Chapter 5: Eliminating Femicide: The Role of Expert Domestic and Family Violence Evidence in the Coronial Investigation Process

The coronial inquest process is future-oriented and provides an important opportunity to explore and better understand why deaths, and specifically femicides, occur and how knowledge, processes and responses may be improved to avoid similar deaths in future. The inquest process gathers up statements and information from an extensive range of lay witnesses, professionals, intervenors and supporters, including family and friends, police, medical and other support services that interacted with the victim before their death. Relatedly, the coroner’s powers also provide a wide ambit to call on expert evidence. Therefore, the inquest is an important opportunity enabling experts to analyze the full suite of statements and information available to the coroner through a particular lens. In the context of femicide, some coroners are calling on domestic and family violence (DFV) experts to provide evidence to better understand how DFV contributes to femicide and why responses failed. This chapter draws on published coronial inquest reports about Australian femicides committed, or contributed to, by an intimate partner and the experience of the author as an expert witness in a recent femicide inquest. It considers the role of DFV expert evidence, and the implications of it for coronial findings and recommendations toward improved understanding of femicide and prevention of future deaths.