Applicants will be asked to provide information in their application form about how and when they reported the violent act to police. The FAS uses this information to contact police. The FAS requests evidence from police about the violent act, which may include information about the victim's injury. Evidence requirements are explained further below.
There is more than one way to report a violent act to police and satisfy the FAS police reporting requirement. The victim or someone else can report the violent act to police by:
- attending a police station
- reporting directly to a police officer
- reporting online through a recognised Online Reporting function
- phoning 000, or
- phoning the Police Assistance Line.
If an applicant is seeking assistance for related acts, the mandatory reporting requirement applies to all criminal acts relevant to the application. If a victim has reported some criminal acts to police but not others, they must show in their application why they have special circumstances for not reporting those criminal acts to police.
Applicants can still include information in an application about other criminal acts that have not been reported to police where they are not relevant to a particular type of assistance. Applicants may choose to provide this information to the FAS for further context of their experiences.
If an applicant thought that the criminal act had been reported to police, but police do not have a record of the report, the FAS may notify the applicant of this and provide them with an opportunity to provide further information or evidence showing they reported the criminal act to police.
Police reporting - supporting evidence requirements |
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Applicants must provide the following information in the application form:
Applicants may want to consider providing additional documents to show the violent act has been reported to police. These documents could include:
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