A Northern Territory police officer says he was following his training when he did not accept a “high-risk” Aboriginal woman back onto a government domestic violence support program three weeks before she was killed.
The inquest into the death of Ms Yunupingu had previously heard the Nhulunbuy woman endured more than 13 years of "torture" at the hands of Neil Marika until he fatally stabbed her in the heart in October 2018.
Ms Yunupingu was removed from the NT government's Nhulunbuy Family Safety Framework (FSF) in April 2018, designed to holistically address the needs of high-risk domestic violence victims.
The Nhulunbuy FSF chair re-referred her to the program once it became clear she and her previously incarcerated partner would be reuniting in Darwin, despite a domestic violence order.
The Darwin FSF chair, NT Police Detective Sergeant David Buganey, said he did not accept the referral as he had not received consent from Ms Yunupingu.
"You're saying you were trained that until you got the consent of the victim to be on the FSF, you couldn't include them, is that right?" counsel assisting the coroner Peggy Dwyer asked in Darwin on Thursday.
"That was my thought at the time," Det Sgt Buganey said.
"And that came from the training that you received from NT Police?" Dr Dwyer asked.
"Yes," Buganey responded.
All lawyers in the court agreed that the officer was "misinformed", and anyone could be accepted onto the FSF.
The officer told the inquest he did not speak to anybody from Nhulunbuy police who referred Ms Yunupingu to the Darwin FSF, though he did review the referral which categorised her as "high-risk".
"Did you come to understand that there involved about 13 years of violence from Mr Marika directed towards Ms Yunupingu?" Dr Dwyer asked.
"Yes, that's correct," Det Sgt Buganey said.
The former officer in charge said he knew Ms Yunupingu was referred to the FSF because she was about to reunite with Marika, that there was a domestic violence order against him and that he had a history of breaking those orders.
"Obviously, I accept that she was high-risk," Det Sgt Buganey said.
"At that point, I still didn't have a very good understanding of the framework as I believed at the time you needed consent to be accepted."
Det Sgt Buganey said the consent issue was the only hindrance to accepting Ms Yunupingu onto the Darwin FSF, but reports he had declined the referral were wrong.
"The matter was deferred, a case was still open for us to try to find her and get her consent," he told the inquest.
He said he emailed and called the women's shelter where he believed she was staying, and asked some of his "Aboriginal police officers" to go and find her.
"We have a statement from an Aboriginal police officer who was nominated who has no recollection of that, do you accept you may not have made that request?" Dr Dwyer asked.
"No, I do not ... I accept I should have made a record," Det Sgt Buganey said.
NT Police lawyer Ian Freckelton noted it was commonly accepted the FSF was less effective without consent, and that "perceived and understood major problems" arose if someone is not prepared to participate.
NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage spoke to that assertion.
"Sure but you couldn't come to those conclusions simply because you didn't have the consent ... it doesn't prevent them from being on the framework," she said.
Former Nhullunbuy FSF chair Senior Sergeant Daniel Whitfield-Jones told the inquest he believed Ms Yunupingu would be in "good hands" when he referred her to Darwin, but there was a "lacklustre" response.
"(Darwin FSF) did one or two checks of a location and found she wasn't there, so she was removed," he said.
"Shortly after she was killed ... I was so f***ing angry.
"Next I was briefing (her father) to tell him his daughter had been killed, our organisation effectively allowed it to happen."
The inquest continues on Friday.
