Laura Turner
28 Jan 2023
This article was written by Laura Turner and published by the Sunraysia Daily.
IN a tiny room a teenage boy sits behind an empty desk on a government issue chair.
The space is sterile and the walls are bare, despite the stories they’d have to tell.
He and his family have been through hell and back running from a violent family member, and now they find themselves squeezed into a little private room at the local Magistrates Court in a bid for legal protection.
Anxious, the young man bites his nails as the clock ticks, and ticks.
At first glance Conor Pall could be mistaken for someone out of a fashion magazine - his woollen Italian suit is dapper. It is dark grey with black pinstripes, and fits him beautifully. It is the first suit he has ever owned and he’d bought it while he was an exchange student in Italy.
He’d planned to wear it to his host sister’s engagement party, but when COVID wrenched him home early - he had to face what had happened long before.
Instead of donning his pinstriped pride and joy to attend a European celebration of love, its first foray into the world was at the Mildura court house, where Conor confronted an act of pure betrayal.
He and his mum had to wait their turn to be heard, and it was agonising. The only real landmark in time was when Conor had to open his laptop and attend an online class at Mildura Senior College.
That’s the thing about victims of domestic violence - they still have to put one foot in front of the other on the treadmill of life - despite the fact their own life is privately imploding.
When it was their turn to face the magistrate, Conor and his mother filed into the courtroom.
They chose seats on the right hand side of the room, Conor strategically placing himself next to his mother so he would block any view the perpetrator had of her.
Conor’s right leg shook with nerves and his black Doc Martin shoe slid on and off his foot - he’d bought them online and they are a size too big.
When their case was called Conor and his mother approached the bench. The perpetrator did too.
The magistrate looked at Conor and asked, “How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” he replied.
“This courtroom is not a place where kids need to see this,” the Magistrate said, and requested Conor be removed.
Tears welled in Conor’s eyes, and he caught a glimpse of the perpetrator who looked right back at him and smirked. That fleeting decision to send the teenager out of his own hearing symbolised more than court procedure.
To the victim, the perpetrator just took power away again. Conor stood outside the courtroom door and sobbed.
Conor and his mother managed to secure an interim intervention order that day.
It was one of fourteen interim orders the court would issue before a final order was granted. But, included in the fine print of that order was the final insult.
The magistrate had written in a clause that meant Conor would lose the protection of the order when he turned 18 years old. That was just a few months away.
He would have to go through the entire grueling process of applying for an order and then fighting for it all over again.
So, on his eighteenth birthday, instead of celebrating with his mates, Conor spent hours with a barrister learning how to survive the brutal sport of cross examination in the witness box. Thankfully, at the eleventh hour the perpetrator relented (without admitting guilt) which meant a contested hearing could be avoided and a final order was granted.
Conor had won the protection of an intervention order for two years. It was justice, of some sort.
This young Mildura man couldn’t rest though, he couldn't erase the memory of court rooms full of people trying to obtain intervention orders against violent offenders, and he couldn’t forget what his family had been through.
So the eighteen year old wrote letter after letter to every politician and policy maker he could think of.
He made so much noise he heard back from the Prime Minister’s office and met with ministers at both state and federal levels.
He’s also on the Victim Survivors Advisory Council.
Perhaps more significantly, Conor also received a letter from the CEO of the Magistrates Court of Victoria. The letter was in effect an apology for his experience, and a promise that future training of judicial officers will include the fact that children do not need to be removed from intervention orders once they turn eighteen.
Anyone familiar with Victoria’s unforgiving justice system will know this is a monumental achievement.
Conor has since moved to Melbourne to advocate for domestic violence survivors and pursue a career in social work.
And, while he’s since been able to purchase two more beautiful woollen suits, he tells me that pinstriped number still hangs pride of place at his mum’s in Mildura.
Right there in her wardrobe is the silhouette of a boy who became a man on court time, but it was he who taught the legal system to grow up.