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Intimidating, violent, obsessive: the men who 'control' women

"The 'danger time' when she risks death is if she threatens to leave"

• "He stood over her, making her scrub the bathroom with a toothbrush"
• "He tells her she's not worth anything and nobody wants her"
• "When she wants to leave her risk of mortality rises sharply"

30 years of hell: control freak Kevin Smith, of Sydney, raped his wife, choked her with an electrical cord, tried to shoot her, tied her up and attacked her with a cattle prod over decades. He was jailed for 17 years. Source: NewsComAu

THEY call it the danger time, when women in relationships with obsessive, controlling men are at the greatest risk.

And Lisa Harnum ticked every box.
Before the one-time ballerina fell to her death from the balcony of their high rise apartment, Ms Harnum was allegedly Simon Gittany's slave.
As Mr Gittany's murder trial has heard, he told his fiancee what to wear, who to see and where to go.

”Don’t wear revealing clothing”: Lisa Harnum was told by Simon Gittany what to wear and not to look at other men. Source: Supplied

Evidence before the NSW Supreme Court alleges Mr Gittany told Ms Harnum not to gaze in the direction of other men, not to see her friends when she was overseas, to refrain from wearing high heels, revealing clothing, or wearing her hair out and not to confess her sins to a priest. He also monitored her text messages through a computer program.
"Please don't let any guy talk to you ... your eyes should only gaze on me, the one," read a text Mr Gittany sent Ms Harnum in 2010, the year before she died.
"Who the f--- do you think you are walking around the house like you own it or coming and going without my permission?" read another text.
Senior Crown prosecutor, Mark Tedeschi, QC, claimed in court Mr Gittany was "berserk" and "apoplectic" with rage when he learned Ms Harnum had planned to leave him.

“The danger time”: Simon Gittany caught on CCTV exerting control over his girlfriend, Lisa Harnum, for whose alleged murder he is awaiting judgment. Picture: Supplied. Source: NewsComAu

Simon Gittany has formally denied responsibility for Ms Harnum's death, saying he tried to save her by reaching out to her before she fell.
Whether Supreme Court Judge Lucy McCallum convicts Mr Gittany of Ms Harnum's murder, or whether she believes his defence, their relationship is a textbook case of a controller and his victim, two domestic violence experts told news.com.au.
"One of the key signs you might be in a dangerous relationship is if the person you are going out with wants to control who you see, what you wear, what you say," said Elspeth McInnes, University of South Australia education co-ordinator and National Council of Single Mothers and their Children convenor.
"Once his 'ownership' escalates, the most dangerous time is at separation.

“Only gaze on me”: Simon Gittany allegedly told Lisa Harnum (above) not to look at other men. Picture: Supplied. Source: Supplied

"She leaves him or tries to leave him and he has to escalate his behaviour to take control back from her."
Betty Green, manager of the Liverpool Women's Health Centre in western Sydney, agreed.
"Separation or intending separation is when the woman's risk rises," Ms Green said.
"What happens leading up to domestic violence is clear, we can see the signs."
Both Ms McInnes and Ms Green painted a picture of the pathology of a controller and the classic escalation of an intimidating relationship to its end stages, when the woman got away, or when she, or her children, and sometimes her pets were at risk of harm or death.

Chris Dawson on his wedding day with Lynette Dawson, whose body has never been found. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied

1. The charm phase
Like psychopaths, these men can seem charming - at first.
In the case of Chris Dawson, whose wife disappeared and her presumed death became the subject of a NSW coroner's inquest, he was a handsome football star and part-time model, but behind closed doors he was a violent control freak with a frightening temper.
At first, he charmed everyone - the childhood sweetheart he married, her family and the schoolgirls he taught and seduced.
But when he moved a 16-year-old student into the family home and then his wife vanished, the truth emerged about how he was a cruel, abusive man.
The young woman who became his second wife gave evidence at the inquest about how he would tell her what to wear, who to see and when to go out.
Elspeth McInnes said the man's initial focus was so intense that "often young women interpret such attention as love".
"In the early days of a relationship, their need to know just where their new girl is at every hour of the day can seem like a sign of affection," Ms McInnes said.
"These young women have experienced the horror of relationships in which 'he never calls me' and then suddenly there's this man saying 'where are you, I want to be with you all the time. tell me where you are'.
"The emotional response is 'he really loves me. He gives me a lot of attention'.
"It seems to speak to this ideal relationship."
While a woman "might be flattered, beware" said Betty Green.
"We repackage it by saying 'he's just a little jealous', but if he's very interested in what you wear, how you wear it, where you're going and who you are talking to, this is not healthy."

Every hour of the day the controller wants to know where you are, who you’re with and what you are doing. Source: Supplied

2. The obsession begins
"Is he sending you streams of text messages, more than 12 a day, maybe up to 20 or 30 a day?" Ms Green asked.
"Asking where you are or what you're doing?
"That's not just curiosity. That's not a healthy respectful relationship where you are free to be yourself and have your own friends."

Isolation and intimidation are part of the controller’s way of dominating women. Simon Gittany in the lift of the apartment block where Lisa Harnum lived. Source: Supplied

3. The isolation phase
After endlessly questioning his woman where she is going and who she is meeting up with, the controller now starts isolating her from friends and family.
It may be when friends stop over, he becomes moody or angry.
"He might also achieve isolation by [physically] moving them away or will start on the destruction of the support network," Ms McInnes said.
"When he gets angry, she thinks she's responsible for his behaviour.
"He tells her she's to blame because she has spent too much time with friends.
"She starts thinking 'I must not try to upset him'."
He will also start expressing negative opinions about her inner circle.
"He will say, 'I don't like your friends' and start picking them to pieces.

The controller uses anger and verbal or physical abuse to dominate his partner. Source: Supplied

4. Denigration
This is the belittling phase, when the controller starts chipping away at the woman's self confidence.
"He'll tell her, 'you are useless. No-one else will want you. You are a piece of rubbish. You look like a slut'," Ms Green said.
"The message he is giving the woman is she's not up to the mark, she's not good enough, although at this stage it may be 'you're too sexy' and 'stop dressing in that way that other men are always looking at you'."
At this stage, he may start giving her "the silent treatment, for days on end", Ms McInnes said.
He tells her 'you are responsible' for whatever he's upset about.
"He says 'I wouldn't be so angry if you wouldn't go out all the time' or 'if you really loved me, you'd do this'.
"He might accuse her of sleeping with other men.
"She starts walking on eggshells so as not to spark up his anger. She doesn't want to upset him".

English hairdresser, Natalie Esack, was strangled and intimidated by her policeman husband before he stabbed her in a jealous rage after she left him and met another man. Source: NewsComAu

5. Submission
Ms McInnes says by what ever method, the man is now in control.
"I remember a woman who said 'my partner is not domestically violent. He strangled me when we first met, but he hasn't done anything since'.
"There may be one event to get her to toe the line, or it may be more gradual.
"But the woman will find there's less and less a link between anything they do and his explosions of anger.
"Nevertheless, they feel responsible.
"He says, 'I wouldn't have to do this', that is treat her badly, 'if you had cleaned the floor'.
"Everything is her fault and there doesn't need to be a reason for it.
"He has normalised this potential for violence and actual violence."
By this stage, Ms Green said, the man has very well established he is "the head of the household, the head of the relationship and it's her job to keep him happy".
"He will be checking on her constantly," she said.
"Maybe he checks the speedometer of the car and demands she account for every kilometre she has travelled, or when he comes home he hits the ten star button on the phone to check who she last called.
"Maybe all the labels on the jars in the kitchen have to be facing outwards.
"It can be a hundred and one ways. I have [counselled] a woman whose partner stood over her while he made her scrub the bathroom floor with a toothbrush.
"There may or may not be physical assault, just coercion and the woman feels punished."

“Punishment”: Robert Farquharson drowned his three sons Jai, 10, Bailey, 2, and Tyler, 7, by driving his car into a dam to “punish” their mother after an access visit. Source: Supplied

6. Danger and punishment
"She's been thinking, 'if I don't do that, he'll hurt me', but then she realises 'he's hurting me anyway'," Ms McInnes says.
She might seek counselling and start making preparations to leave him.
"This is the most dangerous time, at the separation, or the first 12 months afterwards," she said.
"If he 'can't have her, nobody can'.
"She's trying to take back control. He is bound to escalate his behaviour to take back control from her.
"It shifts gear."
If the woman does manage to get away, the controller may start stalking her or do a home invasion on her property.
"If pets are left behind, they may be tortured or killed," she said.
"Hurting the pet hurts her, so she is punished.
"If there are children of the partnership, there will be opportunities to hurt her.
"The child becomes the subject of control.
"Or there may be the rage that went a 'little too far', the killing of the children.
"The 'you'll be sorry'.
"Remember Robert Farquharson?"
On the evening of September 4, 2005, as Farquharson was returning his children to his estranged wife, Cindy Gambino, after a Father's Day access visit, he drove his three young sons, aged ten, seven and two into a dam near the Victorian town of Winchelsea.
Farquharson was found guilty of murdering his sons and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 33 years.

Robert Farquharson received a life sentence for drowning his sons in a dam. Picture: News Limited. Source: NewsComAu

Who are the controllers?
"What creates these men?" said Ms McInnes.
"As to the psychology of it in terms of the perpetrator, there are some who argue the perpetrator as a child may have experienced a severely disrupted attachment with their primary carers.
"That their mother was beaten up by Dad and they see it as appropriate behaviour, or the mother dies and he loses that attachment and in subsequent partnerships that turns into fear of loss of control.
"So, he had a bad childhood? People have choices.
"We do know girls who grow up in domestic violence situations are in higher risk of going into one themselves because they misrecognise these transactions of 'love'.
"But it's not [so much] women are choosing violent relationships, it's perpetrators that are screening them in.
"They are being chosen as victims.
"Other women say 'get stuffed, I'm not your bloody servant'.
Perpetrators can identify people who are going to be easier to get at.
"It's a combination of people with terrible backgrounds borne out of traumatic behaviour, with people who think 'I can get gratification and power'.
"There are lots of ways to be an abuser.
"They can enrich and lead a better life by being lazy, sending her out to work and putting debts in her name.
"There is also a cultural endorsement.
"There's a persistent view that men should be in charge of women.
"When you are picking your friends who normalise that view, you wouldn't pick people who say 'I hate the way you talk about your mother'.
"It's the land of the footballer. We do validate strong men who have assaulted women."
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