PART I Chapter One: Introduction Chapter Two: Theory, Method and Overview of Data Chapter Three: The Social Framework - Red Flags & the Theme of Control Chapter Four: Sub Lethal Assaults - The Missing Focus on Victim Safety Chapter Five: Domestic

Thesis (PhD.--Law)--University of Canterbury, 2006. This thesis examines legal responses in New Zealand to violence in intimate heterosexual relationships. The research explored patterns of intimate partner (heterosexual) violence and the effectiveness of criminal justice interventions in keeping victims safe. The study reviewed community and government agency interactions with offenders and victims prior to women's deaths in selected cases. The author assessed how criminal law views violence in intimate relationships in relation to any recognition and understanding of primary risk factors for dangerousness or lethality. The research found major risk factors remain invisible in criminal law stereotypes of violence between intimate partners. The significance of these risk factors for dangerousness or lethality is therefore overlooked, misunderstood and even misrepresented in defence of violent offenders. The study also found a significant number of women (and sometimes other family members and children) experience more near lethal and lethal violence following legal interventions with perpetrators, despite the Domestic Violence Act 1995 with its aim of ensuring effective protection for victims. The author concludes that legal responses to intimate partner violence in New Zealand lack a principled policy foundation, and do not have a central focus on victim safety or clear framework for interventions; therefore legal responses are internally incoherent and inconsistent with the New Zealand Family Violence Prevention Strategy. The New Zealand government has committed to principled domestic violence intervention and consistency in law and policy. The author considers this will require: legislative reform; public and professional education on the dynamics of violent relationships, including the interrelationship between near lethal and lethal assaults; and monitoring of criminal justice interventions to improve accountability.

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