Police DV murder response probed as man refused bail
A man remains behind bars as a family mourns the woman he allegedly murdered, while police face a probe into their response.
Sarah Miles died at a home on Johnston Street at Casino in northern NSW on Saturday morning.
She was unconscious, but breathing when police arrived, almost an hour after a Triple Zero call.
Dwayne John Creighton, 31, was arrested at the scene and charged with murder.
He was formally refused bail by a magistrate at Lismore Local Court on Monday and will return to court in August.
The pair had been in a domestic relationship for some months, NSW Police said on Saturday.
The delay between the Triple Zero call and police attending will be investigated by officers from a nearby district, with oversight from the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.
Shayden Miles told Nine News his mother was a very strong person and her whole family is heartbroken.
"It's not just a loss, it's also dealing with the fact that she was waiting for an hour on the floor, and that is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life," he said.
Police Minister Yasmin Catley said it was a horrific incident, and concerns around the response time required an independent review and a coronial inquiry.
"We do not want this to happen again," she told Seven's Sunrise program on Monday.
"We want to make sure that people have the confidence that when they call, police will come," she added.
Senior minister Paul Scully said the government is committed to addressing the scourge of domestic and family violence as it awaited specific inquiry findings.
"It's a horrible situation," he told reporters on Monday.
"We remain confident that when you call (Triple Zero) you can get a response," Mr Scully said.
Changes aimed at addressing domestic and family violence in NSW, including coercive control criminalisation and bail restrictions, begin on Monday.
Coercive control - repeated patterns of physical or non-physical abuse used to hurt, scare, intimidate, threaten or control someone - was a precursor to 97 per cent of intimate partner domestic violence homicides in NSW between 2000 and 2018.
The criminalisation of coercive control passed parliament in 2022, but its introduction delayed to allow time to educate police, the judiciary and the public.
Successful prosecutions will have to prove an intent to coerce and control.
Police have been trained to use the new laws, Mr Scully said, but the community can also play a role.
"If you know of or suspect there might be a neighbour, a friend or a family member that's involved in that sort of thing, speak up," he said.
The government announced a $230 million, four-year emergency package targeting domestic violence, after the alleged murder of 28-year-old Molly Ticehurst at her home in the central west NSW town of Forbes in April.
A separate review is investigating Ms Ticehurst's engagement with government agencies and support services in the weeks before she was allegedly murdered by former partner Daniel Billings, after it emerged she died waiting for promised home security upgrades.
Billings had earlier been granted bail by a court registrar on other charges, as no magistrate was sitting on the Saturday he faced court, prompting parliament to pass restrictions on bail, and who can grant it, for serious domestic violence offences.
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