300% increase in Tweed Byron DV offences

Eighteen people were charged with domestic violence related offences in the Tweed Byron police district last week, police said.

The figure is 300 per cent higher than the week before and the highest weekly tally for local domestic violence offenders charged since reporting started about three months ago.

The eighteen people charged represent a total of 38 offences to be read out in court.

Two people charged for choking

They include ten charges for assault in a domestic violence context and two charges for choking.

Elsewhere, choking is an offence said to be on the increase owing to normalisation effects through internet porn.

In the week ending last Wednesday 3 December, Tweed Byron police said they laid eight charges for stalking and/or intimidation, two for using a carriage service to menace or harass, and seven charges for destroying property.

Six charges were to be heard for contravening apprehended violence orders and another three for hindering, resisting and intimidating police.

The accused domestic violence offenders accounted for more than a third of last week’s 53 reported arrests in the Tweed Byron region.

Court orders man to carry out ‘domestic violence programs’

Officers also reported 37 offenders convicted in the same period in local courts throughout the district, including two men ordered to carry out twelve-month community corrections orders.

One was a 32-year-old Banora Point man found guilty of breaching multiple AVO breaches.

He was sentenced on 2 December at the Tweed Heads Local Court.

That same day a 54-year-old Main Arm man was sentenced in the Byron Bay Local Court for assault, damaging property and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Police said the court ordered him to carry out some domestic violence programs and to pay a $500 fine.