Rachel* was sitting on her bed, recovering from a blow to her face.
Moments earlier, she had confronted her partner about his surfacing morphine addiction, pleading with him to stop before their baby was born.
"He looks me in the eye, and he goes, 'I dare you to say that again,'" she recalled.
She did, and he punched her.
"I remember seeing this stream of blood that just comes flying out of my nose," she said.
"He's grabbed a bag of frozen peas and gone, 'here, put this on your nose'.
"He just seemed so genuinely apologetic."
It could be months between assaults.
In those periods, he was again the "friendly and kind" next-door neighbour she fell in love with — the one her children from her previous relationship took to.
"He was good with them, so that was a main thing for me that actually impressed me," she said.
She didn't know that he would ultimately cost her her family.
'You can't get rid of me'
Over time, the "happy periods" got shorter, his behaviour crueller, and police callouts more frequent.
"I told him: 'I was done, I don't love you. I am not in love with you anymore. This is never going to work,'" she said.
He threatened to kill her and burn down her house in Hobart's outer suburbs.
She said Tasmania Police became aware of his plan to murder Rachel with a tomahawk — and told her about it.
"By the time you realise you need to get out, you actually are trapped," she said.
"They'll take your life before you have the power to get your own life back."
Rachel took out multiple family violence orders (FVO), but they didn't stop him.
One time she returned from the police station to find him sitting on her couch, having broken into her house through a window.
"To let me know you can't get rid of me, I'm not going anywhere," she said.
What Rachel didn't know was when police responded to her calls for help, they became mandatory reporters and notified child protection of the violence in the household.
She said this led to the child safety authorities removing her children from the harmful environment — but also from her.
"But at the end of the day, they only had to give my children and me somewhere to live, where he couldn't find us, and we would have been alright."
Tasmania Police said when they attend a family violence incident, all affected children are recorded on the Family Violence Management system, which triggers an automatic notification to child safety services.
"It ensures that early intervention and supports can be put in place wherever possible in accordance with the objectives of Tasmania's integrated criminal justice response to family violence, Safe at Home," a spokesperson said in a statement.
"Police encourage anyone who witnesses or is affected by family violence to speak out and report the matter."
Department removes the children
Prior to her five children's removal in 2017, child safety officers visited Rachel.
When she asked if they would take her children, she said they responded with no.
Rachel insists she has never harmed her children and tried to shelter them from the brutality he imposed on her.
"A lot of the abuse was when the kids were at school, thank God, so they were spared from that," she said.
"There was one time, two of the children were in their room cleaning, but instead of cleaning they were bickering, and he just banged their heads together."
Rachel said the Department of Communities was aware of her desperate attempts to make the violence stop — the evidence being in the "numerous" FVOs and her application for shelter and public housing.
"The judge couldn't control him, the prison couldn't control him, the police couldn't control him, yet they somehow expect me, the victim, to," she said.
Children separated to different homes
When the children were gone, Rachel felt "dead inside".
She found out her five children, who initially stayed in the same home, had been separated and sent to four different placements.
Frustrated and heartbroken, Rachel said she immediately started figuring out how to get them back.
She was referred to the Doorways to Parenting — a support group for families trying to regain their parental rights run by the Salvation Army.
Her case worker Erica Heffernan said in her view Rachel and her children should not have been separated.
"She's done everything in her power to keep the father away from the children," she said.
The Department of Communities told the ABC it could not discuss individual cases but insisted the removal of any child from their family was "an option of last resort".
"[It] only occurs when the risk has been assessed as too high for the children to remain in the custody of their parent(s)," the spokesperson said.
The department said it engaged families with "a range of services and supports" to help them work towards reunification, including drug and alcohol services, psychologists and parenting programs.
Ms Heffernan said in her experience child safety assessments had changed since Rachel's children were removed — with the focus now on strength-based parenting — and anyone today under similar circumstances would likely be able to keep their children.
For Rachel, that's of little solace.
It took 13 months for her first child to be returned, with another two joining her last year.
Two of her children are still living with foster carers, and Rachel said the department had advised they won't be coming back.
"No, no way. I know my children.
"There's currently no communication whatsoever, they've been completely isolated from their family, and as a mother, I feel so powerless to be able to bring them home."
*Name has been changed for legal reasons.
