The system failed Evelina.

Shock murder case shows assholes dont pay attention to AVOs

Wow. I'm totally and utterly surprised at this. Not only that a violent man didnt pay attention to an AVO, but that her frantic plight wasnt taken seriously enough by police!

Sorry, my bitterness is showing. I was stalked quite extensively for a while, but fortunately my story didnt end with a couple of bullets in the skull. Over and over, we're given the impression that stalking is a lesser crime, that "unless you have bruises, we've got other cases to worry about" (and that's a direct quote from a police officer. Fuck you, buddy), that you should just ignore it and the problem will go away. The problem doesnt go away, though. It follows you every time you set foot outside your house. It stands outside your window at night, hiding when the cops turn up. It calls you so much at work you have to get your extension changed. It makes you change every tiny thing in your daily routine to try and avoid it (Sound easy? Think of what you do every day. The bus you catch, the time you take lunch, the shop you buy cigarettes from, the thai restaurant you love. Now change it. All of it. Every day). It tells you that you're property, that you're their property, and you have no right to existence outside of them.

And that's what the essence of this issue is: the belief that this woman is yours, that you have sovreignity over them, that they have no right to an existence without you. That they are your property, something you own, something you control. They are no longer a person; they're a posession.

this quote from Snr Constable Andrew Barnes really got to me
"I - nor anyone else - will never know if this incident could have been averted through more intervention by the police and the courts."

Aint that the kicker? The depressing thing is, unless they'd locked him up, it probably wouldnt change anything. Because an AVO really doesnt count for much if theyre determined to do you harm. Because cops are so reluctant to enforce the terms of an AVO unless you're getting the everloving shit kicked out of you on a daily basis. And because there's still this persistent belief amongst some men that women are commodities to be owned and destroyed at will.

Stalking needs to be viewed as a huge warning sign that something in the perp's attitude towards their victim is fundamentally wrong and dangerous, rather than the nuisance crime it tends to be seen as.