'Clearinghouses for human misery': the hidden cost of delivering justice

This description of Australian courtrooms in a recent academic paper on vicarious trauma in the judicial workplace sheds light on why the ACT's prosecuting office dissolved its specialist sexual and family violence teams in 2025, citing psychological risk to staff.

After nearly three years covering our city's courts, I can pinpoint the case that forced me to fully appreciate the challenges of working in and around the criminal justice system - even just as a daily observer.

The matter in question, one I'm certain to never forget, was my introduction to the very worst of what people are capable of.

Only a couple of months into the job, I watched a man wipe away tears and rock back and forth in an ACT Supreme Court dock as he faced a sentencing hearing.

Like in many child sexual abuse cases, he had no visible supporters and his identity was suppressed.

The 39-year-old former public servant had pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including incest, committing an act of indecency on a child under 10 years, and using a child to produce child exploitation material.

In doing so, the father admitted filming and photographing himself sexually abusing his daughter nearly 100 times when she was around two years old.

His son, who was almost four at the time, was captured in the background of one image.

Justice David Mossop said the young children were completely at their father's mercy during months of recorded offending described as "degrading and humiliating".

The nearly 16,000 "grave, heinous" child abuse material files found on the man's devices featured no less than 800 unique victims between the ages of two months and 14 years.

Some files depicted those victims being tortured and forced into acts of bestiality.

The abuser who possessed them will be eligible for parole in 2031.

Day in, day out

I'm often asked by those outside the law world how I cope with the traumatic aspects of sitting in court every day.

The answer after the father's sentencing hearing was "not particularly well".

I carried the weight of what I heard that morning with me for days and struggled to shake the detailed descriptions of the files found on the man's computer.

I grappled with the judge later finding that the crimes did not fall into the category of worst-case scenario for objective reasons, like there being no evidence that the victims understood what was happening to them, the lack of overt coercion or violence, and the crimes being "confined in duration".

Since then, I've sat through countless cases that shared elements of depravity, life-defining trauma for victims, and predatory abuse of power.

But none have come close to affecting me in the same way.

The duty of a court reporter is to publish an informative yet palatable version of available facts to readers. This means helping them understand the gravity of a case without graphically detailing how a father sexually abused his two-year-old daughter.

But the truth is that what we see, hear and read in court documents, submissions and sentencing remarks is the product of work done by people closer to the trauma.

Spare a thought for solicitors who compile what is ultimately handed over to the court, under-resourced service workers who provide direct support to victims, and even sheriff's officers who sit through trial after trial.

As an example, in 2022, Victoria's Office of Public Prosecutions was ordered to pay a former prosecutor $435,000 in damages after the High Court upheld a finding it had failed to protect the employee from harmful exposure to traumatic material.

Then consider judges like Justice Mossop, who viewed a sample of the child abuse material files found on the father's devices before locking him up.

While sentencing another prolific possessor of child abuse material in October last year, Chief Justice Lucy McCallum addressed the "vexed question" of whether it was necessary for sentencing judges to view such samples.

"There is also something to be said for minimising the extent of the vicarious trauma that is known to be a risk for all persons involved in the prosecuting process," she said.

The territory's top judge said she had been "spared" from viewing that offender's files, which she said had been, properly, the subject of detailed descriptions instead.

Not spared from viewing the material in question multiple times, Chief Justice McCallum noted, was the arresting police officer.

Nor are members of the territory's Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Team (SACAT), unenviably tasked with watching and classifying child abuse material to help sentence those who create, possess and share it.

Thankfully, an ACT Policing spokesperson said, courts nowadays do not generally require the classification of every single abuse image or video.

Those who inspect such files are subject to regular psychological assessment, mandatory training around exposure to abuse material, and viewing-time limits.

Activities "away from computer", such as puzzles and ping pong, are used to allow officers to shift their focus during periods of viewing.

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"The AFP is also regularly considering AI tools that will assist in the classification of these images - further safeguarding our officers from this difficult part of these investigations," the police spokesperson said.

A 2016 Victoria Police mental health review said the accounts of members then exposed to more material than is today necessary were harrowing.

Such exposure had contributed to permanent psychological scarring, it found.

One member described unravelling at work after watching hundreds of videos, while another said the material came "rushing back" when they returned home to their children.

The decade-old Victorian review made a number of recommendations, including opt out provisions from child sexual abuse investigation teams.

In the ACT, there is no set time period in SACAT and alternate work options are provided when members decide to cease the unthinkably challenging work.