Three months before Kardell Lomas and her unborn baby were killed in a horrific act of feminicide in Ipswich, she stood in the office of a support service trying to get away from the perpetrator, who was with her in the building.

Over the previous year Lomas had tried many times to get help. She had disclosed to another support service that she was suffering from brutal violence – including strangulation and threats to kill – and her partner was stalking her to the bathroom and other places, including to those same support service appointments. After her disclosures the violence escalated – the danger was growing.

Lomas had shown up at appointments with injuries and was trying to leave her abuser, for the safety of herself and her unborn child. She was clearly high risk and her attacker had a violent history.

Despite police being called to their home several times by neighbours who heard him yelling at her, the two – victim and perpetrator – were seen by police as “just as bad as each other”.

But that day, in the support service office, Lomas passed a note to staff, asking them to call the police on her behalf. This was an enormous act of resistance and courage. She wanted to escape her perpetrator and go to her aunty’s house.

When police arrived, they took her killer aside and laughed and joked with him. They clearly knew him, and that he had a history of violence, but they were jovial and friendly. In comparison, Lomas was treated as though she was wasting their time. One officer told her abuser: “To be honest, mate, I’m not even sure why we got called either.”

In the bodycam footage of the callout, released to Guardian Australia by police, Kardell is withdrawn, fearful and cowering. The perpetrator yells abuse at her. Before she is led out of the agency and into the back of a police wagon, in which........

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