Anti-Corruption Watchdog Issues Rare Apology to Abuse Victim

Victoria's Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission took an almost unheard-of step this week by publicly apologizing to a domestic violence survivor it failed to protect.

Jana Katerinskaja first reported serious abuse by her partner, a senior police officer, to Victoria Police in 2018. When she discovered the investigation was being conducted by her abuser's colleagues, and that officers had leaked her escape plan to his friends, she turned to IBAC for help.

Instead of protecting her, IBAC referred her complaint back to Victoria Police not once, but twice. The second investigation was assigned to an officer in the same division as both her perpetrator and the officers under investigation.

A 2022 report by the Victorian Inspectorate found IBAC's handling so serious and the consequences so devastating that it demanded public acknowledgment. The inspector noted that the central issue—police unwillingness to act against their own in family violence cases—was effectively overlooked.

For two years, IBAC insisted it had done nothing wrong. But this week, Commissioner Victoria Elliott told a parliamentary committee that IBAC had adopted a "highly adversarial" approach and made multiple inaccurate and misleading assertions about its interactions with Katerinskaja.

"Not only did this not occur, but our approach left you feeling attacked, trampled, gaslighted and silenced by us," IBAC wrote in a separate email to Katerinskaja. "We deeply regret the lack of insight and compassion we showed."

Katerinskaja's lawyer Jeremy King called the apology "as rare as hen's teeth," noting that IBAC rarely admits failure. He credited Katerinskaja's tenacity and intelligence for securing this unprecedented result.

Why This Inspires

This apology matters because it breaks a cycle of institutions protecting themselves instead of victims. Katerinskaja spent years fighting not just her abuser, but the systems meant to protect her.

Her persistence forced an integrity body to live up to its name. Commissioner Elliott's acknowledgment that IBAC should have explicitly addressed conflicts of interest and actively monitored the investigation sets a new standard for oversight.

Katerinskaja says the apology shows "strong leadership and improving culture" at IBAC. While she and her lawyer emphasize that urgent reforms are still needed, this moment proves that even the most resistant institutions can be held accountable when survivors refuse to be silenced.

One woman's courage just changed how Victoria's most powerful watchdog sees its responsibility to protect the vulnerable.