Why was child-killer John Edwards, who had a violent history, able to hire a PI to spy on his family?

In December 2016, John Edwards hired a private investigator to follow his estranged wife, Olga. They were to track her at home and at work, to establish if she was seeing anyone new.

Edwards had met Olga in Russia when he was 50 and she was 19. They had two children together in Australia, but their marriage broke down as he became increasingly controlling and angry. He had a “propensity for domestic violence and a history of psychological and physical assaults stretching back to the early 1990s”, a coronial inquest would later hear , and apprehended violence orders dating back to 1993.

A year and a half after he paid for his wife to be surveilled, the 68-year-old retired financial planner entered Olga’s home in Sydney’s Hills district and murdered their son and daughter – Jack, 15, and Jennifer, 13. Afterwards, he killed himself.

He died with a piece of paper in his top left pocket that appeared to describe Jennifer’s afternoon movements from her high school to her Pennant Hills home.

It emerged during the inquest into the deaths of Jack and Jennifer that Edwards had a history of using private investigators. He also hired one in 2010 to track down the current name and address of his older daughter, according to the coroner’s report. They had been estranged since she was a teenager after he subjected her mother, a previous partner, to a terrifying campaign of abuse.

He then showed up at an open house at the daughter’s home, giving a fake name to the real estate agent.

“[She] felt scared and physically ill after she realised her father had been in her home and took to leaving the house during the day, until her husband came home from work,” the report states. Edwards later approached her at her daughter’s preschool, and she reported him to the police.

Lack of scrutiny on PIs and family violence

In the years since the Edwards inquest concluded in 2021, the use of private investigators in situations where there might be family violence and stalking concerns or where there are AVOs in place has gone largely unscrutinised – in an industry with few obligations to screen either clients or targets for such concerns, meaning investigators may operate unaware of these risks.

There are currently 1,769 private investigator licences active in New South Wales, according to NSW police, but no requirement to check clients for AVOs or any mandated training around family violence risks.

Eighteen licences have been revoked since 2019, according to NSW police answers to a question on notice from the NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson. These include 13 for convictions related to an indictable offence (which could include crimes such as assault, theft, fraud and drug offences) and two due to breaches of the Surveillance Devices Act.

Separately, there were 32 complaints about private investigators in that period, but none had their licence removed following an investigation.

Guardian Australia has identified cases around Australia where private investigators were used to track down addresses when there have been family violence orders.

There is the paternal grandmother who hired a private investigator to track down her daughter-in-law’s address, per a 2024 family court judgment, despite the existence of an apprehended domestic violence order between the parents for the mother’s protection.

And the man with a 12-month apprehended domestic violence order who hired a PI to locate his former partner’s new residence – behaviour he later acknowledged, according to a 2021 family court judgment, was “inappropriate and caused the mother distress”.

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In Queensland, a man was convicted in 2018 of attempted murder of a baby after he tracked down a woman he was obsessed with, broke into her home and used a knife to attack her and her 10-month-old baby son. He also pleaded guilty to wounding, grievous bodily harm and break and enter.

The man used a private investigator to track down the victim. “He engaged one such investigator under the ruse that she had allegedly defrauded him of about $200,000 and he needed her address so his lawyers could pursue her,” according to court documents.

Most Australian states don’t have a requirement for private investigators to check clients’ domestic violence histories - although Queensland’s laws are set to change in 2025 to address this issue.

‘There’s no real screening process’

A 2021 report from the NSW domestic violence death review response team (DVDRT) found that a third of the 245 abusers they examined stalked their victim during the relationship, including by hiring a private investigator.

In NSW, the police force’s Security Licensing and Enforcement Directorate (SLED) is responsible for licensing private investigators. But the DVDRT report also found that the certificate in investigative services that applicants are required to complete for a licence “does not include any reference to appropriately dealing with clients who may be victims or perpetrators of domestic violence”.

Related: John Edwards inquest unravels questions at the heart of father’s killings

“The NSW Police Force is committed to ensuring only eligible and suitable persons are granted and retain Class 2E licences,” a spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for BuildSkills Australia, which developed the certification, said that while they had not received feedback on this issue, it would engage with industry and stakeholders to see if there are relevant changes that could be made.

“Domestic and family violence is a scourge on society and appropriate training around this topic is important, no matter where you work,” the spokesperson said.

Danny Mikati, a former NSW police officer and the director of Precision Integrity Services Sydney, said his private investigations company has been approached by and refused clients looking to track down former partners.

“There’s no real screening process enforced by any regulator in terms of how we pick a client,” he said.

His company subscribes to services that allow them to check for current AVOs before taking on a client, but he believes that access should be provided to all people with a PI licence. “There needs to be a duty that you need to access records, but then the government should make those records available to us for free,” Mikati said.

Bridget Harris, director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, cautioned that such lists wouldn’t capture all family violence offenders, as this behaviour is under-reported and under-recorded. She believes investigators, as well as police and judicial officers, should also be given training about the risk of their services being used as part of a pattern of abuse.

While the use of private investigators by family violence perpetrators is not well understood, Harris suggested access would be limited by cost – many more perpetrators use technology-facilitated methods to surveil their partners, such as account sharing and phone tracking.

Around Australia, private investigation services are also hired to assist victim-survivors of family violence with assessing their personal safety and surveillance risk, as well as in family law settings.

While some of these service providers understand both the technology and family violence, and are trauma-informed, others are not, Harris said. “There are some people though – I’ve talked to survivors, and they’ve clearly missed a lot. And they’ve cost a lot of money. They give that false sense of security, which is just really awful.”

She also pointed out that not everyone can afford these services. “Ultimately, I think responses that aren’t financially accessible … are limited and often problematic.”

‘Why aren’t we training investigators?’

Some private investigators advertising online specifically promote their expertise online in tracking down “cheating spouses” and providing “peace of mind” for those worried about whether their partner is seeing other people.

Several of these companies also sell spyware, including hidden cameras and trackers. A 2024 investigation into the criminal use of tracking and surveillance devices by the NSW Crime Commission examined the sale of almost 6,000 devices over about 12 months. It found that 25% of customers had a recorded history of domestic violence.

More than 120 of the 3,147 customers it examined were apprehended violence order defendants when they made the purchase, including some who purchased a tracking device in the days after an AVO was enforced. It identified one instance where a tracking device was sold to a customer who had been charged on 13 occasions with contravening an AVO.

The NSW Crime Commission’s report particularly noted the potential risk of the private investigation and “spy store” industries, and that PIs have no requirement to do due diligence on customers before providing services or selling spyware. “In fact, it is likely some private investigators remain wilfully blind to their client’s criminal involvement and intentions,” it concluded.

NSW’s crime commissioner, Michael Barnes, said he personally finds the marketing of spyware as a means to track romantic partners “abhorrent”.

“We were shocked to find that the high proportion of those who had purchased [spyware devices] were also in those databases as serious DV offenders,” he said. “That’s why our recommendations make suggestions to tighten up that industry, [and] to license the sale of the devices.”

Stephen Wilson, the chief executive of Protective Group, said it was “unethical” for investigators to also be selling spyware. He’s worked with family violence victim-survivors to assess their risk and find devices – from car trackers and smartphone spyware to hidden cameras. On occasions, the use of physical surveillance has also been a likely threat.

Related: Maria’s niece sought a DVO to protect her. Her ex-partner went out and bought an axe

“We’re now teaching hairdressers around the risk,” he said. “Why aren’t we training investigators? Why aren’t we training them on family violence, how to identify it, how to respond to it?”

“We know that abusers are systematically looking for ways to thwart the system, and we urge police and magistrates to be aware of this,” said Karen Bentley, the chief executive of Wesnet, a peak body for family violence services. “Any regulation of [private investigators] should consider the safety-first principle we need to prioritise the safety of victim-survivors.

“There’s no legitimate reason to be selling spyware in the domestic market. There is none.”

The state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan, who investigated the deaths of Jack and Jennifer, described their deaths as “preventable” at the conclusion of her inquiry in 2021, noting errors made by firearms registry staff, police and the family court.

“It is difficult to imagine the pain that Olga felt when she returned home from work on 5 July 2018 to find police at her home and [realise] her two children who she loved dearly had been killed,” O’Sullivan said at the time.

Olga, who had taken to sleeping in her son’s bed, would kill herself five months after the deaths of her children.

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 988 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org