Domestic Violence: News Impact Analysis On The Murder Of Luke Batty By His Father

Introduction

Domestic violence continues to be one of the widespread public health problems and human right abuse in the world today. According to World Health Organization (WHO) report in 2013, one in every three women are abused physically or sexually by a partner throughout the world. (WHO in Fisher, 2015).

On February 12, 2014, 11 years old Luke Batty was attacked by his killer father Greg Anderson with a cricket bat in small regional area in Victoria. Rosie Batty met Anderson in 1992 and they worked together in a recruitment company. For the next 11 years she experienced domestic violence and was threatened, harassed and abused by Anderson. Ms. Batty revealed that her ex-partner, Anderson, had four arrest warrants at the time of murder. Mr. Anderson was arrested several times for domestic violence and threatened to kill Ms. Batty but was released on bail before the brutal murder of his son Batty. (Cooper, 2014). After the dead of her son, Ms. Batty became a vocal campaigner and a term “Batty effect” was coined by the media in recognition to her significant contribution towards the development of family violence policy in Australia. Further, acknowledging her role towards prevention of family violence she was named as an Australian of the year in 2015. Today, Rosie Batty is a tireless domestic violence campaigner and was named as the founder of the Council of Australian Government Advisory Panel on preventing violence against women and children (Galea, 2017).

It may be noted that as the crime occurred in a public cricket match in front of the crowd, the incident raised national concerns to the rising number of family violence related to mental illness. Hence, this article analyses the role of media in portraying the murder of Luke Batty by his abusive father Anderson.

Stakeholders involved in the rhetorical arena

The community mourned the murder of the boy by his father and the words frequently used to describe the incident on media includes horrific, shocking, tragedy and crime that left Australia horrified. Luke’s school friends, the wider community, the National Australia Cricket team and the leader of Opposition of the Government in the state of Victoria Daniel Andres send messages of sympathy (Walktale et al., 2018).

“Batty effect” resulted in the formation of Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence (Perkin, 2016). By 2016, the Royal Commission met for the duration of 13 months, delivering a seven volume report including 227 recommendations, which the state government promised to implement fully. In addition, Victorian Government allocated AU$1.9 billion to combat domestic violence and help victims and survivors (State Government of Victoria, 2017).

As one of the strategies, Subramani (2018) emphasised that domestic violence victims and survivors can share their stories with the availability of social media and seek support from the community. Notably, Rosie Batty was appointment as Chairperson of the Victims/Survivors Advisory Council initiated by the Victorian Government. Furthermore, she was appointed as the CEO of the Luke Batty Foundation and also established the Never Alone Campaign seeking Australians to stay united to stand beside domestic violence victims and survivors by signing up for neveralone.com.au.

News Media Analysis

In the following day of the brutal murder, the news media covered thousands of stories depicting mental illness, domestic violence, and system failure and relationship breakdown as the cause of murder. This report emphasis on how the media formulated the mental illness of killer father, strained relationship, system lapses and lack of support for the victims or survivors of domestic violence.

On February 14, an article in ABC News reported that estranged father had suffered from undiagnosed mental illness for two decades and refused to accept support (Ross, 2014). Additionally Rosie Batty declare the following statement:

“I want to tell people that domestic violence happens to anybody, no matter how nice your house is, no matter how intelligent you are. You are the victims, but you become the person that people condemn” (Ross, 2014).

The reporter attributes mental illness as the main cause of murder and blames the system to bail out Mr. Anderson in 2013 despite his repeated crime history and arrest warrants for assaulting his partner.

On 15 February 2014, a crime reporter Silvester highlighted that Anderson tried to escape from depression, violence, loneliness and jobless since he was excluded from job markets due to Ms. Betty’s apprehended violence order (AVO). He further added that such brutal murders are closely associated with family breakdown and unstable relationships. According to Silvester’s article “Alone, jobless and mentally ill: a dad’s road to murder” psychiatric issue accounts for at least 20% of murders in Victoria and the police are left to handle problems on the street after closing many mental health institutes in Victoria (Silvester, 2014) .

On 16 February 2014, another article published by high-profile crime reporter Rule in the aftermath of the killing of Luke Batty in his article titled “No One Could Have Predicted Luke’s murder” revealed that there was arrest warrants for Anderson for failure to appear on charges of assaulting Rosie Batty and he further described Anderson was an aggressive, offensive and disrespectful man destined to commit terrible crime (2014).

Two months after losing her son, Rosie Batty open up in a Live Cross with Studio 10 with the following statements:

“We keep punishing the person who’s already being punished. Women don’t leave not because they don’t want to. It’s because they are potentially too frighten to because of what might happen” (Cooper, 2014).

The mistrust in the police, safety, isolation and embarrassment may largely effect the victim’s decision to seek legal support and report domestic violence. Ms. Batty further added that her ex-partner had finally lost control of her and make her suffer in the most hideous form of crime to kill her son. She made a thematic frame to convey the Australian that domestic violence survivors fears that calling law enforcement will make the situation worse including the risk of getting arrested themselves, fear of losing their children and deportation if they were undocumented immigrants.

Three years after, Rosie Batty in the article titled “Rosie Batty recalls the night of her son’s murder” disclosed that she think she was lucky in an unlucky way that her ex-partner died so that she don’t have to face criminal trials and deal with the mixed emotions of her lost son and alive killer father ( Gaela, 2017). Again, several frames were used to highlight the risks associated with coping the sudden loss of her son. Nothing could have been more devastating than mourning over the murder of a child by his biological father since we believe that the relationship between parents and their children are pure and unconditional.

Australian Central Government, in the BBC article ‘Luke Batty inquest finds murder by father was unforeseeable,’ announced AU$100 m as domestic violence prevention package. In addition, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared that his dream is to make Australia, a land known for respecting women (BBC-Australia, 2015). A list of major steps were taken by the Australian Government in combating domestic violence since Batty effect. Some of the latest initiatives include free counseling to victims of crime, introduce Family and Domestic Violence Minister( Western Australia), GPS ankle brackets fitted to domestic violence offenders, passing Family Violence Bill 2016(Australian Capital Territory) and many more ( Independent Inquiry Journalism, 2017).

Recently Rosie Batty reframed the way we talk and treat domestic violence by public campaign bringing domestic violence to public attention. She contributed to shift the debate to the drivers of domestic violence and can be prevented at the grass-root level. (Ziwica, 2019)

Despite losing her son and raising voice against domestic violence, Australian Associated Press (2020) reported that she is using her son’s murder story to gain self-fame and create disharmony within community, create gender bias and try to strip paternal rights. Even public figure like Mark Latham, former Member of the Australian House of Representatives joined the movement and suggested that every women as “potentially at risk”. Hence, after receiving so many awards and recognition, Rosie Batty still experienced cyber-bulling (Australian Associated Press , 2020). This clearly indicates that, women like Batty are also exposed to abuses and violence throughout their life for standing and voicing against the domestic violence.

Discussion

Eleven-year boy Luke Batty was murdered by his father Greg Anderson in the Tyabb Cricket field in front of his play mates and other parents. At the time of the incident, Mr. Anderson was fighting a prolonged legal battle and four arrest warrants against two intervention orders imposed on him and other two charge for accessing child pornography. After the death of the young boy, it emerged that the mother and son are disappointed several times by law enforcement. Since the death of her son Luke, Ms. Batty devoted her life to save domestic violence victims and survivors. She became a vocal anti-domestic violence campaigner. Today she helps thousands of women caught in the underfunded and under-resource system where they can’t protect themselves from male perpetrator. The news media represent mental illness as the main cause of domestic violence.

One year after the aftermath of the cruel murder, Davey in her article proposes five lessons that government should take away from Luke Batty’s death’

1. Domestic violence hazard risk increases if the victims are left alone to fight the violence.
2. Family violence victims must be supported with legal representation at the court.
3. Harmoniously marry all the systems related to domestic violence.
4. Increase human resource capacity of the domestic violence office staff.
5. Fix accountability on government agencies failing to implement the domestic violence rules and regulations (Davey, 2015).

Concerning over the use of language, Ms. Batty at the Baxter family tragedy in Brisbane said that the current weak family law inquiry have high potential to shrink the safety in the system. She also expressed her concern over the use of language by media outlets and authority figures where murderer are presented ‘as a loving father’. She added that although mental health, drugs and alcohol may cause domestic violence but we should not recommence to make excuse for (Alcorn, 2015).

Conclusion

Many researchers pointed out that the best method to reduce domestic violence is to prevent people to become abuser in the initial stage. (Little, 2015). Several approaches are applicable at different stages such as investing billions into law enforcement, create public awareness, helping agencies to identify and report incidents of abuse, imposing heavy penalties, prosecuting offenders and help victims or survivors.

The cruel murder of Luke Batty in the hand of his mentally ill father in a broad daylight surrounded by kids of his age shocked the whole world. The detailed investigation conducted by Coroner Grey revealed that delay by justice system could have contributed to the risk of violence. Coroner Grey unfolded that Luke mother seek help from different agencies for intervention but were limited, episodic and unsupportive where she was left alone. Anderson was suffering from delusional disorder for two decades but he was left without treatment. Judge Grey further added that Anderson was able to ‘play’ the system where he escaped to attend man’s behavior program and moreover, his release on bail in 2013 was on the instance where the system failed (Grey, 2015).

Within 24 hour after Luke’s murder, Rosie bravely faced the media talking about domestic violence behind the close door. Today she is a domestic violence campaigner who share publicly about her stories as domestic violence survivor to raise public awareness. Death of Luke Batty on 12 February 2014 gave birth to term “Batty effects” continuing to unfold the policy agenda. Rosie selfless strength and incredible efforts are an inspiration to many people around the world.