JUDGMENT OF PALMER J (Bail – redacted for publication) [1] On Friday 21 February 2020, a jury found Ms Karen Ruddelle not guilty of the murder of Mr Joseph Ngapera but, by a majority, guilty of his manslaughter. When deciding to grant Ms Ruddelle bail to her home, Justice Palmer (in [3]) noted the impact of social entrapment on Ms Ruddelle’s life. [3] Ms Ruddelle offered expert evidence from Ms Rachel Smith about cumulative social entrapment, of women experiencing intimate partner violence, in an ongoing pattern of harm with inadequate safety options. Ms Smith gave evidence of how overall patterns of coercive control, not just physical violence, can play out in a variety of ways across women’s lives. Ms Smith’s testimony noted that it was not just the impact of her violent partner’s behaviours that resulted in Ms Ruddelle experiencing social entrapment, but that the impact of these behaviours was magnified by the indifference of powerful institutions to the victim’s suffering, and further aggravated by the structural inequities of gender, class and racism. Evidence was provided to support this in Justice Palmer’s judgement at [2](a): (ii) Police call-outs in which Ms Ruddelle documented threats to kill and seriously injure, the responses to which did nothing to reduce his use of violence, despite previous convictions of violence against previous partners; (iii) A non-fatal strangulation that highlighted the potential for him to be able to kill her, reinforcing his threats; (iv) Safety strategies put in place by specialist services that were not operational when Ms Ruddelle sought to employ them. Indeed, evidence suggests that it is the indifference of institutions to which victims turn to for help that results in women becoming entrapped rather than misguided beliefs.45 Social entrapment requires a wider understanding of the power of institutions to support her help-seeking (or not), as well as the experience of multiple, intersecting forms of inequities on limiting the options available to her. Further, An account of the facts using an entrapment framework … endeavours to express the manner in which the abuse operates strategically and over time to close down the victim’s/survivor’s resistance because, at some point, the repetitive use of violence makes continued overt resistance too costly for the victim/survivor. Acknowledging the victim’s/survivor’s resistance exposes the full extent of the violence used by the perpetrator, but it also: … removes blame because the account of the individual’s resistance shows that she or he did not ‘put up with it’ or ‘let it happen’. It acknowledges their countless efforts to maintain their dignity.46,47