Coroner slams SA Police over Zahra’s murder
The South Australian Police response to the case of a terrified domestic violence victim who was later brutally murdered by her husband was “appalling”, the coroner says in a scathing report.
State Coroner Mark Johns said there were multiple opportunities where intervention could have offered Zahra Abrahimzadeh the chance of preventing her death.
“Whether any of those chances would actually have prevented her death cannot be known,” he said in his findings delivered on Monday.
Abrahimzadeh, 44, was repeatedly stabbed by her estranged husband in front of 300 people at a Persian function at the Adelaide Convention Centre in March 2010.
Zialloh Abrahimzadeh is serving a minimum 26-year jail term.
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The coroner said the SA police slogan of Keeping SA Safe is a very good summary of its most important function.
“At every level it was a hollow promise in the case of Zahra Abrahimzadeh,” he said.
“For 13 months Zialloh was not arrested, reported or even spoken to by police for the offences he committed in early February 2009.
“During that time he continued to make threats against Zahra through her adult children.”
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He taunted the children with the pointlessness of their having gone to the police in the first place, and was never arrested despite attending numerous court sessions related to a restraining order.
“Finally, when the contested hearing took place he was able, through his lawyers, to gain what to him must have appeared a significant concession, because it expressly permitted him to attend the Persian New Year function where he would finally make good his threat to kill Zahra,” he said.
Deputy Commissioner Grant Stevens told the inquest the general service provided by police had been “disappointing”.
But the coroner said he understated, by a considerable margin, the true nature of the police performance.
“The adjective `appalling’ would have been far more suitable.”
He made 10 recommendations to Premier Jay Weatherill, noting he recently said domestic violence was a key priority for the government.
His recommendations included that all aspects of domestic violence policing be characterised by a “sense of curiosity, questioning and listening”.
“Risk assessment must be actually applied, not merely recited as a mantra.”
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