Family violence victim’s legacy is saving women’s lives
This week marked two important appointments for Samantha Fraser’s loved ones.
His birthday was on Wednesday, and the eighth anniversary of his death falls on Thursday.
“I like to think of a birthday as a celebration,” friend Lija Matthews told AAP.
“But that is overshadowed by the fact that the next day was the worst day of my life.”
Ms Fraser’s former partner, Adrian Basham, killed and beat the mother-of-three on Victoria’s Phillip Island on July 23, 2018, and staged her death as a suicide.
Basham is serving a life sentence after being found guilty of the 41-year-old’s murder and will appeal both his conviction and sentence at an appeal hearing in August.
After years of suppressing and controlling domestic violence, Ms. Matthews, who lost her beloved friend, turned her grief into action.
“My life changed forever, I lost a part of my heart that day, that’s when I started thinking, why did this happen?” he said.
“Instead of shaking my fist at the sky and getting angry about everything, maybe it’s up to me to make a difference for him.”
Charity Change for Sam is now directly helping victims of domestic violence by adding an essential tool to their safety toolkit: personal safety devices.
“Sam and I had never heard of personal safety devices and didn’t know they existed, so I wondered how many other Australians didn’t know they existed,” Ms Matthews said.
“And there seemed to be loopholes in the system; people were not eligible for government-funded devices, so they were slipping through the cracks unless they met certain criteria.”
Frontline family violence service providers are funded by the Victorian government to provide personal safety devices, but many people are not entitled to them.
Over the past two years, Change for Sam has provided 309 devices to approximately 800 victim survivors through the same service providers.
“If someone doesn’t meet the criteria for a government-funded device, they can have one of ours, and our criteria is: Would you feel safer with a device? Yes, that’s it,” Ms Matthews said.
He said the devices can be worn and if a person feels unsafe, they hold down the duress button for a few seconds, which makes no sound and is transmitted to a professional monitoring company 24/7.
The company begins recording through the device and then prioritizes each case, calling emergency services to the device’s GPS location in serious cases.
The device continues recording until help arrives, and the recordings can be used as evidence in court when necessary.
“These may not be the answer for everyone, but they should at least be offered or talked about when explaining or talking about safety measures to allow the victim-survivor to have that option,” he said.
Ms Matthews said a lack of awareness of the devices’ existence among service providers, victim survivors and even governments was part of the access problem.
In June, he spoke to a federal investigation into the relationship between domestic violence, sexual violence and suicide, and the president admitted he had no knowledge of the devices.
Both the Victorian and NSW state governments provide security or restraint devices to people considered to be at high risk or at serious threat of domestic violence.
However, possibly due to the proprietary nature of the devices, data on their use is not collected or made public.
Ms. Matthews would like to one day make this tool available to frontline providers nationally to grow the legacy she created for her friend.
“Sam was a psychologist who helped people get through a lot of difficult times in their lives, while also facing a lot of challenges himself,” he said.
“I know he wanted to make a difference in this area, and now he is.”
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