Meet the whistleblowers who exposed Queensland’s domestic violence failures: ‘I was warned they would pulverise me’

A former senior Queensland detective has accused police of covering up their own failures in cases where vulnerable women died after seeking police protection, and alleges she was ordered to “protect the organisation’s reputation at all costs”.
And a whistleblower from within the Queensland coronial system who reported alleged systemic failures in domestic and family violence-linked deaths claims she was warned she would be “pulverised” if she ever spoke out.
Both women decided to speak to Guardian Australia because they believe the family members of some domestic violence victims have not been told the whole truth about what happened to their loved ones.
Their courage in breaking ranks laid the foundation for our two-year investigation into the police and coronial handling of domestic violence deaths.
Broken trust has uncovered evidence and allegations of serious police failures in several cases linked to intimate-partner violence. These include some of Australia’s most high-profile intimate-partner killings and other cases in which women’s pleas for help do not appear to have been taken seriously.
Evidence suggests that police continued to fail some of the victims after they died – either by not treating their deaths as suspicious or by not conducting mandated reviews examining prior force interactions.
Coroners have repeatedly made findings in domestic and family violence-linked deaths that “nothing more could have been done”. Experts and whistleblowers say these findings raise serious concerns about the coronial system, and allege that in some cases coroners have failed to effectively scrutinise police evidence.
Ordered to protect reputation ‘at all costs’
Kate Pausina is a former senior detective who spent several years working in the coronial support unit – the division of the Queensland police service responsible for liaising with the coroner.
Her role included reviewing deaths with links to domestic and family violence and recommending cases for further investigation.

In a public interest disclosure to the Crime and Corruption Commission in 2024, Pausina detailed several examples of what she alleged was “on-going interference and intentional hindrance” by more senior officers in examining deaths where there had been prior police contact.
She made allegations about a senior officer who she says “repeatedly provided incorrect information” in coronial matters. The CCC referred the matter back to the QPS.
In a submission to the 2022 inquiry into Queensland police responses to domestic and family violence, Pausina alleged: “Reports compiled regarding police involvement in DFV related deaths were routinely requested to be redacted removing information highlighting inadequate police actions and/or inactions.
“Noncompliance with these requests resulted in me being subjected to negative workplace behaviours.”
She also claims that other officers asked her to withhold information.
During her time in the role she says she identified at least eight suspicious deaths of women who had previously been victims of domestic and family violence that she alleges were not adequately investigated. The deaths were logged as being “not suspicious”, suicides or the result of drug misuse.
In each of those cases, Pausina says, there was evidence that raised suspicion of intimate-partner homicide.
In 2020 she was asked to review the suicide of a woman in Cairns who was known to police as a victim of domestic and family violence. A social worker had reported the woman missing. Police did not treat the case as a missing person’s report, despite clear concerns for the woman’s welfare and evidence she was suicidal.
Pausina submitted a report to a superior officer that alleged the officers involved had breached police procedures and should be investigated for misconduct.
“He criticised me for doing that,” she says. “He told me that I wasn’t to give any information that made the police look bad to other government organisations … unless it went through him first.
“[He told me] our role at the coroner’s office was to protect the organisation’s reputation at all costs.”
When she later made a right-to-information application to police seeking a copy of the report she was told the document “does not exist” on the police system. It appears to have never been logged or acted upon. Pausina says this raises concerns about a possible cover up.
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A Queensland police deputy commissioner, Cameron Harsley, told Guardian Australia that Pausina’s allegation, if true, was “very disturbing to me”.
“If that’s the case, I would expect that it’s investigated and overseen by the Crime and Corruption Commission because the allegation of covering up information, or covering up deaths, is very serious and something that is, in my view, completely unacceptable,” he said.
“Our openness, transparency and legitimacy is something that [the QPS] holds in high regard. If an officer has failed to do their duty or concealed evidence, I expect that those matters are fully investigated.
“I do not accept officers hiding information or changing information that is not truthful.”
Pausina says previous complaints about the matter to the ethical standards command and then the CCC had also resulted in no action being taken.
She says she found evidence in another case that police had labelled a woman who made several reports of domestic violence a “vexatious complainant”.
After the woman repeatedly sought help from police, the domestic and family violence coordinator at her local station placed a “flag” on her file in the police QPrime data system that effectively told other officers not to take her complaints seriously.
The woman killed herself and her young children.
The inquest into their deaths heard that the woman had reported her husband for “threatening behaviour and sexual abuse” on numerous occasions and “complained police were not keeping her safe”. Her husband denied such behaviour and the coroner made no findings about it. The coroner also made no adverse findings about police actions.
The flag – which Pausina says would have been key evidence about the way officers dealt with the woman before her death – was never considered by the coroner, who found it would have been “virtually impossible” for police to prevent her from killing herself and her children.
‘Burying’ evidence
Lawyers and coroner’s court staff working on cases involving intimate-partner violence have told Guardian Australia they have routinely seen police briefs that are poor and omit relevant evidence.
The whistleblower from within the coronial system, who asked to use the pseudonym Elsie, made a disclosure to the CCC in 2024 which included allegations that police and coroners had failed to adequately investigate a number of deaths of women and children.
In it she said she had quit her public service job because she could “no longer take part in [a] culture” that meant women’s deaths were not adequately investigated. She alleges that in some cases victims’ families were never told the full extent of policing or other failures that may have contributed to their deaths.
A large part of her statement deals with alleged failures in the pre- and post-death police response to Hannah Clarke, who was murdered alongside her three children by her estranged husband, Rowan Baxter, in 2020.
Elsie claims the coronial system also fails victims’ families because coroners rely heavily on the evidence provided to them by police.
“Briefs of evidence are often voluminous and disorganised, with relevant evidence hidden amongst hundreds and in some cases thousands of records,” Elsie’s disclosure says.
“I saw countless examples of police failing in their duties to believe women and take reports of domestic and family violence seriously, record reports of domestic and family violence accurately or at all, collect relevant evidence or investigate complaints of domestic and family violence in the lead-up to a death, the burying of evidence which would show this misconduct, and coroners accepting police evidence as presented.
“There are times where coroners should have referred police misconduct … for assessment and investigation but failed to do so.
“I routinely found serious issues in the quality of police investigations that were not scrutinised by coroners.”
Guardian Australia advised Harsley, the police deputy commissioner, before a recorded interview that it was investigating the force’s pre-death response to certain cases. He reviewed police records before the interview but was not aware of some of the issues raised by the Guardian’s investigation.
He said he accepted that in some cases police had missed opportunities and were trying to “better educate ourselves” about intimate-partner violence, but said even a perfect police response was “still not going to be good enough”.
“The issues you’ve raised with me, can I just say unequivocally they do not meet the standards of the Queensland police service or the standards any member of our community [would expect],” Harsley said.
“I believe that we do a very good job in the majority of cases but I do accept in some cases we are not living up to the standards that are expected of the Queensland police service.
“[But] even if you have a perfect police response, we’re not going to stop homicide, domestic homicide, because … the motivation of these offenders is going to lead to the death of people.”
A spokesperson for the coroner’s court said coroners did not comment on their findings but there were several avenues of review if people were unhappy.The spokesperson said coroners had “broad discretion as to how they undertake an investigation [and] may inform themselves and gather information in any way they see fit”.Elsie believes those broad powers are part of the problem; her experience within the system was that coroners were unable to be questioned, that there was no oversight of those powers, and that there was no avenue to raise significant problems in investigations.
“Families can’t challenge findings if they don’t know the information in the first place,” she says.
“I repeatedly tried to raise these issues within the system before speaking out. But Queensland has no mechanism or regulator to oversee the conduct of judicial officers.”
‘A culture of fear and silence’
The Human Rights Law Centre’s whistleblower project has advised whistleblowers who have spoken to Guardian Australia.
Like many whistleblowers, Elsie says she tried repeatedly – over several years – to raise concerns through formal processes.
In her disclosure to the CCC she says she reported concerns to a manager “on a daily basis”. She says she also raised problems with a government department head.
“But my department’s leadership effectively did nothing and people warned me that if I kept agitating and raising issues they would pulverise me into the ground.
“There was a culture of fear and silence.”
The CCC assessed Elsie’s disclosure and declined to investigate on the basis her allegations were considered to amount to “police misconduct” rather than “corrupt conduct” because they were not serious enough to result in criminal charges or sacking.
Regina Featherstone, a senior lawyer from the Human Rights Law Centre who represented Elsie, says: “It’s almost hard to reconcile that this system that you’re working in can feel so broken and ultimately this thing that you’re trying so hard to work on and contribute in a positive way, it’s for naught.
“And that is an extremely, extremely difficult position to be in. And it’s not just this client … it’s all whistleblowers who go through this experience and it’s not just the wrongdoing itself, but it’s the aftermath, the reporting.“My client’s disclosure will have huge ramifications for how we understand family and domestic violence prevention and response.”
Pausina and other experts say the attitude that some deaths are inevitable is part of the problem.
“I believe every domestic and family violence death is preventable,” she says. “People are dying, these are people’s lives.“It isn’t a stolen car; it’s not a stealing offence; it’s not property crime. People are being murdered. These people have loved ones. These people have families, sisters, aunties. That is just so important.”Pausina agreed to be identified by Guardian Australia because she has now left the Queensland police service.“I don’t know what more they could possibly do to me,” she says.
• Cameron Harsley retired from the role of deputy commissioner of the Queensland Police Service in September.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
Do you know more? Contact ben.smee@theguardian.com