameras, audio bugs, spyware, mobile stalker apps and social media to track their victims.

But Protective Group group operations manager Nicholas Shaw said the accuracy and longevity of AirTags makes them a particularly worrisome tracking device.

Protective Group tested the product when it first came onto the market, and found the device could pinpoint the exact stores that the test subject had visitedand the exact car the tracker had been left in.

Mr Shaw has since taken the AirTag with him on trips across Australia – and it only started to run out of battery about a year after it was bought and turned on.

‘Notify the police’
Ms Phillips said the designers of tracking devices have an obligation to minimise abuse and stalking risks as much as possible.

“We’re definitely seeing this becoming quite insidious,” she said.

Apple tried to curb improper use of AirTags by making sure that iPhones notify their owners if they have been in close proximity to an unfamiliar tag for a long time.

But this function is not automatically available to Android phones, the owners of which must download an Apple app to be notified if an AirTag may be tracking them.

Mr Shaw said he had recently seen a case where a woman (who owned an Android phone) decided to sell her car after divorcing her husband, only to receive a text from the car’s new owners (who owned iPhones) that they had received a notification that an AirTag was tracking them.

The AirTag was found attached to the bottom of the car and had been used by the woman’s ex-husband to track her movements for up to nine months without her knowing.

Apple says it’s actively working with law enforcement on all AirTag-related enquiries that the company has received.

Every AirTag has a unique serial number, and paired AirTags are linked to an Apple ID that can help identify perpetrators.

In February, the company announced it was working on further measures to minimise risks, such as notifying users sooner that an unknown AirTag or Find My network accessory may be tracking them.

Trackers not associated with specific phone models, such as iPhones or Samsungs, could pose even bigger risks than AirTags, as mobile users must download each brand’s individual app to get notified of a nearby tracker – if the brand even offers such an app.

If you find a device that has been used to track you, Mr Shaw said to notify the police and try not to damage any physical evidence, such as fingerprints.

Stephen Wilson talks to The Age about technology abuse during COVID.

Stephen Wilson talks to The Age about technology abuse during COVID.

Drones, baby monitors, store cards… tech abuse of women worsens in lockdown

More women are being stalked and monitored using drones, shopping rewards cards accounts, pet-tracking devices or other technologies, with calls for help to deal with this form of family violence nearly doubling during the pandemic.

The Salvation Army has reported a 95 per cent increase in demand for support with these sorts of threats in 2020 as more women found that perpetrators were using technology to exert coercive control.

“Wherever we’re using technology, you name it, they are using it,” said Alexandra Miller, national family violence specialist with the Salvation Army.

In the lead-up to the National Summit on Women’s Safety, Ms Miller said stalking and monitoring were strong indicators of future harm to family violence victims, and technological safety must be a focus if women were to remain in their homes and not risk homelessness.

“If you look at domestic violence death reviews, frequently one of the things they say is one of the most indicative behaviours [of future harm] is stalking and monitoring … if someone is going to that level, it’s extremely concerning,” Ms Miller said.

The Salvation Army administers the Commonwealth’s Safer in the Home service, which aims to help women who are at risk of family violence to stay in their homes.

Devices used by family violence perpetrators to monitor women included old iPods placed inside car upholstery as trackers, drones used to film women in their homes, hacked iCloud, music, Microsoft or Samsung accounts and even a doorbell vision app.

Many women experiencing technology-facilitated abuse and stalking may not recognise it as family violence.

“I recently was consulted about support for a woman who had never been physically harmed by her spouse but stated she was unable to attend a healthcare appointment because she knew that her husband was tracking her movements and she would therefore be unable to access help without his knowledge, which he would not ‘agree’ to,” Ms Miller said.

“His use of technology and other psychological means were sufficient to cause fear enough to exert and maintain complete control of her movements.”

Ms Miller said women should be able to stay connected with friends and family via technology that was integral to everyday life, but “we also want women to be aware of the ways in which technology may be used by perpetrators of violence and of the support available should they need it”.

Stephen Wilson, chief executive of Protective Group, which does security sweeps for family violence victims in the Safer in the Home program and for other women seeking help with monitoring or stalking, said demand had as much as quadrupled in the past year.

“Technology abuse and other coercive controls [have become] the new ‘weapon of choice’,” he said.

In one case, a pet tracker was found behind a number plate, trackers had been found hard-wired to women’s cars, and a baby monitor had been used by a perpetrator to listen while hidden outside to a woman speaking with her new partner in the next room to the infant.

Children’s gaming consoles had been used to monitor women’s activities and a drone had been used to film one woman with her new partner through a skylight, and the footage placed online.

In another case, a man used a woman’s Flybuys account, which he had logged into by knowing her email and regular passwords, to discover her usual shopping times and had confronted her and her new partner at the supermarket.

“He waited until she walked out and assaulted both seriously,” said Mr Wilson, a former policeman.

National eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said technology-facilitated abuse could cause serious psychological and emotional trauma and “we often hear women describe feeling suffocated and trapped in their own homes”.

On Tuesday, she will tell the National Summit on Women’s Safety that 99 per cent of victims of domestic and family violence have also experienced some form of technology-facilitated abuse and “we know it can be an early indicator of physical violence, as we saw in the tragic case of Hannah Clarke and her three beautiful children.

“eSafety has been advocating for the last six years that technology-facilitated abuse be recognised in specific conditions within domestic and family violence intervention orders and in apprehended violence orders and we will continue to fight for these changes,” Ms Inman Grant said.

Hayley Foster, CEO of Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, confirmed such abuse had increased in the pandemic. “It’s been on an ongoing trajectory and it’s gotten worse with lockdowns,” she said.

“Police don’t have the resources or adequate expertise to be able to deal with it. To say, ‘just get off social media’ or ‘stop using Facebook’ or ‘leave your phone behind’, none of that is helpful. To be safe, women need access to technology and we need to be able to find a way to make it safe.”

Security expert Stephen Wilson said his group had seen “a huge uptick” in tech abuse since March 2020: “Towards the end of lockdowns, we got a lot more referrals from services of people being able to get out and seek help.”

One woman who bought a ticket to the football with her new partner had had her email hacked by her former partner, who bought a ticket next to her for the same game to intimidate her.

“We’ve found listening devices and cameras in the home and a lot of compromised devices. We get 100 to 200 women a week coming and asking for assistance around tech abuse. It’s insidious,” he said.

In July, Monash University research for Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety also reported that technology-based abuse of women and girls had increased during lockdowns.

The broadest survey yet of front-line support workers found perpetrators found new ways to reach victims living apart from them including cyber-stalking, imposter accounts or spreading rumours and posting defamatory content online.

Protective Group speak to Channel Nine News

Protective Group speak to Channel Nine News

We shared our thoughts on yesterday’s welcome announcement of additional funding and support to keep victims of Domestic Violence safe.

Technology Abuse is prevalent in Domestic and Family Violence 99.3% of family violence workers have clients who had experienced technology facilitated stalking and abuse.*

Protective Group have seen a significant rise in Technology Abuse particularly in the last two years during COVID-19. With more people at home, working and spending time online it’s become the weapon of choice of perpetrators. We see each day the way the perpetrator controls their victim and the psychological and emotional effect it has on the victim, the victim questions themselves every minute of the day “ am I being watched, are they looking at me”.

Even the most inconspicuous devices are often used: baby monitors being pre-programmed to listen to their victim, controlling home WIFI networks to turn on music at 3am in the morning or turning the heating on at the highest temperature.
The violence isn’t always physical but the intent is always the same control their victim and their movements.

We thank Channel Nine News and Neary Ty for allowing us to share our thoughts.

*Woodlock, D., Bentley, K., Schulze, D., Mahoney, N., Chung, D., and Pracilio, A., (2020). Second National Survey of Technology Abuse and Domestic Violence in Australia. WESNET

Protective Group Victoria Parliament

Protective Group Victoria Parliament

Family Violence Cyber Security Assistance

Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (17:58): (1721) My adjournment debate is for the Minister for Police.
The Nicholson Project is a joint pilot between Wayss family violence service and Protective Group. This initiative is privately funded, aimed at minimising the technology-facilitated abuse of family violence survivors.

The way it works is a referral is made via police to Wayss, and then Protective Group are able to remotely access the victim-survivor’s devices, such as iPads, computers and phones, once permission is granted.

Protective Group then conduct a thorough check of all hard drives, search for and remove any spyware and malicious programs, conduct an audit of the victim-survivor’s social media settings and then change all of their passwords. Protective Group staff are all ex-police, corrections and ASIO, so they understand security and the complexities of family violence. On the day my office spoke to Protective Group last week they had already accepted 20 job requests, all women seeking refuge, needing their devices swept. This has been exacerbated through COVID but also reflects society’s reliance on technology. CEO Steve Wilson said they are busier than they have ever been.

In 2020 Wayss responded to over 8000 family violence reports from Victoria Police. Wayss provides services across Greater Dandenong, Casey, Kardinia, Mornington Peninsula and Frankston, but I understand that tech sweeping is available across the state through Orange Door referrals.

As the minister may know through some statements I have made in this place on previous occasions, online and tech abuse is rife in family violence. Research shows that 99.3 per cent of family violence practitioners say their clients have been victimised using technology in some form. This is incredibly scary. Further research with frontline family violence workers by peak domestic violence network Wesnet found tracking and monitoring of women by perpetrators had risen 244 per cent between 2015 and 2020 and the most common abuse experienced with physical family violence is stalking, often through technology.
The former husband of a victim-survivor whom Ms Maxwell and I met with at Parliament was tracking her movements through the location services on her child’s iPad. He found her at a refuge.

This was despite intervention orders being in place and his being formally charged with family violence crimes. It seems that she was not referred on to services such as Protective Group to have her devices cleaned. Of further concern in this case is that both Safe Steps and Victoria Police did not ask specific tech questions despite this woman and her kids being classed as high risk.
If Orange Door are not directly involved with a victim-survivor, this risk assessment could very well be missed. This type of risk assessment does not seem very well known, and to my knowledge police are not trained to instruct a victim-survivor on how to conduct their own safety check.

Whilst it may seem as though this is a question for the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, the action that I am actually seeking is for the Minister for Police to consider rolling out additional training to Victoria Police officers to assist victims of crime in sweeping their devices to keep them safe from perpetrators.

SBS See What You Made Me Do

SBS See What You Made Me Do

SBS – See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill

3-part documentary series that explores one of the most complex and urgent issues of our time – domestic abuse. Presented by investigative journalist Jess Hill, See What You Made Me do examines the fine lines between love, abuse and power. Airing on SBS.

Most Australians who experience domestic abuse will never report it and their abusers will never be called to account. In this series, investigative journalist Jess Hill challenges everything you thought and, everything you thought you knew and shines a light into the kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms where abuse is destroying lives through research with riveting storytelling. She finds victim survivors who trust to protect and who describe the shape- shifting of abusive behaviours – with violence one element among many.

She talks to perpetrators and the people working with them to curb their behaviours. Resolutely solution focused, Jess takes us across Australia, and beyond its shores, to explore radical innovations which could make a seismic difference to curbing this crisis in our homes. Jess has been awarded many fiction book literary award including Walkley book award and 2020 Stella prize.

*Protective Group featured in episode one and two of the three-part series.

Stephen Wilson from Protective Group talks to the Herald Sun

Stephen Wilson from Protective Group talks to the Herald Sun

Kimbarlie O’Reilly opens up on assault

“Did he do this to you?”
These are six words Kimbarlie O’Reilly will always remember as the lifeline that saved her.

It was January 16, 2019 and Kim O’Reilly had been bashed so severely by her jealous, controlling boyfriend that she could barely walk.

The hour-long assault by footy player Jake Frecker from the Dimboola football club was so loud it woke the neighbours, who called triple-0.

When police arrived, Jake Frecker, a repeat domestic violence abuser, ordered Kimbarlie O’Reilly to lie and say she was injured in a fall – a story she initially corroborated out of fear.

But officers split them apart and Ms O’Reilly was discreetly assured that she could be protected.

“One police officer took Jake outside and the other stayed with me. He asked if I was okay and I nodded my head. He then asked if he had done this to me and I said no,” Kim O’Reilly recalled.

“He then walked over to the side of my bed and asked again quietly ‘did he do this to you?’ and I nodded.”

Ms O’Reilly, then aged 34, was rushed to hospital and Frecker, then aged 28, was arrested.

Ms O’Reilly owes her life to the police who came to her aid that night.

“I was really lucky – I didn’t think I was going to get out of there,” she said.

The sustained attack by Frecker left Ms O’Reilly with severe and ongoing injuries.

He repeatedly punched her in the face, eye and jaw, breaking her eye socket and cracking several of her teeth in a fit of rage sparked by a text message sent to Ms O’Reilly by her ex-partner who she shares a business with.

At one point, Frecker grabbed Ms O’Reilly by the arm and dragged her into the house.

She had been knocked unconscious after a vicious blow by Frecker who warned: “Do you want me to give you another one?”

When she came to and asked for an ambulance, he responded: “You still have a pulse so you can get up”.

During questioning, Frecker painted himself as innocent party who would never hurt women.

He told police his girlfriend had fallen over on the concrete driveway and that it was against his nature to intentionally hurt someone, “especially women”.

He was charged and bailed but returned to prison 24 hours later for contacting Ms O’Reilly in a breach of his intervention order.

The breaches continued after he was let out.

Frecker instructed friends to contact Ms O’Reilly to tell her he was sorry, “had changed and still loved her”. She knew he was dangerous and stayed away.

In June 2020, Frecker was sentenced to six years behind bars – a term he is planning to appeal.

He was also convicted over a series of disturbing assaults on a previous girlfriend in 2016 and 2017.

These included him punching, pushing and pouring beer over the young woman’s head.

Ms O’Reilly had to undergo surgery following the assault.

She can no longer walk properly and requires ongoing pain medication for hip.

Mentally, the year-long relationship left her a shadow of her former self.

Frecker would call her names, isolate her from loved ones, threaten her family and to kill himself to keep her under his control.

“He threw bottles of Cruisers at my head and flicked cigarettes at me – I felt like nothing and was constantly walking on eggshells,” Ms O’Reilly said.

One of her biggest regrets is not telling loved ones about the abuse. She encouraged other victim-survivors to seek help when red flags emerge.

“Don’t ever think it’s you and don’t ever think you are alone,” she said.

Today Ms O’Reilly is fighting a new battle: to get a ‘no violence’ policy within Australian sporting codes.

While on bail, Frecker was allowed to keep playing footy at Dimboola Football Club.

Ms O’Brien is lobbying football clubs to ban players who are on bail or facing charges for violent crimes.

“I wont stay silent. This needs to be talked about to fix the problem,” she said.

SHIFT FROM PHYSICAL VIOLENCE TO TECH STALKING
Women who fear they are being stalked via technology are having their mobile phones swept for spyware and homes and cars checked for tracking devices under a promising new pilot program.

Technology-facilitated stalking and harassment has surged to record levels in Victoria where domestic abusers have become masterful hackers and surveillance devices are cheaper and easier to access.

A new trial underway in Melbourne’s southeast is putting scared women in touch with a private security firm to remotely wipe their phones, tablets and other devices of stalkerware and inspect their homes and vehicles for hidden cameras, trackers and recording devices.

The pilot, known as the Nicholson Project, involves family violence victims living in the Dandenong, Casey or Cardinia region who have expressed tech-abuse concerns to police.

Stephen Wilson, CEO of Protective Group, which conducts the security sweeps, said technology abuse in family violence settings has exploded in recent times.

His company routinely finds trackers in victims’ cars and tiny cameras hidden inside children’s toys or household fixtures.

Neil Mitchell, and Protective Group Stephen Wilson and Steven Schultze

Neil Mitchell, and Protective Group Stephen Wilson and Steven Schultze

How domestic violence security experts say Australia’s response to family violence can be improved

Despite a huge push to stop domestic violence, and a royal commission, family violence is still a massive problem with Victorian family violence contact centres receiving almost 80,000 enquiries a year.

The state government has implemented 143 of the 227 recommendations for reform put forward by the royal commission in 2016, but Victorian police are still responding to a family violence-relate incident every six minutes.

Two former detectives, who now run a security company which specialises in helping victims of domestic violence, say the situation is only getting worse.

Stephen Wilson and Steven Schultz founded Protective Group a decade ago, and say they’re now seeing “significantly more” domestic violence cases referred to them.

“We receive between probably 20 and 120 odd referrals a week, and quite a few of them we’re noticing elder abuse where kids are still in the house and mum’s not coping,” Mr Wilson told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.

“You would be absolutely horrified, the men in this community, Victoria, who are perpetrators of serious family violence with potential to kill women and children,” Mr Schultz added.

“We’ve had members of parliament, we’ve had surgeons, we’ve had QCs, we’ve had media people, school teachers, we’ve had unemployed ice addicts.”

The forms domestic violence is taking are changing, too.

“We’re finding probably eight or nine women out of 10 are suffering from technology abuse,” Mr Wilson said.

“It can be from simple stalking on social media, text messages, trackers in cars, listening devices in homes, spyware on phones.

The pair are calling for “a whole new rethink” of how domestic violence is dealt with.

“We need supervised safe places for women to go to until the police and everybody else involved can get their hands on the perpetrator and deal with him,” Mr Schultz said.

“Touchy feely men’s behaviour programs, I don’t mean to disrespect them but I think we need to escalate the response in relation to that. I think we need psychiatrists involved in that,” Mr Wilson added.

“It’s not going to change overnight. This is going to take generational change.

“This needs to be thought outside the square a bit more.”

Primer Technology Abuse Article

Primer Technology Abuse Article

Tracked And Terrorised

At Abby’s home, in an affluent suburb of Sydney, her husband Nick had installed a variety of technological comforts. She liked the sense of security they gave her: there were cameras at the front of the house, and the doors and lights operated automatically. Alexa, the smart TVs, the music system – everything was internet enabled and connected.

But when the couple separated and Nick moved out, Abby found herself controlled by the very technology she’d grown to rely on. In a modern-day Kafka-esque nightmare, her smart home became a kind of prison.

“She’d make an arrangement to meet a friend for coffee and the garage doors would suddenly lock, meaning she couldn’t get the car out,” recalls Stephen Wilson, a security expert that Abby turned to for help. “Or all the doors would lock and she couldn’t leave the house. One day, she’d organised for the gardener to come to the house at 1pm. Half an hour before, everything was fine, then at 1pm the doors locked and he couldn’t get in.”

In the middle of the night, the heating system turned itself to its highest setting, or music would suddenly blast through the house. There were several audio-enabled cameras in various rooms. The children’s ipads, Abby’s phone and her Macbook were all connected to Nick’s Apple ID and icloud, which meant he controlled all of the devices and could access everything on them. He could change passwords in an instant. Experts call this technology-facilitated coercive control and to Abby, it felt all-encompassing.

“All the doors would lock and she couldn’t leave the house”
As the chief executive officer of Protective Group, which conducts technological assessments and searches for hidden surveillance devices, Wilson and general manager Robyn Roberts deal with cases of technological abuse and control every day. “This is a huge issue,” says Roberts, a former social worker. “This type of abuse is pervasive, menacing and emotionally draining. And there’s not a lot around to help women with it.”

As our reliance on technology has increased and smartphones have become ubiquitous, it has become easier than ever for the perpetrators of domestic abuse to track, stalk and harass their victims. In one survey, almost all (98 per cent) of the professionals working with survivors of abuse said their clients had experienced this type of coercive control.

“We often talk to women who’ve believe they’re being tracked,” says Rebecca Wilschefski, client services manager at the Women And Girls’ Emergency Centre (WAGEC) in Sydney. Many of their clients receive new smart phones through the Safe Connections program, a partnership between national family violence service WESNET and Telstra that provides vulnerable women with a free 4G mobile and $30 pre-paid credit. In an indication of the scale of the issue, demand for the service has rocketed. “In 2014 the program distributed 50 devices per month,” says Telstra Chief Sustainability Officer Tim O’Leary. “This year, the program is distributing 600 devices per month.” In the last five years, Safe Connections has donated nearly 19,000 phones.

New phones can help, but in many cases they’re not the solution. A determined abuser now has access to an array of tools with which to track or gaslight their partner.

In July this year, researchers from Queensland University of Technology released a report documenting an alarming variety of harassment methods, including men hacking their ex-partner’s social media accounts or bombarding a victim with messages – even implanting GPS tracking devices in their cars. One of Wilson’s clients discovered that her ex-partner had been flying a drone over the skylight at her home, and had used it to take photographs of her bed. Another had discovered a tracking device in her child’s teddy bear.

“In the last five years, Safe Connections has donated nearly 19,000 phones”
This behaviour has become so prevalent that police departments have begun reaching out to Wilson for training in this area; one told him they were receiving “prolific” reports of technological abuse.

But this is a rarity; too often women say police seem to underplay the effect of constant abusive texts or concerns they’re being stalked, and they receive little advice about how to ‘de-bug’ their phones or cars.

Professional advice and surveillance assessments, such as those offered by Protective Group, can be expensive for many women in abusive situations – costing anywhere from $250 to $1000 – and while some organisations, such as the Salvation Army, will foot the bill, they can’t afford to pay for every women who needs one. “The new Victorian government flexible support package can be used to release funds to help women to pay for a technical sweep,” says Wilson. But women in other Australian states may not be able to access this type of fund. “We’ve done 140 pro bono assessments in the last 18 months,” he adds.

In his office in Melbourne’s Southbank, Wilson – a stocky ex-cop with a friendly manner – lays out an array of devices he and his co-founder Steve Schultze have discovered. There’s a tracking device and data reader no bigger than the palm of a hand that fits under the steering wheel of a car, which can transmit a car’s location and – alarmingly – re-program some of the operating systems to affect the way it drives. A key fob contains a camera and audio recorder, and there’s a selection of innocuous-looking plug-in microphones and cameras.

Each of the devices can be bought easily online, but they’d be difficult to spot if you didn’t know what you were looking for. Spyware is also simple to download to phones, says Wilson. “[As an experiment] we bought an $80 phone from Woolworths, downloaded a free spyware app off the internet and left it with a journalist for two weeks,” he says. “We could see everywhere he went, his emails, text messages, his Facebook messages. We could hear his conversations and access the camera on the phone.”

“There’s a tracking device and data reader that fits under the steering wheel of a car, which can transmit a car’s location”
For victims of domestic abuse, the knowledge that someone has hacked their phone is often deeply confronting. “Nowadays, our phones are so much [a part of] our entire identity, like everything is there,” said one woman interviewed for the QUT report. “So to have your phone taken out of your hand and then read back to front is … really violating… Then with the stalking, I mean it made me feel really scared, actually just to have this device on you that you don’t know how much, I don’t even know if it was something that can turn on audio or not.”

These days, our phones, containing everything from photos to banking apps, to private messages, emails and music, have become a compendium of our lives. It’s hard to give them up and can feel like another denial of liberty to someone who already feels under siege. “Think about all the apps you have on your phone and how much you rely on them,” says Molly Dragiewicz, Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, and first author of the report. “And then so many of these apps have location information embedded within them.”

How do abusers gain access to their partners’ phones? Often, they are the ones who set up their partner’s internet accounts and phone, says Dragiewicz. “Some of the women we interviewed felt uneasy with that when it was happening at the start of their relationship, but a lot of them took it as a sign of care – one of those things you do for someone in the course of a relationship.” For other couples, it’s normal to know each other’s passwords, and intimate knowledge of family names and relationships means security safeguards are easily bypassed.

“What’s your mother’s maiden name? What was the name of your dog? An intimate partner is going to know the answer to those questions,” says Dragiewicz. “I don’t have a simple answer for how to address this, but I do think the first step is to think about it. Some computer scientists have started doing that, but designers need to be thinking about anticipating threats to domestic violence victims from the start.”

Overseas, there are some promising initiatives to help address these issues. In the New York and Seattle, city authorities are working with university researchers to set up technology clinics, where women can come to learn about cyber security and how to use their smart phones safely. As a result of talking to survivors at the clinics, PhD students at Cornell Tech have developed a spyware scanning tool for phones and an assessment questionnaire and protocol. “Australia doesn’t have a clinic like this yet,” says Dragiewicz, although she hopes that one might be in the pipeline.

Agencies such as WESNET provide training on technological abuse for police, social workers and other family violence workers. However, there are still problems in the way institutions such as the Family Court deal with child custody and communication between parents, says Dragiewicz. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult to fully separate from your abuser, particularly if you have co-parenting obligations.” When court orders orders stipulate contact regarding children should be made via email, for example, a woman can feel vulnerable to continued psychological abuse.

Dragiewicz and Wilson believe more funding is required for training and practical programs to help keep women safe. Abby was one of the fortunate ones, able to afford the services of Protective Group. After her home was assessed and her ex-partner’s access to her devices had been disrupted, she felt much safer and “empowered”.

“Feeling that you’re being watched and stalked causes enormous psychological damage,” says Wilschefski. “Women can feel scared of taking their children to the playground, scared of going outside. They feel reassured when we can help them feel safe.”

ABC NEWS PROTECTIVE GROUP

ABC NEWS PROTECTIVE GROUP

Technology-facilitated abuse is creating ‘terror’ in women, and it’s on the rise in Australia

A seemingly innocent tracking app on *Rose's phone was the secret weapon her abuser used to keep her in a constant state of fear.

"I had an app so he could follow me everywhere I went," she says.

"So he knew every movement I did. I wasn't allowed to leave the home till a certain time, and he made sure I had to be back at a certain time."

The constant monitoring compounded the sexual and physical abuse he inflicted at home.

"I'd get numerous texts every day. And if I didn't answer them within a certain amount of time then I'd get an abusive text, I get phone calls.

"It was constant. What it's done to me… I live with fight or flight every single day."

Even after serving time for his abuse, Rose's ex tracked her down via Instagram.

"My daughter, who first received the first message, came out of her bed screaming… absolutely screaming… shaking."

Rose's ex has threatened to kill her multiple times, and he is now out of jail.

She's found a new sense of self and safety with the help of a good psychologist, a caring partner and a watch that, with the press of a button, connects secretly to a monitoring company if she is in danger.

"It's just given me a sense of power back," she says.

"Because even if he came up and he attacked me again, I can goddamn tell you, I will press that button. And even if he killed me, they're going to know exactly who it is.

"He can't hurt me anymore. Because I'm going to press that damn watch and he's going to go to prison for the rest of his life and be tried.

"It's empowered me again."

Rose shouldn't have to wear a watch to be safe. But her remarkable story of survival shows technology's grim potential for misuse, as well as its promise of hope to victim-survivors of family violence.

Women asking for fire extinguishers for protection
The watch was provided by the company Protective Group as part of a project with Wayss, a support agency in Melbourne's outer suburbs.

Its chief executive Stephen Wilson recently travelled to Queensland, in the wake of a series of violent attacks on women, to see clients.

Just last month, the body of 27-year-old Kelly Wilkinson was found in her backyard with burns. Her former partner has been charged with her murder.

And although he was there to offer IT help, he was being asked for fire extinguishers.

"Every person felt that they were going to be next," he says.

Technology-facilitated abuse is overwhelmingly gendered — 96 per cent of perpetrators are male and 93 per cent of victims are female.

A recent national survey by women's services network WESNET found almost all women experiencing family violence suffered from technology abuse.

It's a term that covers everything from abusive texts and social media posts, to tracking of smartphones, to covert monitoring of a victim's movements.

And it's getting worse.

This is how the 'monster myth' allows domestic violence to unfold

With attempts to rationalise the murder of Hannah Clarke and her children, we risk blaming the monster and not the man, Rowan Baxter, and the society that allowed these murders to unfold.

Since 2015, the survey found a 244.8 per cent increase in frontline workers reporting perpetrators' use of GPS tracking of victim-survivors, and a 183.2 per cent increase in the use of cameras.

The risk for Indigenous women more than doubled in that time.

Children are increasingly being drawn into the abuse.

"Children being given a phone or other device as a way to contact their father and monitor their mother's movements showed an increase of 346.6 per cent from 2015," the report found.

And that has harmed children's mental health in 67 per cent of cases, according to an eSafety Commissioner report.

'Let's disrupt that power'

Stephen Wilson says he wants the focus to be on stopping men's behaviour, rather than on what women do. (ABC News: Michael Barnett)

The Protective Group's Mr Wilson joined the police force at 16 in 1978, and says times have changed since he saw his first domestic violence incident at 17.

"You'd be driving in a divvy van with a sergeant and he'd say, mate, don't bother. We don't want to go that one, someone else will grab that job," he says.

"Because it was all too hard."

But the current level of fear has made an impression on him.

Mr Wilson says his company has helped about 12,000 women and children over a decade.

He says women should not have to modify their behaviour to counter the changing methods of their abusers.

"It should be about him stopping doing it," he says.

"And that's where we sort of step into that really early stage of how we can keep them safe. Let's disrupt that power. Let's take that power away from him and give it back to her."

His company's audits check locks on doors, finds tracing or monitoring devices, and checks phones and computers for stalking tools.

He's found perpetrators who had videoed women while they slept at home.

Women who experience domestic violence are often also suffering technology abuse, experts said. (ABC News)

Mr Shaw says companies selling monitoring devices actively market their wares as means to control women.

"Doing the work I do… I often get targeted on social media by companies trying to sell me hidden cameras and hidden tracking devices," he says.

He says often the devices are pitched at finding out if partners are cheating.

"And I find that absolutely disgusting," he says.

Ultimately, Mr Wilson knows his services, while potentially life-saving, do not address the underlying problem.

"I can't make excuses for my gender," he says.

'We've seen people fit kill switches to cars'
Experts say the problem is getting worse.

But while tens of thousands of frontline family violence workers have been trained in the field, many women struggle to find the expertise they desperately need.

Julie Inman-Grant says there isn't enough technological help for women who need it.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says while the bulk of tech abuse functions are readily available in smartphones, some perpetrators are getting more devious.

Abuse survivors on why they didn't 'just leave'

It's the one question that always gets asked: Hear survivors of domestic violence explain why leaving is not always easy.

"We've seen people fit kill switches to cars, so that a woman can't go beyond the school and back without her car stalling," she says.

"We've seen people program smart TVs to leave menacing messages every time the TV is turned on.

"We've seen people remotely controlling heat or lighting, to either heat out their family or keep them in the dark."

She said there was varying levels of technical expertise among perpetrators, but there weren't enough services using people with technical knowledge to provide assistance.

Protective Group JOY FM

Protective Group JOY FM

The wild world of spyware, phones and family violence

We took a hacked phone for a week – and were shocked at what we found out. It’s part of the bigger trend around using mobile phones to perpetuate family violence and harass people.

Not only is it easy to do, it’s hard to find out if you’re being targeted. We spoke to a IT security analyst, family violence workers, government specialists and lawyers about what’s going on. And how you can fight back if you’re a target.

Protective Group

Protective Group

Victorian domestic violence worker with travel ban exemption barred from Queensland

A Victorian man coming to the aid of domestic violence victims in Queensland has been refused entry at the border, despite holding an pass exempting him from travel restrictions.

Former police officer and domestic violence security expert, Stephen Wilson, left his Docklands home on Monday for a 13-hour drive to Queensland for work.

But when he arrived at the border he was told to go home.

“I got to the border and they stopped me and said I couldn’t go across,” he told Neil Mitchell.

“I found it quite concerning considering I actually had an exempt persons pass.

“I said ‘Look, I actually have a pass here. I’ve been up three times previously. I actually am crossing the border to do family violence services, including a number of police referrals that came from the Queensland Police, who wanted us to go an assist some women and children.”

Mr Wilson said Queensland officials at the border called for legal advice, then told him to leave.

“He produced his iPad and said you come from one of the 31 local government areas in Melbourne, you need to turn around. You cannot cross the border even with your exemption pass,” he said.

While the Victorian government has identified six council areas which are COVID-19 hotspots — Hume, Case, Brimbank, Moreland, Cardinia and Darebin — the Queensland government has its own list, which is much longer.

“It felt to me like the Queensland government had just made up their own 31 hotspots,” Mr Wilson said.

“I had to ring the woman who was just across the border, who was expecting me to get there, to say ‘Look I can’t come now’.

“She was devastated.

“A truck with a container of soft toys can cross the border, but somebody going over with a specific purpose, to help a woman for a family violence incident, I can’t!”

Protective Group Security Camera

Protective Group Security Camera

How the Salvos are using special ops to combat family violence

Former police and military personnel are going into the homes of victims of domestic violence to sweep for spyware and upgrade security, under a taxpayer-funded program run by the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army is expanding the 'Safer in the Home' program, with $3.2 million from the federal government. It aims to help 495 people a year for the next three years.

Under the program, trauma-trained security experts meet with the victims of violence to talk about how the perpetrator operates and conduct a risk assessment and security audit.

The experts from Protective Group, who have backgrounds in the police force, military, security detail for visiting royals and other dignitaries and FBI covert operations training, will sweep the home and car for bugs, hidden cameras and spyware on devices, and implement security upgrades.

Initial government funding of $2.8 million for the program helped 400 victims in total between 2016 and 2019.

National figures show most victims of family violence are women and children. Gayle Correnti, who manages the national program for the Salvation Army, said it was suitable for low-risk situations.

“Historically, a lot of women have had to leave their home because they don't feel safe and they end up in homelessness,” Ms Correnti said. “This allows women who would be safe with safety upgrades to actually stay where they are, for the children’s schooling not be disrupted, and so they’re not living in fear.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Social Services said the Salvation Army funding was part of the government's Keeping Women Safe in their Homes program, which provided $18 million to nine providers over seven years.

Associate Professor Kylie Valentine, from the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW, said safe at home programs had not been evaluated comprehensively but the signs were positive.

“It’s a promising new response to domestic and family violence, in conjunction with crisis and other support but it can’t work as replacement for refuges and emergency responses," Dr Valentine said.

Sydney Women’s March will launch a campaign this week week targeting the NSW Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence Mark Speakman using the slogan #AtWhatCost. The campaign is demanding immediate action to adopt the Safe State recommendations developed by experts in the sector, such as the establishment of an independent statutory body focused on gender-based violence.

KPMG estimates the total cost of violence against women and their children in Australia at $22 billion a year - $6 billion in NSW alone.

Protective Group COVID

Protective Group COVID

Domestic Violence increased during Melbourne lockdown

Domestic Violence increased during Melbourne lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic Melbourne lockdown has “weaponised” domestic violence against women and children and cries for help have “gone through the roof”, family crisis workers say.

Domestic violence support groups say the Victorian government-imposed Melbourne lockdown has left victims isolated in the family home, with their abusers angered by job losses and fuelled by alcohol and drugs.

Support workers say domestic violence is worsening during the stay at home pandemic shutdown. John Gomez

Domestic Violence Victoria special adviser Alison Macdonald said the social isolation and restriction measures had left vulnerable people in a “really, really dangerous situation”.

“We are very concerned women and kids are in social isolation with someone in the home using violence and abuse against them,” she said. “We think this is what we are seeing here in Victoria during the pandemic.”

Domestic violence services remain operational during the shutdown and people who do not feel safe are allowed to leave their home and avoid a police fine.

Gaby Thomson, chief executive of the Doncaster Community Care and Counselling Centre in Melbourne’s east, said the centre had received at least 60 new clients since late March and the counselling waiting list had blown out to 24 people, from a usual six.

We’ve seen a significant impact since COVID and with the stage-four lockdowns it will exacerbate it. Gaby Thomson, Doncaster Counselling Centre CEO

“I just had a meeting with our child protection colleagues and they were confirming their rates are going through the roof with family violence and mental health issues.

“Family violence thrives in isolation and there is a lot of evidence coming through the support agencies how the pandemic is being weaponised, with the pandemic environment being justified to use abusive and controlling behaviour.

“We’ve seen a significant impact since COVID and with the stage-four lockdowns it will exacerbate it.”

Adolescents were finding the lockdown incredibly challenging and sometimes lashing out against their parents and family members.

“We’ve seen an increase in adolescent violence in homes,” Ms Thomson said.

“Young people are generally very social, so levels of frustration are high and their ability to manage anger and hormones is more challenging.

“We’ve just had a significant increase in referrals for children’s counselling.

“We got to a point where it was out of control.”

The centre was able to negotiate a financial grant and has recruited probationary clinical psychologists to cope with the extra demand for help.

It follows reports from mental health and suicide prevention services that demand is surging and doctors raising concerns that the virus lockdown is causing people to miss diagnoses of other health problems and treatment.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday announced an additional $12 million for mental health care, including for Headspace, the Kids Helpline and Beyond Blue. He said there was “stress, anxiety, strain and pressures” on people in Victoria.

Premier Daniel Andrews signalled the state government would also provide more support, on top of recent extra funding for Family Safety Victoria.

Ms Thomson also said the people movement restrictions and lack of internet access for some made it more difficult for women to file intervention orders against estranged partners.

“Having to do things online is more difficult because a lot of women are monitored so that makes it really, really hard to do it themselves,” she said.

Not being able to have face-to-face contact with mentors had “added to stress”.

Online court hearings and delays to cases had also been problematic.

“There is anecdotal evidence that parole boards are favouring parole and earlier bail for low-risk offenders to reduce risk of virus transmission in prisons,” Ms Thomson said.

Stephen Wilson, chief executive of Protective Group, which provides safety and security solutions for family violence, said he had experienced a “huge increase in referrals”.

“When stage four hit the increase in cries for help went through the roof,” he said.

Protective Group

Protective Group

Vengeful spouses turn to hi-tech bugs to terrorise former partners

Vengeful Victorians are spying on their ex-partners using bugs inside children’s teddy bears in the latest example of technology fuelling “domestic terrorism”.
A Melbourne security company fields up to 40 calls a week from people worried they are being spied on, usually by their former spouses.

The extent to which abusers have become more cunning has shocked the former organised crime and homicide detectives who run the firm Protective Group.

They have found tracking devices in cars and listening devices in beds — even in children’s teddy bears.

Tiny cameras have been found in homes, spyware on phones and drones hovering above skylights to film occupants below.

“It’s an epidemic,” Protective Group chief Stephen Wilson told the Herald Sun.

“It’s domestic terrorism, really — terrorism in your own home.”

Victims told him it was more terrifying than being threatened by a stranger.

Mr Wilson, who has worked undercover investigating Australia’s toughest gangs, said the wave of technology-inspired torment troubled him.

“It’s frightening. When I was in the police and someone threatened to kill me, that would scare me,” he said. “But if you are an abused women fearful of her partner and he threatens you and knows your every move …”

One example was a woman whose ex-partner watched her sleeping via a camera in the roof then taunted her.

Another was a man who traumatised his former partner by remotely controlling security and even the heating at her home, using an app on his phone.

A mum of five feared her partner was about to get out of jail and was shattered to find a sophisticated tracker hidden in her glove box.

It had been recording her every move while her former partner was in custody.

“It’s becoming more prevalent and will get worse as the devices become smaller and more advanced, but we are landed with it (technology) now,” a Victoria Police spokesman said.

“We have seen a significant increase in family violence technology offences involving harassment over the past five years, largely perpetrated by men against women.

“Perpetrators are using social media, apps and devices to track, locate and control victims, perpetrate image-based abuse, or to contact or harass victims, particularly after a relationship separation, and often after an intervention order is in place.”

Breaches of family violence and personal safety intervention orders continue to increase, with 47,465 offences in Victoria in the year to March 2019.

“The full extent remains unknown as it is often linked to other offences, or victims may not recognise the uses of technology as abusive behaviour and do not report it to police or services,” the police spokesman said.

“However, technology is used by perpetrators as a tool to commit family violence.

“We encourage anyone experiencing this behaviour or who feels unsafe to contact police.”

Protective Group 730 Report

Protective Group 730 Report

Crackdown on drone use

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Australians have always been enthusiastic adopters of new technology from colour TVs to iPhones.

Hundreds of thousands of us now use drones. They let you take incredible photos and videos, you would have seen some in that story but their widespread use has raced ahead of safety and privacy regulations and now there’s a crackdown.

Angelique Donnellan reports.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN, REPORTER: Drones have revolutionised the way we see the world – from stunning aerial photography to surveying and search and rescue.

DOC BALDWIN, COMMERCIAL OPERATOR: There’s that much beauty out there that we can’t see from the ground. Why not have a look at it from the air?

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: Over the past decade numbers in Australia have grown exponentially.

PETER GIBSON, CASA: The figures show us that there’s up to a million drones out there, possibly even slightly more.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: There are strict safety laws governing their use.

You can’t fly over people, near airports or at night but those rules aren’t always followed.

STEVE WILSON, PROTECTIVE GROUP: I think technology is designed for good and, but I think in the hands of the wrong person it can be used for evil obviously.

PETER GIBSON: There was a famous one at a hardware store where someone flew a drone to get a sausage sizzle. The risk there was that people in the car park could have been hit by the drone.

So we issued a penalty in that case. That cost that person almost $1,000.

Do the wrong thing with your drone and you’ll get a big hole in your pock.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is cracking down on unsafe behaviour.

This equipment can detect drones being flown where they shouldn’t be.

CASA OPERATOR: So the system is listening for any drones in our area of surveillance.

PETER GIBSON: We do see people flying too close to other people, flying over, around crowds or groups of people and very commonly flying too close to airports.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: In June a Port Kembla man was fined almost $8,000 for flying too close to his neighbours.

They recorded the incident.

PETER GIBSON: We issued 63 infringement notices last year. We’ve issued 43 so far this year and a number of others in train.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: But unless people are caught in the act or post their exploits online, it can be impossible to identify who owns the drone.

Starting next year, CASA is introducing compulsory registration of all drones over 250 grams.

PETER GIBSON: We’ll be commencing that with people flying commercial drones, large commercial drones.

Then moving on to the smaller commercial drones.

When we’ve got that bedded down we’ll then move on to recreational drones. That’s, at this point, looking like being more like 2022.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: While CASA struggles with the logistics of such a huge undertaking, it’s also facing a backlash from commercial drone pilots.

DOC BALDWIN: Unjustified, unneeded and totally unfair. It’s like an extra tax.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: Doc Baldwin owns a $6,000 drone and has spent thousands on training for his aerial photography business.

He argues the 17,000 commercial drone operators are not the problem.

DOC BALDWIN: That means the safe pilots, the pilots that have done their courses, done their training, spent thousands of dollars getting to where they’re at, have to spend more money again.

Already registered, already licensed, already have all their details with CASA, registrations and serial numbers, the works. Now we’ve got to do it again.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: While CASA hasn’t settled on the registration fee, there’s widespread speculation commercial users will cop a $160 annual charge per drone, while hobby users will pay much less.

PETER GIBSON: Obviously we’ve got to make it accessible for everybody who is flying a drone for fun.

If we make it too difficult or too daunting people simply will avoid it.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: Registration will make it easier to enforce the rules but CASA can’t stop people spying with a drone if there’s no safety risk.

PETER GIBSON: Look, there are no specific privacy rules for drones.

The simple fact is drones, the technology was never thought of when the privacy laws were written.

So you don’t own the air space above your property, so you can’t stop aircraft, or drones for that matter, flying over it.

STEVE WILSON: This drone was found at a lady’s property, being used by her former partner to be able to stalk her. He was actually taking photos through this drone while she was in her bedroom.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: Steve Wilson knows the challenges of getting a successful prosecution for an invasion of privacy.

He’s a former police detective who now runs a security firm helping domestic violence victims better protect themselves.

STEVE WILSON: I probably expected it was going to be only a matter of time before someone would use a drone in such a pervasive way, yes.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: Privacy laws vary from state to state.

Queensland is currently looking at how its laws can be tightened to stop drone misuse.

STEVE WILSON: The Federal Government needs to take a leadership role. Having legislation across the country that differs from state to state is absurd.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: In Canberra, concerns about privacy have led to a backlash against a CASA-approved drone delivery service run by Wing, a company owned by Google’s parent, Alphabet.

NEV SHEATHER: People are very upset about the intrusiveness and invasion of a drone flying over the top of our heads especially when they have got cameras.

JAMES RYAN BURGESS, WING CEO: Our camera is pointed straight down, you can’t emit it around, it’s low resolution, in black and white and it is just used for navigation.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: Residents are also complaining about the noise.

NEV SHEATHER: The noise of a drone has been compared to an F1 racer or an out of control whipper snipper.

The negatives definitely outweigh the positives.

ANGELIQUE DONNELLAN: But it seems we’ll all have to get used to more unmanned aircraft in Australian skies.

Uber is planning to trial an air taxi in Melbourne from next year and Wing is expanding its deliveries to Queensland using quieter drones.

PETER GIBSON: Like any technology there is going to be challenges along the way.

JAMES RYAN BURGESS: We think that this is a really high potential technology, especially as our cities grow and become more congested.

Drones can help alleviate some of that congestion on the ground while providing a great service.

Produced by ABC News (Australia). Aired Oct 2, 2019 on 7.30.

Protective Group Salvation Army

Protective Group Salvation Army

What we do to help – The Salvation Army

Safer in the Home program manager Mariese Davey says the program ‘is for women who have experienced Family and Domestic Violence, which is such a broad range of people and circumstances. The money goes to projects that enable them to stay in their homes and feel safer. We are probably in contact with up to 10 women each day.’
Crossways general manager Robyn Roberts, Protective Group representative Stephen Wilson, and Safer in the Home program manager Mariese Davey.
‘I have been in an “on again, off again” relationship for approximately six years; in the last three months my life has unfortunately spiralled out of control…there was incredible help from strangers and kindness shown to myself… I have never had to have charity before in my life. I have always thought of myself as a hard working single mother, but I want to thank Crossroads Salvation Army from the bottom of my heart.’ – Denise (not her real name)

Safer in the Home program manager Mariese Davey says the Safer in the Home program ‘is for women who have experienced Family and Domestic Violence, which really encompasses such a broad range of people and circumstances’.

The program is designed to provide basic safety upgrades and security measures to support women and accompanying children who are experiencing FDV, thus enabling them to remain safely in their homes.

‘We are probably in contact with up to 10 women each day, requesting our assistance,’ says Mariese.

‘The assistance rendered starts with comprehensive onsite assessments of the women’s home security and personal safety. Security upgrades are then recommended, which could include new gates/locks, window locks, security doors, sensor lights, lopping tree branches or felling trees for visibility, strengthening and locking manholes or exterior access chutes, mailbox locks, locks to power and gas meters/fuseboxes, etc.

‘There are also high tech responses, debugging phones and removing tracking surveillance software to phones and computers/laptops/ipads, and scanning for cameras and listening devices.

‘The client feedback tells us they are being heard, and their concerns, about their safety and the safety of their children, are being understood. They feel so much better.’

Simply put, the Safer in the Home program restores peace of mind and gives a level of safety that would otherwise be missing to hundreds of women and children.

Robyn Roberts, the general manager of the Salvos’ Crossroads network that delivers the Safer in the Home program, tells e-connect that ‘while some state jurisdictions have slightly different definitions about “low risk”, the Safer in the Home program considers referrals to the program on a case by case basis. We always try to find a way to provide assistance through the program, rather than put up barriers for access.

‘The simplicity of the model we use to deliver safer in the Home works, and we can say confidently that, for the vast majority of women, the program has prevented further harassment and stalking by perpetrators of FDV.’

‘This is a national Salvation Army program,’ Robyn explains, ‘and we are achieving our goals; actually, we are above the targets we have set in terms of how many people we hoped to help in our first year. The Safer in the Home program is available in all states and territories, and we’ve just had our first referral from Julia Creek, outside of Cloncurry, in regional Queensland.’

Robyn adds that ‘we could see the ingredients for success were there from the beginning; we measure success in terms of people being able to stay in their own homes, their own communities and neighbourhoods. This is a unique program, where our service delivery partners, Protective Group, bring to bear risk and security expertise, together with The Salvation Army’s expertise in assisting people experiencing FDV.

‘We deliver a quality service in a timely manner, and we are getting a great deal of unsolicited, positive feedback from women, telling us what a difference this is making in the lives of those who receive it.’

Safer in the Home fills a service gap, targeting women and children considered to be at the lower end of the family violence risk scale [as] a crisis prevention program that is making a real difference. It is a three year program funded through the Australian Government’s Women’s Safety Package to Stop Family Violence.

This article was written by The Salvation Army and originally published on 4 August 2017.

Protective Group The Monthly

Protective Group The Monthly

The security business partnering with domestic violence services to help women and children escape abuse.
Steve Schultze looks exactly like the kind of cop you’d see jumping a fence with his gun drawn. A former homicide detective with Victoria Police, he is a picture of machismo – heavyset and brawny – and rides a big black motorcycle. I’m on the street when he pops his head out the front door to say hello; the place is decked out with security cameras, and he saw me approaching on the security screens before I even arrived.

This security is essential: inside, Schultze and his team host women and children who are escaping domestic abuse, many of whom are being tracked by their perpetrators. “We’ve got a locked car park out the back with a massive gate, cameras all around, alarms and a safe space everyone can go to downstairs if we have to call the cops,” says Schultze as we walk up the stairs. In the immaculate front room of his offices there’s a metal shelf holding toys and teddy bears. “Mums come here with their kids, and usually they’re little kids,” Steve explains. He does a double take on the shelf. “We used to have trucks and everything! Usually we give away toys, because they’ll get attached to something. We just give stuff away.”

On the other side of the room is a sparse glass cabinet displaying toys of another kind. These are the tracking devices Schultze and his team have found in women’s cars. “That’s a USB tracker,” he says, pointing to a device that looks like a car cigarette lighter. Below it is a chunkier piece of metal that looks like a battery. “This one was under the bonnet. We ran our scanning equipment over the car and it lit up like a Christmas tree.” On the bottom shelf is something that looks a bit like a toy helicopter. “This drone has a camera in it. It lost battery and crashed into the woman’s house.” It’s no longer unusual for perpetrators to track and remotely surveil their victims. At one refuge that Schultze’s team partners with, close to 85 per cent of the women have shown up with concealed tracking devices, mostly hidden on their phones or in their cars.

Schultze is one half of Protective Group, a private security business he founded with Stephen Wilson. They both have policing backgrounds: Schultze was in homicide, criminal investigation and armed robbery; Wilson was an undercover operative embedded in organised crime gangs. “We’ve come from that serious crime experience, where things were done a lot differently.”

Their outlook completely changed a few years ago, after training with the Family Justice Center Alliance, an innovative group that’s driving down domestic homicide statistics in the United States. There, Schultze and Wilson received a deep education in how women and children experience domestic violence, how to assess the perpetrator for future risk and, most critically, how to approach each case with a trauma-informed response. That meant counteracting instincts they say they developed as police: the ones that told them to look for injuries as proof of violence, to be suspicious of people who can’t get their stories straight and to think twice about believing – or helping – a victim who won’t leave their abuser. Trauma, they learnt, makes victims look and act “suspicious”: it fragments their memory, impairs rational thought, triggers shame and self-blame, and can lead to dissociation. “It’s the sort of knowledge I wish I had when I was a homicide detective,” Schultze says. This training saw their focus turn away from enforcement and towards protection. “We were a security company before, but we don’t see ourselves as that now. Our core business is protecting people.”

Now, Protective Group partners with family violence services, police and the victims themselves to make the women feel as safe as possible – whether they’re willing to leave the relationship or not. “They need to know that you believe them, because they may never have been believed before. Then it’s about safety planning. They might mistrust police, so who do they trust? Who is their go-to person?” While Schultze and his colleagues don’t pressure women to leave – “even when it’s as obvious as a bleeding elephant in the snow” – they do speak candidly to them about what it means to stay. “We ask the mums: ‘Are you being a protective mother if you’re staying in that relationship?’ As hard as that is to say sometimes. They might say, ‘Well, he’s the drunk, or he does this.’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, he does – it’s his fault, not yours. But what can we do to help you? At the end of the day, we have to protect your kids, and you need to be part of that. Because the kids are in danger, too.’”

Usually, however, Schultze and his colleagues meet women and children at the critically dangerous point of leaving, at a time when they can “wrap a safety net” around the woman. First, they compile a detailed case history, drawn from family violence services, police, courts, hospitals – as much as they can gather, so the woman won’t have to retell the basic details of her trauma. Then they set out to learn everything they can about the perpetrator. “We need to know about him. What was his childhood like? What’s his relationship with his family like now? What’s his friendship group like? Does he play team sport? This all goes to assessing how dangerous they are.” This information is crucial, says Schultze, because when a perpetrator has few friends or interests, they’re more likely to be “100 per cent focused on causing absolute misery to their former wife”.

The next step is to assess what the woman needs to feel safe. “Women will say to us, ‘I want an electric fence, roller shutters,’ and so on. And it’s like, ‘Okay, but has he breached at the house before?’ And they might say, ‘No, he gets me when I go to footy with the kids on the Saturday.’ So we might be able to recommend a wearable device with cameras and audio that will have a proactive effect [in deterring him].” These resources come free of charge through the family violence services with which Protective Group partners around the country.

One wearable device is a watch that Schultze and his team created, called the Tek Safe Wearable Duress Alarm. It looks like a smartwatch, but it acts like a virtual security guard. To activate it, users tap it twice – a movement that can be imperceptible to perpetrators – and it turns into both a GPS and recording device, with its audio transmitted live to a monitoring station in Queensland. Schultze says it has a huge advantage over a phone alarm. “Perps will often grab a phone: ‘Who you ringing – you ringing the cops?’ So she can discreetly activate the watch and say ‘Here, take my phone, I’m not calling the cops. Please, you know you shouldn’t be here, you’re scaring me, the children are scared.’ And as she’s buying time, this is all being recorded. Plus, her hands are free, so she can pick up little ones.” When the station receives an activation alert, the client’s notes come up: how many children there are, whether there’s an intervention order, the perpetrator’s name, and so on. “She might have a code phrase … They know straight away he’s breaching, so they can call the police.”

Schultze knows the device is saving women’s lives. In one case, a perpetrator was hiding inside his ex-partner’s house, waiting for her to return from the shops. It had been a few weeks since he’d made contact, so she wasn’t wearing the watch – it was in the bedroom, under her pillow. “So he’s waiting for her when she gets home,” says Schultze. “He’s smashed her head on a concrete floor, raped her, threatened to kill her, and over a number of hours held her against her will in this little flat.” When he took a break to go to the bathroom, she scrambled to the bedroom, grabbed the watch, activated it, and then showed it to him saying, “Look – the cops are on the way.” As he was running out of the place, the police arrived and captured him.

But, as Schultze explains, the watch isn’t just for emergencies. “[It] can act as a chaperone. You can activate it, and say, ‘I’m okay at the moment, but I’m seeing a suspicious car; it could be the perpetrator, can you stay with me?” The watch itself costs $600, and the monitoring costs $40 per month.

Schultze says he’s “really confronted” by the extreme level of violence women disclose. “I thought I’d seen it all, or heard it all. I used to get paid to go and look at dead bodies. I’m like, how has this been allowed to happen?” He has no time for the men’s rights activists who claim they experience the same kind of domestic violence as women. “These clowns who say one in three men are victims of family violence are kidding themselves. They are absolutely kidding themselves. It’s different to what these women are subjected to.”

Although he’s a former cop, Schultze says he’s often frustrated by the police. “I’m advocating for someone rurally at the moment. We put cameras up, and there’s evidence of the perpetrator in unregistered cars – breaching, stalking – on camera. The young woman’s family is saying, ‘All the police do is take statements and get copies of the CCTV.’ They’re ringing me saying, ‘Why aren’t they arresting him?’ And I’m asking the same question of the police: ‘Why aren’t you arresting him?’ ‘Oh, because he isn’t within 200 metres in a public place,’ or some other bullshit excuse. Because I can’t be bothered? Because I don’t want to upset anyone?”

In 2015, Schultze vented his frustration to Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence, where he testified about the women who were “falling through the cracks”. “Women and children’s violent experiences are not being validated,” he wrote to the commission, “[they are] being left unseen, unheard and unprotected because of system failures, and in some cases, the failure to conduct proper criminal investigation of family violence matters.” This baffles Schultze, because commonly these matters involve serious crimes such as attempted murder, rape and unlawful imprisonment. “For a young detective confronted with an assault or a rape, I cannot understand why the approach would be different depending on whether or not it occurred domestically or it happened on the street.”

He’s concerned that, too often, police aren’t interested in helping women who don’t look like “ideal victims”. “Are they both a victim and a perpetrator? Is she self-medicating? The answer might be yes and yes, but does it excuse the fact that she’s just been bashed and raped, and she’s been exposed to that for years? Does it? Never, never, never.

“And a lot of people think, ‘Well, hey, it’s her choice. Why didn’t she leave?’” Schultze narrows his eyes. “Do you hate hearing that? I hate hearing that.”

This article was written by Jess Hill for The Monthly and originally published in September 2019. Jess Hill is an investigative reporter and the author of See What You Made Me Do.

Protective Group

Protective Group

It’s Time We Took Domestic Violence As Seriously As Terrorism, Says Former Cop

“I’m afraid for my daughters”
A former cop is calling for domestic violence offenders to be taken as seriously as terrorists.

One of Australia’s only family violence security specialists, Protective Group founder Stephen Wilson, a former Melbourne police officer, says Australian police need to take a more proactive approach to domestic violence – the same way they approach terrorism suspects.

“What I’d like to see is more of a proactive approach. I think it’s one thing to have the education and the policy changes… I think it’s certainly another thin to look at the gender side of things. But at the end of the day, about we just think of another tactic that we can do to stop it?”

Currently, on average, one woman a week is killed by her partner in Australia – but he says police need to change tact.

“I understand the fight against terrorism, I’m saying why can’t we adopt the same law enforcement principals.

“Let’s just try and think outside the square.”

The former police officer suggests listening devices, surveillance and big data scraping.

“I have two daughters, they are 17 and 18. I’m just afraid for them down the track as to is it going to happen to them one day? I’m probably more concerned about them being a victim of family violence than a terror attack.

“Let’s look at this problem in the same light, and let’s tackle it.”

Stephen Wilson and Steven Schultze Protective Group

Stephen Wilson and Steven Schultze Protective Group

Domestic violence: Former police officers teach family violence survivors new tricks

These two self-described “crusty old ex-coppers” know a fair bit about managing risk and family violence.

They have scoured the houses and cars of frightened women for GPS trackers or hidden cameras, placed there secretly by abusive partners bent on following their every move.

Domestic violence - Former police officers teach family violence survivors new tricks
They have beefed up security so that victims feel safe to live in their own homes.

New locks, security cameras and even secure internal rooms to offer a place of last resort.

And Stephen Wilson and Steven Schultze have accompanied family violence victims to court appearances all over the state, helping them through the bewildering process of applying for an intervention order.

The pair run Protective Services, Australia’s only risk-management and security company that specialises in helping family violence victims.

They get referrals from the Salvation Army Crossroads family violence service and the Safe Futures Foundation, a family violence organisation that specialises in high-risk clients.

About 80 per cent of the work that Wilson and Schultze do for the Salvation Army is pro bono.

They also get private approaches from people – almost exclusively women – who have been harassed by former partners.

Both men were police officers at Victoria Police and, between them, have experience in the vice squad, undercover work, criminal investigation and homicide.

For Schultze, some of the family violence homicide cases he worked on in the police have stayed with him.

“I’ve got four particular homicides that stick in my head, all killed by either their intimate partner, an ex or a parent. I can still picture their faces to this day,” Schultze says.

“Their experience with males has been terrible, and it might have been exacerbated by health professionals, by police.”
Gaining his client’s trust is the first step, he says, and he always works alongside a Salvation Army worker.

“Their (clients’)experience with males has been terrible and it might have been exacerbated by health professionals, by police.”

Men’s attitudes towards violence need to change, the pair say, but until they do their service has been successful in significantly reducing the number of intervention order breaches for their 200 clients.

On Thursday Schultze appeared before the Royal Commission into Family Violence as it looked at how the family violence sector assesses risk.

Like the rest of society, abusive men are increasingly using new and online technologies. Harassing or stalking victims via apps or social media has become tragically common, the commission was told.

Schultze told the hearing that technology could also help victims.

New “safety cards” – a personal safety alarm with GPS that alerts police instantly – and wearable safety watches, mean victims feel safer to go about their normal lives with 24-hour backup.

Schultze gives his clients training in how perpetrators use emotional manipulation and refers them for psychological or other support if they need it.

This article was written by Miki Perkins for The Age and original published on 25 July 2015.

Stephen Wilson, of Protective Group speaks to Ross and John about family violence watch list

Stephen Wilson, of Protective Group speaks to Ross and John about family violence watch list

Stephen Wilson, of Protective Group speaks to Ross and John about family violence watch list

“Dangerous family violence perpetrators should be put on a high risk watch risk so that they can be monitored to reduce the risk to victims… I told you didn’t I? Two weeks ago I was talking to a local policeman, you know, the village cop, and I said ‘How’s stuff going?’ and he said ‘Mate, domestic violence, it’s just relentless’…”

This audio was produced by 3AW Breakfast with Ross and John and originally published on 10 August 2018.

Ex-Cops Protect Abused Women

Ex-Cops Protect Abused Women

Ex-Cops Protect Abused Women

Bolstered with experience from years of working in the force, hospitality and security industries, Geelong father-of-two Stephen Wilson and business partner Steven Schultze are helping build a sense of safety for some of the state’s most abused and vulnerable people.

They delve into the confronting world of cyber abuse, install CCTV outside the homes of women with violent ex-partners, remove tracking devices and reassure victims that some men still do care.

The pair run Protective Group, a private company specialising in risk management, security, investigations and certificate courses, which has helped more than 200 family violence clients in the past 12 months alone – most for free.

“Most recently we’ve been working closely with the Salvation Army’s Safe Futures program, where if someone comes to us as a high-risk victim, we conduct a risk assessment, set up professional meetings,” Mr Wilson said.

“Right now, I get a call from Karen from the Salvation Army saying “I have a woman who is very scared, her husband is bashing her door down, I need your help”.

We’ll get there, we’ll get her away, get her to the crisis centre, organise a watch for her, organise an IVO (intervention order), against him and liaise with the police.

“We don’t have to submit a report, we just go out and do it.”

A self-titled “crusty old cop”, Mr Wilson previously spent 15 years with Victoria Police, working with the National Crime Authority and drug squads on cases including large-scale race-fixing and drug importations. He then ran the Royal Hotel in Queenscliff, before venturing into operating a security business.

It was there, he says, that he became aware of the desperate need for help among domestic violence victims “Until you change a male’s way of thinking, you’ve got to look at other options, and if that option is making people safer in their own homes – giving the woman a sense of empowerment back – she’s got control of her life,” Mr Wilson said.

The Geelong Advertiser reported in June that local women’s refuge Minerva Community Services was getting 160 referrals from police each month, with reports of domestic violence in the Greater Geelong region doubling over the past four years.

It is revelations like these that moved Mr Schultze – a former criminal intelligence, homicide and cover operations cop – to present his personal findings at the royal commission into domestic violence in July.

He slammed hold-ups in investigating cases and called for an increased working relationship between private companies, police and state government agencies.

He told the hearing that the most frustrating part of his job was learning that the cases of many terrorised women had “fallen through the cracks” with Victoria Police.

“The police cannot be expected to respond to the 67,000 response call-outs that they receive,” Mr Schultze said.

“However, the reality is that women and children’s violent experiences are not being validated, being left unseen, unheard and unprotected because of system failures, and in some cases, the failure to conduct proper criminal investigation of family violence matters,” he told the royal commission.

“We are determined to wrap a safety net around family violence victims and their families, and understand that while many societal changes are needed to put an end to this insidious issue, in the interim we must protect those that suffer at the hands of present and former intimate partners.”

Since the pair began working with the Salvation Army about three years ago, they’ve been moved to start tapping into technology as a way to break the cycle and address the rise in calls for help.

They have developed a device they have dubbed the “Safety Watch” – designed to empower women and allow them to stay in their own homes knowing Mr Wilson and Mr Schultze are only a press of a button away. They are now pushing to have the new age device included as a government-funded safety rollout.

“When the iWatch came out we realise we could make a similar looking device that could go undetected yet be monitored 24-7,” Mr Wilson said.

“If a family violence victim gets this and feels any angst or had a problem, they can press the red button on the top which goes to a monitoring centre which can hear what’s going on. The device records to catch out any breaches and it can also dispatch police, ambulance or contact a friend to say ‘I think he’s here’.”

“We’re now looking at developing a perpetrator anklet that would sync with the watch, so if she’s home in Geelong West and bugalugs goes within 500m of her house, it beeps. Within 100m and it tells her to go inside and lock the door.”

They say that since the Safety Watch was rolled out they’ve seen intervention order breaches drop significantly, with only three reported since 2014.

Salvation Army Crossroads program manager Karen Hagen said the pair’s support for her program was priceless.

Ms Hagen said with domestic violence being the leading cause of homelessness and homicide, urgency was the key. “We need to have the highest level of intervention. Every day we’re meeting high-risk and extremely fearful women, and because of the Protective Group we’re able to work with more women, speed the process up a lot and gain priceless knowledge from them” she said.

“Yesterday our case manager was paged to review a high-risk house and they found a number of things which we could do. Without this support we would’ve had to wait until the police weren’t busy with an emergency call before we could even attend-and they don’t charge us at all.”

“These guys go above and beyond.”

Geelong Advertiser Erin Pearson Saturday August 22 2015

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