As lawyers and judicial officers we have a belief the law overwhelmingly can be used to 'do good' and as a society, we have made the courts a principle intervention point for women leaving domestic violence to turn to for their safety or that of their children. The book is important and illuminating for those who work in the law to step back from our day to day work and to critically analyse how the legal system can be weaponised to emotionally and financially destroy women who have experienced domestic violence. There is an obligation on all of us involved in the legal system to skill ourselves up on both identifying and responding to this insidious form of coercive and controlling violence and Douglas's work will help us do this and not naively allow our court systems to become forums for unchecked secondary abuse of victims of domestic violence.
Heather Douglas, LLB, LLM, BA, PhD, is Professor of Law in the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne. She has worked on the legal response to intimate partner violence for over twenty years.