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ACT Policing officers served more than 200 court orders and documents last weekend to ensure people subject to court ordered restrictions are aware of and abide by those restrictions.
On Saturday and Sunday (14-15 December 2024) officers attached the ACT Policing’s Service and Process Team served:
- 70 personal protection orders
- 54 family violence orders
- Five workplace protection orders
- Four interstate orders
- 69 subpoenas
- Two summons
A protection order is an order of the court setting conditions that a person must abide by. These conditions can prevent the person from contacting or approaching, causing or threatening to cause personal injury, and prohibits them from being harassing, intimidating or behaving in an offensive manner towards another person.
Orders can also exclude a person from a home or workplace or ensure property is returned. In urgent situations, an interim (temporary) family violence order may be granted by a Magistrate on the same day the application is lodged.
In the ACT, all court orders must be served by police and they must be served in-person. Last financial year, almost 1800 personal protection and family violence orders were served.
If a respondent is actively avoiding police and the service of documents, ACT Policing does not have any additional powers or other lawful means to serve the order.
The efforts to serve court orders by ACT Policing are substantial, with most orders needing multiple attempts to locate the respondent over varying lengths of time. In some cases, orders may be served quickly at the first attempt and in other cases a dozen or more attempts are required.
For more information go to the Family Violence page .