When the person charged is your own child: adolescent family violence, AVOs and what happens after you call the police

You called triple zero because your 15 year old put a hole in the wall and you were frightened. Or because he shoved you when you took the phone. Or because things had been escalating for months and that night you finally could not manage it on your own. What you wanted was for someone to come and calm it down. What you did not expect was that your child would be charged, that an order would be taken out naming you as the protected person and him as the defendant, and that a condition might now prevent him from living in his own home.

This happens in NSW more often than most parents realise, and almost nobody is warned about it before they pick up the phone. Adolescent family violence sits awkwardly across two systems – domestic violence law and youth justice – and the way those systems interact can produce outcomes that no parent in the house actually wanted.

What the law calls this, and why it is treated as domestic violence

There is no separate offence of adolescent family violence. What there is instead is a definition. The Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW) defines a domestic relationship extremely broadly under sections 5 and 6, and it plainly captures the relationship between a child and a parent, and between siblings. That means an assault, an intimidation, a threat or a property damage offence committed by a teenager against a family member in the home is a domestic violence offence, with all the consequences that flow from that classification.

Property damage is worth flagging specifically, because it is the most common trigger. Punching a wall, smashing a phone, kicking a door off its hinges – parents often describe this as damage rather than violence. NSW law does not draw that line, as our article on when damaging property is treated as domestic violence sets out. Damage in a domestic setting is charged as a domestic violence offence, and it engages the same mandatory machinery as an assault.

The part parents do not see coming

Once police form the view that a domestic violence offence has been committed, their obligations under the Act are not discretionary in the way most people assume. Section 27 requires an application for an ADVO in defined circumstances, and section 40 obliges the court to make an interim order where a person is charged with a serious offence, unless satisfied it is not required. Section 39 then obliges the court to make a final order on a plea or finding of guilt for a serious offence – and, as the Judicial Commission notes in its Local Court Bench Book, that obligation applies even where the matter is dealt with under section 10 without conviction.

The practical effect is that the parent who called for help becomes a protected person on a court order, whether or not that is what they wanted. And because section 35 allows conditions excluding a defendant from premises, a magistrate may make an order that keeps a child out of the family home. Where the young person has nowhere obviously safe to go, that is a serious problem, and it is one that research has repeatedly identified as a weakness in the way protection orders operate in this specific context.

Parents in this position often say some version of the same thing: I wanted him settled down, not removed. Understanding that the system does not automatically read it that way is the first step to influencing the outcome.

The context that almost always sits underneath

This behaviour rarely appears out of nowhere, and courts increasingly know it. Australian research on adolescent-to-parent violence consistently finds high rates of prior exposure to domestic violence in the home, childhood trauma or maltreatment, disability, and untreated mental health problems among young people who use violence against family members. A NSW linkage study of adolescents proceeded against by police for adolescent-to-parent offences found that around 63 per cent had contact with a mental health service before turning 19, with exposure to parental intimate partner violence and parental substance use dominant on the pathway to a diagnosis.

That picture is echoed in NSW service data. ANROWS analysis using the NSW Human Services Dataset found that around a third of all reports to the NSW Child Protection Helpline raise concerns about a child experiencing domestic and family violence, frequently alongside parental mental health or substance use issues. NSW Police make the same connection in their public material on children living with domestic and family violence, noting that some children respond to what they have witnessed by copying it.

None of this excuses violence, and it does not make anyone in the household safe on its own. But it matters enormously to how a court should approach a young defendant, and it is precisely the material that goes missing when a family turns up to court without representation.

Diversion: the most important thing to get right

NSW has a statutory diversion scheme for young people, and it is the single biggest lever in these matters. The Young Offenders Act 1997 (NSW) establishes a graduated hierarchy – warnings for the least serious matters, then formal cautions, then youth justice conferences, with court as the last resort. NSW Police explain the same structure in their own guidance for families on the young offenders scheme.

The conditions matter. Under the Act, a caution or conference generally requires the young person to admit the offence and consent to being dealt with that way, and there are provisions governing entitlement, who may give a caution, and the time limits for holding a conference. A youth justice conference brings the young person together with those affected to agree an outcome plan, which might include an apology, counselling, a program or reparation. Once a caution is given, no further proceedings may be taken for that offence.

The reason this is so important is that diversion keeps a child out of the court system entirely. BOCSAR data shows the alternative clearly enough: as at March 2026, roughly 80 per cent of young people in detention in NSW were on remand awaiting the outcome of their matters rather than serving a sentence, and Aboriginal young people remain heavily overrepresented. Whether a matter is diverted or charged is not a technicality. It is often the whole outcome.

What a parent can and cannot control

Parents ask two questions constantly. Can I withdraw the complaint? And can I ask for the order to be dropped?

On the first, no – not in the sense people mean. Once police have taken action, the decision to continue belongs to the prosecution. A parent who says they no longer wish to proceed will be listened to, and their views are relevant, but the matter does not simply evaporate. On the second, a parent who is a protected person can apply to vary or revoke an order, but where the order is police-initiated and a protected person is a child, section 72B requires leave of the court, and leave must not be granted if the court considers the application would significantly increase the risk of harm to the child. Any application to vary a police order must also be served on the Commissioner of Police under section 72C.

Where there are younger siblings in the home, this gets more complicated again. Orders frequently extend to protect other children in the household, and under section 74 an order protecting several people cannot be varied in relation to a protected person aged 16 or over without that person consenting.

The Children’s Court is a different environment

Matters involving defendants under 18 are generally dealt with in the Children’s Court, which operates under its own principles and its own legislative framework. Publication of identifying information about children involved in AVO proceedings is prohibited under section 45 of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act, and specific procedures apply to evidence from vulnerable persons.

Duration also differs. The default period for an ADVO is two years for an adult defendant but one year where the defendant is under 18, and section 79A(3) requires a court determining duration to consider the impact on a defendant who was under 18 when the application was first made. Those provisions exist because Parliament recognised that an order which is a manageable inconvenience for an adult can be a much heavier thing for a 14 year old.

Where mental health and disability come in

Given how frequently these matters involve undiagnosed or untreated conditions, the mental health provisions are often the most productive path. A properly prepared application under the mental health diversion provisions can result in a matter being dismissed on conditions requiring treatment rather than punishment, as our guide to section 32 and section 14 mental health applications explains. That requires a report, a treatment plan, and someone to put it together properly – which almost never happens without a lawyer.

The results are achievable. Our case study on securing safety for a child without a conviction being recorded shows what a carefully balanced outcome looks like: protection where protection is needed, without a young person carrying a criminal record out of a family crisis.

What to do in the first week

Get legal advice before the first court date, not on the morning of it. Write down the history while it is fresh, including the triggers, any diagnoses, any services already involved and any previous exposure to violence in the home. Gather school reports, GP or paediatrician records, NDIS documentation and any counselling records. If a young person is entitled to be dealt with by way of caution or conference, that case has to be made to police and to the prosecutor – it does not happen automatically.

Above all, be careful what your child says. NSW Police guidance on domestic and family violence recognises the seriousness of getting the assessment right in the first instance, and their Domestic and Family Violence Guidelines set out how these investigations are conducted. A frightened teenager explaining himself at a police station without a lawyer, or an interview arranged before anyone has thought about diversion, can close off options that would otherwise have been available.

Contact Us

If your child has been charged over something that happened at home, or an ADVO application has been made naming you as the protected person and your own child as the defendant, you are not in a situation you can safely navigate alone. The decisions taken in the first fortnight – whether the matter is diverted, what conditions are sought, whether an exclusion condition is imposed, what material the court sees about your child – shape everything that follows.

At National Criminal Lawyers, we act for young people and their families in domestic violence matters and AVO proceedings across NSW, including in the Children’s Court. We know how to push for diversion, how to argue against exclusion conditions that would leave a child with nowhere to live, and how to put the full context in front of the court.

Call us at 1800 CRIM LAW for a free consultation. Help us help you understand your situation and get you the best outcome possible.