If you have been served with an intervention order, you might have many questions about what comes next. What does the process look like? How do you respond? Will you now have a criminal record?
Slades & Parsons can answer these questions for you and help you navigate the court process.
An intervention order is an order made by a magistrate to protect a person from physical or mental harm caused by someone else. There are two types of orders – Personal Safety Intervention Orders (PSIO) and Family Violence Intervention Orders (FVIO).
An intervention order contains several ‘conditions’, about how the respondent can behave towards the applicant or protected person. The respondent must obey all intervention order conditions. If the protected person and respondent are family members, you need a FVIO instead.
If you are the person that an intervention order has been made against, a police officer will send you copies of the application, a court summons and copies of any interim orders that may have already been made.
It is important to obtain legal advice at this stage. You have several options available to you once you have been served by police, which a lawyer can explain to you in further detail. You can:
If the protected person agrees, you can also try and resolve the dispute by mediation.
An intervention order is a civil process, provided that you comply with the conditions of the order, this process will not result in a criminal record.
However, breaching the intervention order conditions has serious consequences and is considered a criminal matter. If you are charged and found guilty or plead guilty to breaching an order, you will get a criminal record.
On some occasions, the conduct that gives rise to an intervention order application will be charged as a criminal offence. If you are found guilty of this offence, you will have a criminal record. However, the order itself is not a criminal matter unless it is breached.
The behaviour of the Respondent that resulted in the Intervention Order may also be conduct that attracts criminal charges.
For example, a high volume of text messages or phone calls may attract charges of stalking or use carriage service to harass. Other common criminal charges that are alleged at the time of the order being applied for can include Unlawful Assault or Criminal Damage.
The Applicant must make an application for an Intervention Order at the Magistrates Court.
The Magistrate can make an Interim Order (a temporary restraining order) immediately if the Magistrate is satisfied that it is necessary to protect the Applicant or Affected Family Member;
After the Application Hearing, the process is:
What happens at court during an intervention order court hearing will depend on how the respondent responds to the order application.
The respondent may:
It is important to get legal advice prior to proceeding with any of these options.
Although Intervention Orders are made in Victoria, they apply nationwide. For example, if one of the prohibited behaviours is that you cannot contact the protected person by any means, then it would be breaching the order to call the person from Queensland.
The courts take intervention order breaches very seriously. A breach can be constituted by any conduct that is in contravention of the conditions of the order. You can even be charged with breaching an order if you are alleged to have asked someone else to behave in a way that is contrary to the order.
For example, getting another person to email the protected person or even driving past the protected person’s house can be a breach if a person has been ordered not to go within 200 metres of the address.
If it is alleged that you breached an intervention order you will be charged and required to attend court. A breach can also be charged with other offences (e.g. Assault or Threaten to Kill) if other criminal conduct is alleged to have taken place at the time of the breach.
If a person has a history of breaching intervention orders, then it is likely that police will arrest and remand that person in custody.
The maximum penalty for breaching an intervention order is two years imprisonment.