The Silent Toll of Intervention

Psychological Impact, System Risk, and the Missing Safeguards for FVO Respondents in the ACT

Family Violence Orders (FVOs), also known variously as Apprehended Violence Orders (AVOs) or Domestic Violence Orders (DVOs) are designed as protective instruments. In most jurisdictions around the world, they are civil orders, requiring little to no evidence.

Most people think an AVO/FVO is just a court order. It's not. It's a signal — and once it's sent, it doesn't stay in one courtroom. FVOs quietly activate a host of consequences — your employment, your firearms licence, your family court proceedings, your permanent police record. All of it. If you have any doubt, this video by James Glissan will explain:

• Why an FVO can be made against you without a finding of guilt

• What "consent without admissions" really means (and why it can cost you everything)

• How a private FVO application can destroy your life even if it's withdrawn

• The moment police discretion is removed — and what that means for you

• Why the process itself can become the punishment

If you're facing an AVO, have been named in one, or just want to understand how this system actually works — watch this before you make any decisions.

In the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), they are made under the Family Violence Act 2016 to reduce risk and prevent harm. They are not criminal convictions. They can be made on an interim basis, often urgently and ex parte (without the respondent attending the hearing), and final orders are frequently made by consent without admissions. Section 13A of the FVA 2016 explicitly states:

"To remove any doubt, the Magistrates Court need not comply with the rules of evidence applying in the ACT in a proceeding under this Act."

That section of the legislation alone should concern anyone. If you think there are safeguards that act to prevent that abuse, think again. The story of Thomas Zaja's ordeal should be a wake-up call.

Zaja was falsely accused, imprisoned, and taken to trial by the Australian Federal Police and the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) based on evidence that was known to be false.

The case began dramatically when the ACT's tactical response team descended on the home the man shares with his mother. His front door was blown up, and he was dragged into the street in his underpants, with police pointing automatic weapons at him.

The court heard he spent two weeks in jail before being released on bail. Zaja's lawyer told the court correspondence shows the ACT Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has known for over two months that the evidence (text messages) against Zaja had been faked by his former partner.

Magistrate Jane Campbell excoriated the police and prosecution from the bench.

“I find the entire conduct of both the police and the DPP to be egregious,”

noting that the authorities were already well aware the evidence was faked.

The saga has taken an extraordinary toll on Zaja, who has been unable to see his son

and has had to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay legal fees and keep

his business afloat. Quoted in The Australian newspaper, Zaja asks:

“Why did it take so long? Why didn’t the police investigate or the DPP? What were they doing? It’s obvious why so many fathers kill themselves. I think, if I just pull the steering wheel right straight into a truck, finish at all. But I can’t do that to my son.”

But this article isn't about Thomas Zaja. Or at least, not about him alone. It is about something rarely examined: the psychological impact of being served with an interim or final FVO — particularly when allegations are disputed — and the systemic blind spot it creates in risk management.

The ACT Domestic and Family Violence Review Biennial Reports (2023 and 2025) provide data exposing a critical gap: the system assesses risk to victims but does not meaningfully assess risk to respondents at the moment of legal intervention.

The Data: Non-Homicide Deaths of Perpetrators (2020–2024)

According to the ACT Domestic and Family Violence Review Biennial Report 2025, between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2024:

• Total alleged perpetrator non-homicide deaths: 25

• Alleged perpetrators with a history of FVOs: 20 (80%)

• Alleged perpetrators under a current FVO at death: 9 (36%)

• Alleged perpetrators facing “imminent” legal consequences: 8 (32%)

• Evidence of violence escalation prior to death: 13 (52%)

Source: ACT Domestic and Family Violence Review Biennial Report 2025 

Of the 25 alleged perpetrators who died by non-homicide means (primarily suicide), 21 deaths were intentional self-inflicted acts.

This data establishes a pattern: legal intervention frequently precedes self-inflicted death.

The High-Risk Moment: Service of an Order

The Review identifies separation as a lethality risk factor and notes that many perpetrators who died by suicide were facing:

• Recent or pending separation

• Imminent criminal charges

• Family law proceedings with likely loss of child access

• Exposure of past conduct

Eight of the 25 (32%) were facing serious and imminent legal consequences in the days or weeks leading up to death.

Nine (36%) were respondents to a current FVO at the time they died.

This does not suggest that FVOs cause suicide. It does establish that the moment of service — particularly when combined with separation and criminal exposure — is a high-risk period.

The system currently treats the service of an FVO as a risk event for victims. It does not treat it as a risk event for respondents.

That asymmetry is clinically significant.

Psychological Impact of Being Served with an Interim FVO

An interim FVO can result in:

• Immediate exclusion from the family home

• Loss of contact with children

• Seizure of firearms

• Social stigma

• Employment consequences (particularly in public service or regulated professions)

• Automatic escalation into family court proceedings

In virtually all cases, the interim orders are made ex parte, and the respondent has no opportunity to defend the allegations prior to service.

Even where allegations are disputed, and even where the respondent intends to defend, the interim period can last months.

The Review notes that suicide threats are frequently used as coercive control tactics. It also acknowledges that suicide can be used as image management or punishment.

However, it simultaneously documents that 19 of 25 perpetrators who died had reported mental health conditions, and 24 of 25 had histories of problematic substance use.

There is no evidence in the Review that structured mental health assessment, psychological support, or intervention is triggered at the point of FVO service.

The system intervenes with legal protections for the protected person and coercion of the respondent.

The system provides extensive psychological, emotional, and financial support for the protected person. The system provides zero support for the respondent, many of whom are left homeless through the immediate coercive actions of an interim FVO.

False Allegations and Consent Without Admissions

There are no national statistics quantifying how many DV/FV order respondents are falsely accused. Australian law reform bodies have concluded that deliberate false allegations appear to be a minority, but there is no quantified national rate.

What is known, however, is that:

• In jurisdictions such as Victoria, over 90% of final intervention orders are made by consent, usually without admissions.

• Consent without admissions does not involve judicial fact-finding.

• Allegations are often never tested on evidence.

This creates a structural ambiguity:

A large proportion of respondents are subject to binding civil orders without findings of fact.

• Some will be genuine perpetrators.

• Some will be falsely accused.

• Some will fall into complex mutual-conflict or evidentiary grey zones.

Current datasets do not disaggregate these categories.

From a psychological perspective, however, the impact of being excluded from one’s home or children does not depend on whether the allegation is ultimately proven.

The psychological impact depends on the suddenness, perceived injustice, and perceived loss of control.

The System’s Blind Spot

The 2025 Review contains a striking finding:

Perpetrators who die by suicide often exhibit similar lethality risk factors to perpetrators who commit homicide.

This means the same cohort identified as high risk to others may also be high risk to themselves.

Yet when an interim FVO is served:

• No mandatory suicide risk assessment is triggered.

• No automatic mental health referral is required.

• No structured safety planning for respondents occurs.

• No integrated “risk to self” screening is embedded in the order process.

The Review calls for integrated risk assessment approaches considering both risk to self and risk to others.

But in operational terms, that is not currently standard practice.

When Accountability Becomes a Risk Spike

The data shows:

• 80% of perpetrators who died had previously been subject to an FVO.

• 36% were under a current FVO at death.

• 32% were facing imminent legal consequences.

• 52% showed escalating violence prior to death.

This suggests that the intersection of:

• Separation

• Legal intervention

• Loss of control

• Exposure to consequences

is a predictable high-risk cluster.

If we accept that the purpose of the system is harm minimisation, then ignoring predictable risk spikes — even in alleged perpetrators — is negligent risk design.

Risk management must include all foreseeable risks.

That includes respondent suicide.

Protecting Victims Does Not Require Ignoring Respondent Risk

None of this analysis diminishes victim safety.

In fact, unmanaged respondent suicide risk can increase victim danger:

• Suicide threats are used coercively.

• Escalation can occur in the lead-up to suicide.

• Homicide-suicide remains a known phenomenon.

Failing to manage respondent risk can amplify system instability.

Policy Reform: What Is Missing

Based on ACT data, several safeguards should be considered:

1. Mandatory suicide risk screening at the point of interim FVO service.

2. Automatic referral pathways to mental health services for high-risk respondents.

3. Structured information sheets outlining psychological impact and support resources.

4. Integrated risk assessment models that evaluate risk to self and risk to others simultaneously.

5. Independent review pathways where allegations are strongly disputed, to reduce prolonged interim uncertainty.

This is not about weakening protection orders.

It is about recognising that legal intervention is itself a high-risk event.

Conclusion: The Silent Toll

The ACT Domestic and Family Violence Review reveals something the public debate rarely acknowledges:

For a subset of men identified as perpetrators, legal intervention precedes self-inflicted death at alarming rates.

Between 2020 and 2024, 25 perpetrators died by non-homicide means in the ACT.

• The overwhelming majority had prior FVO involvement.

• Over one-third were under current orders at death.

• Nearly one-third were facing imminent legal consequences.

• The system intervenes decisively to protect victims.

• It does not intervene or contemplate a duty of care to protect respondents from predictable psychological collapse.

If the goal of domestic and family violence policy is prevention of death — not simply allocation of blame — then risk architecture must evolve.

Accountability should not be a blind trigger point.

It should be a managed transition point.

Until mental health safeguards are embedded at the moment of FVO service, the system will continue to produce an avoidable secondary toll — one that remains largely invisible in public discourse.

And that is not prevention.