Researcher and senior lawyer to the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council, Paul McGorrery, said there is growing concern that family violence perpetrators are not being held accountable for the mental trauma inflicted on their victims.
To try and combat this, Mr McGorrery said he is investigating ways to improve understanding about prosecuting the offence, noting that while causing someone psychological harm is already a crime in every Australian state, not a single person has ever been prosecuted for it.
Commenting on what sparked his decision to investigate this matter, Mr McGorrery said his career has shown him that the issue of psychological harm in the criminal law needs to be highlighted more prominently.
“I started in workers’ compensation law, where 33 per cent of all money paid to injured employees was for psychological injuries caused by their workplace, but then I found myself in criminal law, where psychological injuries caused by someone else were almost an afterthought,” he said.
