Olga Edwards' death was 'slow murder'

Women's safety advocates say a range of measures, including technological monitoring and jail time for repeated breaches of intervention orders, should be considered to prevent a repeat of the murder of teenagers Jack and Jennifer Edwards by their father, John Edwards, in July.

The calls were made following news Olga Edwards, 37, the mother of Jack, 15 and Jennifer, 13, was found dead in the Pennant Hills home in which her children were shot dead in July. by the children's father who then shot and killed himself. Spokespeople have described Olga's death as 'slow murder'.

Social work academic and researcher, Professor Cathy Humphreys,  said  a "profound problem" in the way the courts handled access to children for people with violent histories is that they did not understand the violence often does not stop after separation.

"There isn't really a recognition that fathers using violence in the home when the family is together do not somehow magically become good fathers when separation occurs.

"Often there are child protection people saying saying 'you must separate, and keep these children safe because this man's too dangerous', and when they do separate the first thing that gets arranged is unsupervised child contact."
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She said women are seen as failing to protect children if they remain with a violent partner, and "alienating" if they attempt to cease contact. "That is a conundrum that hasn't been sorted out."

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