FDV offenders like Joel Coyne to be subject to possibility of GPS monitoring under new court powers in 2024

The release of a serial violent offender into the Albany community without an ankle tracker has further highlighted the deficiencies in the state monitoring program. Joel Coyne, 33, was released from Albany Regional Prison last Friday after he pleaded guilty to flinging his partner around by her hair twice and swinging a star picket at her, breaching a family violence restraining order to do so. Coyne was released on an intensive supervision order that required him to undergo drug and psychological counselling, urine analyses, and 40 hours of community work but was not required to wear an ankle monitoring device. While sentencing, Albany Magistrate Dianne Scaddan said Coyne showed a “complete abject disregard for protective conditions”. Coyne was previously convicted along with two others for what Ms Scaddan described as a “cowardly attack” on a man in which Coyne was the “primary aggressor”, according to police prosecutor Sergeant Alan Dean. He was also found not guilty, along with his brother Anthony, for the alleged violent assault of Paul Hayward during the 2021 Stirling Terrace Brawl in a nine-day trial in September. The question of why Coyne was not required to wear an ankle monitoring device has risen to the state level with state shadow minister for justice Tjorn Sibma questioning the Labor Party over the decision. “I’d like to hear from Attorney General John Quigley why his government isn’t requesting this offender be tracked 24 hours a day,” Mr Sibma said. “Surely he had demonstrated he has no respect for the restraining order currently in place. “This is exactly the type of scenario that would be the target of the expanded GPS monitoring policy that the Liberal Party will take to the 2025 State election.” A spokesperson for Mr Quigley said it was up to the courts and the Prisoner Review Board to apply GPS monitoring conditions. Mr Quigley said in a statement on November 30 that the powers to order electronic monitoring by WA courts will increase in 2024 as part of legislation introduced in 2020 to reform laws on family violence in WA. Mr Quigley said the number of people who found themselves subject to electronic monitoring increased by 19 to 23 per cent every year. “The next stage of our reform, to be progressed next year, will further increase the number of offenders who are monitored,” he said. “Mandatory monitoring will apply to all serial family violence offenders and anyone who commits a family violence offence while subject to a family violence restraining order when they are on bail or a community supervision order. “It will also apply to all offenders paroled in relation to a family violence offence, where there is a family violence restraining order in place.” In 2022, 592 people were tracked with GPS monitoring devices, including 137 family violence offenders. In 2023, as of November 20, there have been 433 people fitted and tracked with GPS monitoring devices, and of those 105 are family violence offenders. “It’s becoming clear that the Attorney General doesn’t seem to want to take responsibility for, or be associated with, the policies of his office and his government that are resulting in dangerous criminals being released onto the streets on an almost daily basis,” Mr Sibma said. Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia said the reforms would subject more offenders to electronic monitoring when they are introduced early next year. “It is critical that actions which undermine the operation of monitoring equipment — whether through damage, removal or other interference — attract significant criminal penalties,” he said.