Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives
Speaker 1: detective sy aside of life. The average person has never
Speaker 1: exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat with Anna
Speaker 1: koot Strata. In part one, we discussed the emotional and
Speaker 1: physical abuse and suffered as a fifteen year old schoolgirl
Speaker 1: by her boyfriend. In part two, Anna shares what it
Speaker 1: was like going through the court system and what actually
Speaker 1: happened at court, and the lessons she learned about life.
Speaker 1: We also talked in detail about the inspirational work she's
Speaker 1: doing now as a co founder of the Survivor Hub,
Speaker 1: where she and the team help empower people impacted by
Speaker 1: sexual assault. I got to say I walked away from
Speaker 1: the chat with Anna with a greater understanding of the
Speaker 1: impact of crime and quite inspired by the work she's doing.
Speaker 1: Have a listen, I think you will be too, Anna
Speaker 1: kout Strata, Welcome back to part two of my Catchkillers.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to ask a favor, and I don't
Speaker 1: normally ask favors on the podcast, but can you put
Speaker 1: in a good word to your father about coming on
Speaker 1: the podcast. I've followed his career and I think it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: And the people that don't know of your father, his
Speaker 1: backstory is that he spent three years in prison, and
Speaker 1: I think he's supposed to boy for make mistakes, change
Speaker 1: your life and rehabilitation. But we shouldn't be judged by
Speaker 1: one thing that happens in life.
Speaker 3: And Dad always says, He's always said this to me forever,
Speaker 3: and it's not his quote, but he always says, you know,
Speaker 3: we should never judge somebody by the worst thing they
Speaker 3: ever did. And I've taken that with me through everything,
Speaker 3: you know, through my social work and through people that
Speaker 3: I meet and when I'm wronged and you know, things
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: Well, for what that's worth, I've watched the way he's
Speaker 1: answered questions about you know, he's why he was in
Speaker 1: prison related to drugs when he was very young, and
Speaker 1: that he certainly redeemed himself. And I think he's a
Speaker 1: great story high up in the public servant and the
Speaker 1: roles that he's had and the criticism and they say
Speaker 1: has come out and say well what's he doing there,
Speaker 1: and the amount of people that support him, and the
Speaker 1: type of type of work he's done. I think it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating story. So can you put in a little
Speaker 1: word for yes, okay, because I've looked for years at
Speaker 1: getting him, so that would be great. Anyway, back to
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. In part one, you told us
Speaker 1: that you gave us an understanding of what happened with
Speaker 1: the relationship with the person you assume from a fifteen
Speaker 1: year old and the abuse that you suffered at this
Speaker 1: person's hands. You've told your parents about it, and then
Speaker 1: there was the reason that you went to the police,
Speaker 1: and the police had got in contact with you in
Speaker 1: relation to another matter, but that sort of escalated from there.
Speaker 1: Then we just touched on the court matter and going
Speaker 1: through court. And you also made reference to the fact
Speaker 1: that the healing process took years, because a lot of
Speaker 1: that time was dealt with after you've provided statements to
Speaker 1: the police and reported the crimes against you. The court
Speaker 1: process takes so long? Do you want to tell us
Speaker 1: about the court process?
Speaker 3: So I reported pretty soon after having left him for
Speaker 3: the last time, and I, like probably most people who
Speaker 3: have no experience in legal systems and court processes, thought, oh,
Speaker 3: it might be like a few months. The police will
Speaker 3: obviously have to investigate, they'll gather it all up, they'll
Speaker 3: give it to a lawyer. The lawyer will have it
Speaker 3: in court, might take a week or two something like that.
Speaker 3: Wrap it up done. It'll take under a year for sure.
Speaker 3: And then no, I think it took almost two years
Speaker 3: just to get to court, and which is quick. That's
Speaker 3: actually very quick. I know that I'm lucky for it
Speaker 3: being you know, two years. And then it was in
Speaker 3: court for a month, maybe a little bit longer. And
Speaker 3: then he appealed the one guilty verdict, which meant me
Speaker 3: to go back to court. The judges had to make
Speaker 3: a decision for you know, I think it was a
Speaker 3: few months, at least six months or something like that,
Speaker 3: and then they came their decision, which was the appeal
Speaker 3: was not successful and the you know, conviction was upheld,
Speaker 3: and then we were worried that he might try and
Speaker 3: a peel it again to a higher court. But thankfully
Speaker 3: he wasn't allowed to or didn't. I don't know if
Speaker 3: it was because he wasn't allowed, but he wouldn't have
Speaker 3: been allowed anyway. And that whole entire process was at
Speaker 3: least three years, could have been close to four or
Speaker 3: five or something like that by the very end of it.
Speaker 3: Like I was at university the whole you know, I'd
Speaker 3: done half my degree by the time I was done
Speaker 3: in court, which is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: Well, I got a sense of your thoughts of the
Speaker 1: court process. We've I went through the transcripts when you
Speaker 1: gave evidence that the Royal Commission into Domestic Family and
Speaker 1: Sexual Violence in South Australia, you're asked the question when
Speaker 1: you're giving evidence at the Royal Commission that you were
Speaker 1: asked about whether the criminal justice process present the barrier
Speaker 1: to recovery from domestic family and sexual violence, and this
Speaker 1: is how you answered it. Yeah, I think it can
Speaker 1: present a huge barrier to healing. And my experience of
Speaker 1: the criminal justice process was it put my healing on
Speaker 1: the hold for several years because become so wrapped up
Speaker 1: in the process and in basically just staying live that
Speaker 1: you don't really have much time to be healing and
Speaker 1: to be not living in what I considered to be
Speaker 1: fight or flight. It's we got it wrong, haven't we.
Speaker 1: Like I know, you've got to have the checks and
Speaker 1: balances in the courts, and we've got to have the
Speaker 1: serial system, and it takes time. But the impact it
Speaker 1: has on victims. And I've sat at this table on
Speaker 1: the podcast speaking to so many people that have the
Speaker 1: same complaints. How long the court process process takes? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you've just described the impact it has had on you,
Speaker 1: or had had on you whilst you were waiting. How
Speaker 1: many charges did it relate related to your manner?
Speaker 2: There were five?
Speaker 1: Right, okay? And my understanding, I'm just basing this on
Speaker 1: on what I've read that he was convicted of one
Speaker 1: of the offenses of serious assault from from your your
Speaker 1: complaints giving evidence at court? How is that? And how
Speaker 1: long were you in the witness box forum? And I
Speaker 1: see you smile.
Speaker 3: It was undescribably horrific, Like there are actually just not
Speaker 3: words in the you know, English language that exists that
Speaker 3: can describe how horrific the court process was for me.
Speaker 3: I gave evidence over a series of days. I can't
Speaker 3: remember now, it was at least three days, but it
Speaker 3: also included a a Friday off I think because the
Speaker 3: judge had another matter, and then a weekend and then
Speaker 3: came back on the Monday, so it was I think
Speaker 3: it was three days that week, and then a three
Speaker 3: day weekend and then back for more evidence. So it
Speaker 3: was just you can imagine what that weekend's like. I
Speaker 3: didn't get out of bed, I didn't eat. I was
Speaker 3: really lucky at that time to manage to eat one almand.
Speaker 3: My mum was like, okay, let's think of something small
Speaker 3: and like, you know, we'll.
Speaker 2: Fill you up.
Speaker 3: And she was like some almonds, like some nuts, and
Speaker 3: like I would eat an almond and I would feel
Speaker 3: sick immediately, and I was trying to drink like water,
Speaker 3: and I could hardly manage anything.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't couldn't get out.
Speaker 1: Of bed, and that that reaction, like emotional and physically,
Speaker 1: just what was it about court that traumatized you so much.
Speaker 3: There's a famous Judith Hermann quote, and she's a therapist
Speaker 3: in America, and she talks about if we were intentionally
Speaker 3: to design like a system, a court system that would
Speaker 3: provoke symptoms of distress, and basically the worst that you
Speaker 3: could do, it would look how we do it right now.
Speaker 3: It's the perfect storm of all of these really horrible
Speaker 3: features combining together to make a really, really traumatic and
Speaker 3: lengthy process. And part of that was, you know, I
Speaker 3: have to get up in court in front of a
Speaker 3: room full of strangers. Whether I'm via AVL or not,
Speaker 3: I know that I'm speaking to a room full of strangers.
Speaker 3: I tell them about the worst things that ever happened
Speaker 3: to me. And then I have to, you know, I
Speaker 3: have to be called names, told that I'm lying, you know,
Speaker 3: told that I'm unreliable. I was accused of being sexually promiscuous.
Speaker 3: I was accused of enjoying the things that some of
Speaker 3: the acts that he'd done to me.
Speaker 2: I was asked what I was wearing.
Speaker 3: I was told it couldn't have happened, it's impossible that
Speaker 3: it would have happened. I was told that I wanted it,
Speaker 3: that I enjoyed it like it was just completely torn
Speaker 3: down and I was up there basically like bearing my soul.
Speaker 3: It's what it feels like, you're sharing something that you know.
Speaker 3: I hadn't told anybody else. I hadn't told my parents'
Speaker 3: level of detail. The only people who knew that were
Speaker 3: the police that took my statement, the one police officer
Speaker 3: who took my statement who was a woman as well.
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, I'm telling all of
Speaker 3: these people in a courtroom and the person who's balanced
Speaker 3: against me is sitting there. Was just horrific, and it
Speaker 3: went for so many days, and you have to be
Speaker 3: so completely on top of everything that you say, and
Speaker 3: you know, there was one thing where I was I
Speaker 3: had to count something. There was I don't want to
Speaker 3: say too much, but I had to count something, and
Speaker 3: I got it wrong. I thought there were thirty of them,
Speaker 3: but there were nine of them. And it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's a feature of a house, like it's just something
Speaker 3: that you don't even think about. And it would be
Speaker 3: like if I asked you exactly how many meters tall
Speaker 3: as your door or something like that, right, nobody could
Speaker 3: answer that. You know, draw the pattern of the carpet
Speaker 3: that you have at home. I couldn't even do that
Speaker 3: because even though I look at it every day, I
Speaker 3: look at it every day, so I'm not thinking about it.
Speaker 3: And then you get you know, you come up and
Speaker 3: they go, are you sure about this Smith's coops Tratta? Well, yes,
Speaker 3: to the best of my recollection. Well, this photo here
Speaker 3: shows you that you're a liar and that you've deliberately
Speaker 3: lied about this.
Speaker 1: I'm hearing you. It's triggering me. It offends me so
Speaker 1: much the way that that is approached, and it's about
Speaker 1: discrediting you. Whether it's in front of a jury or
Speaker 1: the magistrate. That's just creating doubts, like how many lights
Speaker 1: have you got in the house, or how many lights
Speaker 1: are in the house. I don't know, ten, maybe twelve?
Speaker 1: Well you said ten, is it ten or twelve? That type,
Speaker 1: and we show you.
Speaker 2: It's actually fifteen. So you must be a liar.
Speaker 1: I know you're looking at the court system, and because
Speaker 1: of your experience, you look at it. But we've got
Speaker 1: the adversarial system. But we've got it wrong in some way,
Speaker 1: isn't it. It's just such a it's not about a
Speaker 1: search for the truth. It's about who can perform better.
Speaker 1: And there is a theater about the courts. And I
Speaker 1: constantly hear victims when they're giving evidence in court how
Speaker 1: traumatizing it is, and how you describe that, Like, I've
Speaker 1: been the court and I've been the accused, I've been
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, I've been the witness. I've been in courts
Speaker 1: in every aspect and the pressure that's on you, and
Speaker 1: I'm what would be called the professional witness, because that's
Speaker 1: what I did in my career. But it was intimidating.
Speaker 1: It It's an intimidating environment. Here you are, as a
Speaker 1: young girl, been through something very traumatic. They speak in
Speaker 1: a language it is hard to understand, and I think
Speaker 1: solicitors often do that just to justify the money that
Speaker 1: they get. They use words and try my.
Speaker 3: Learned friend, learned friend, Yeah, I had more nightmares about
Speaker 3: the defense lawyer than I did about the person who's
Speaker 3: valanced against me.
Speaker 2: It just couldn't stop thinking about him. I was so
Speaker 2: scared of him.
Speaker 3: And just like as you were saying it, it felt
Speaker 3: like it was a game for him, like it was
Speaker 3: really casual for him. This was just his everyday job,
Speaker 3: and he gets thousands of our dollars an hour. He's
Speaker 3: a really well paid, very senior barrister, and it was
Speaker 3: just nothing to him. He hardly made eye contact with me.
Speaker 3: He accused me of lying, and the person whose advanced
Speaker 3: was just sitting up there in the box just absolutely
Speaker 3: quite didn't.
Speaker 2: Have to say a word.
Speaker 1: Defense barristers justify that they're just doing the job, and
Speaker 1: I support. We need the checks and balances, you know,
Speaker 1: if someone makes an allegation that it's got to be
Speaker 1: be proven. I've had opportunity where I get to speak
Speaker 1: to law students and different environments, and I always say,
Speaker 1: don't lose humanity, because that seems to be what's lost.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think there's you know, there's a difference
Speaker 3: between respectfully asking people questions and you know, finding out
Speaker 3: because everyone has a version of the events, right, Like
Speaker 3: the statement that I gave is not exactly the truth, right,
Speaker 3: it's my truth, and it's the closest to.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 3: It's my memory, and it's my memory during trauma. And
Speaker 3: we know that memories pause like they pause creating during trauma. So,
Speaker 3: to the very best of my recollection, this is what happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the answers are, But I just
Speaker 1: my simplistic view of it is that we've just got
Speaker 1: to keep you humanity in the courts.
Speaker 3: Because it's an important role. And there are people who
Speaker 3: are falsely accused of things all the time. They are
Speaker 3: average and women who are falsely accused of having perpetrated
Speaker 3: domestic violence, and they deserve the very best lawyer that
Speaker 3: will support them and make sure that they don't go
Speaker 3: to jail for something that they haven't done. And it
Speaker 3: happens all the time that you know, people victims are
Speaker 3: mis identified as being perpetrators, and so that it's a
Speaker 3: really important role. And I agree, and I know that
Speaker 3: it needs to exist. And I kept telling myself in court,
Speaker 3: this is a really important jack in balance in the
Speaker 3: criminal justice process. This is really important. And my dad's
Speaker 3: really good with those sorts of things, and he would
Speaker 3: say that to me, you know, he would say, this
Speaker 3: is really important because this is how it works well.
Speaker 1: He understood the well understands the court system. And I
Speaker 1: was interested hearing your mother say, and your mother, who's
Speaker 1: the pressure of a federal politician that she faces on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, And she said she gave evidence at
Speaker 1: the at the court matter for three hours and she
Speaker 1: came home and she's never felt so traumatized. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you're spending three maybe more days yea in spots,
Speaker 1: But that gives an indication of just what the stakes
Speaker 1: are in court and the pressure and the environment.
Speaker 3: You start to even wonder if your name is your name,
Speaker 3: Like everything feels like you're telling a lie, Like you know,
Speaker 3: I'll say, you know, miss Anna Koutstrotta, and then I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, is that even my name? Like it
Speaker 3: was just I actually felt like I was this nasty,
Speaker 3: manipulative person sent up there lying like I was convinced,
Speaker 3: you know, not for very long, but that I was
Speaker 3: I must be not telling the truth because this really
Speaker 3: really smart, well paid Matt is telling me that I'm
Speaker 3: lying and that I'm wrong about these things. So like
Speaker 3: how can that, you know, how can those both be tried?
Speaker 1: It can be so destroying and I'm resient. And that
Speaker 1: is a world that I was very familiar with in
Speaker 1: the witness box at giving evidence at court. But it
Speaker 1: rips your part.
Speaker 3: I remember I was in the AVL room. I didn't
Speaker 3: go in person, and I remember coming out of that
Speaker 3: room and I stood up and I tried to walk
Speaker 3: out the door, and I just fell on the ground
Speaker 3: and I had to crawl out into the waiting room
Speaker 3: where my parents were. And this was for my breaks,
Speaker 3: because the judge kept enforcing breaks on me because I
Speaker 3: kept going, no, no, no, I'll just keep going. I
Speaker 3: just want to get over and done with, because it
Speaker 3: was just like the leaving and coming back was worse
Speaker 3: than just going. But she knew I needed a break,
Speaker 3: and I just remember dragging myself across the floor because
Speaker 3: I didn't have the energy to walk. I couldn't do anything,
Speaker 3: and basically just being carried down to the car and
Speaker 3: being driven home. I was asleep by five pm every
Speaker 3: single night because court would finish at four, I'd be
Speaker 3: home by five. I'd be asleep at five pm. I'd
Speaker 3: wake up multiple times every hour throughout the whole night,
Speaker 3: having nightmares about it, and then be awake from four
Speaker 3: or five in the morning, just waiting because court can't
Speaker 3: start till ten, waiting, waiting, waiting until I could go
Speaker 3: back in. And then they'd have just so many breaks
Speaker 3: and I was so need to just get this over
Speaker 3: and done with. And I remember parking the car across
Speaker 3: my parents, parked the car across the road from court
Speaker 3: and walking across the road, and I would walk really quickly,
Speaker 3: and I would hope that I would get hit by
Speaker 3: a car because I thought if I got hit by
Speaker 3: a car, I wouldn't have to go in and give evidence.
Speaker 3: I was really hoping that something would happen and I
Speaker 3: wouldn't have to go through.
Speaker 1: A Look, I appreciate you being so honest and open.
Speaker 1: And you know talking about going home and going to sleep, Well,
Speaker 1: I'll say I've had days in court. When I get home,
Speaker 1: I'll lay on the lande and I don't get off
Speaker 1: the lunch. Yeah, it's just that raining and that exhausting
Speaker 1: that I've got nothing left. So I understand what you're
Speaker 1: going through. Other aspects about the court too, And this
Speaker 1: is what people don't understand. I've had quite a few
Speaker 1: guests that have made this point when they've got court
Speaker 1: matters with particularly with child sexual assault matters in the family,
Speaker 1: or people known within the within the circle of friends.
Speaker 1: It limits who you can talk to and what you
Speaker 1: can talk about. Now, your parents, you couldn't talk to
Speaker 1: them about what was happening in court because they were witnesses.
Speaker 1: Now you've gone through all this trauma. Your safe place
Speaker 1: is telling your parents everything that you're going through. But
Speaker 1: the courts and the delays for the years not just
Speaker 1: encourage you, they direct you. You're not allowed to speak
Speaker 1: to a witness in this matter because it potentially contaminates
Speaker 1: the contaminates evidence. I understand the concept and the principle,
Speaker 1: but the realities are very traumatic for you, aren't they.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the really classic example of that for me was
Speaker 3: the defense. They just throw stories at you to kind
Speaker 3: of something make my click, and then you know, the
Speaker 3: jury will think if they throw out enough stories that
Speaker 3: something might click for the jury. And one of the
Speaker 3: things that they came up with was they knew I
Speaker 3: had bruising. They had photos of the bruising. They needed
Speaker 3: to explain the bruising, and so they said, well, your
Speaker 3: dad gave them to you, and he may have given
Speaker 3: them to you. And boxing, he's too rough with you
Speaker 3: because we would do boxing together. And my dad has
Speaker 3: never bruised me. He's never laid a finger on me. Obviously.
Speaker 3: He's the most gentle kind, loving, feminist man like he's
Speaker 3: He just that as an allegation to anybody that knows
Speaker 3: him or doesn't know him, is just outrageous, but they
Speaker 3: just he the defensively doesn't even believe that.
Speaker 2: They just need to, you know, throw stuff.
Speaker 3: And I just thought, I was just thinking about my
Speaker 3: dad walking into the room next being the next person
Speaker 3: to give evidence, and they say, we put to you,
Speaker 3: mister Coopstratta, that the bruises on your daughter's body would
Speaker 3: due to you. Like I just couldn't stand the idea
Speaker 3: that they would say that to dad, and I couldn't
Speaker 3: say anything about it.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, two wise people like you and I sitting here,
Speaker 1: how can it be improved? I think the delay in
Speaker 1: justice is a big thing. Like the perception is that
Speaker 1: you report the matter to the police will get investigated
Speaker 1: and the determination will be at courts, so you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we need to speed that up. But yeah, there's failings.
Speaker 3: I hear a lot of even the police process, like
Speaker 3: police not contacting complainants.
Speaker 2: For months and months and months just no.
Speaker 3: News and then they ring up the station they say, oh,
Speaker 3: they're on leave, and okay, well they didn't tell me
Speaker 3: that they're on leave.
Speaker 2: When are they going to tell me what's happening? And
Speaker 2: like it's just.
Speaker 3: Every single step of the process is lengthy, Like it's
Speaker 3: you know, it starts with investigation. The police may decide
Speaker 3: not to press charges, but they may have held on
Speaker 3: to it for months before they make that decision. And
Speaker 3: then going to court and then that takes, you know,
Speaker 3: months and months for the prosecution lawyers to take on
Speaker 3: the case, read through everything. They go back to the
Speaker 3: police they say, can you ask some more questions about this?
Speaker 3: And you know, there's all these things that have to happen.
Speaker 3: Then they've got to get a court date and that
Speaker 3: could be a year or longer in advance, and then
Speaker 3: court takes ages.
Speaker 1: It only needs one hiccup that someone's not the viileable
Speaker 1: all then that gets put back in the list.
Speaker 3: I had a duror who haad COVID or something like
Speaker 3: that that you know, extended it, Like all of these things,
Speaker 3: they take so so long. And then you know, even
Speaker 3: if you're really lucky and you do get a verdict,
Speaker 3: you know, a conviction, a guilty verdict. I mean, they
Speaker 3: always put notice into appeal because they've only got three
Speaker 3: thirty days to do that, so they have they almost
Speaker 3: all of them will do that just in case, and
Speaker 3: then they look at their chances and so then you've
Speaker 3: got to wait even more and then they decide whether
Speaker 3: they put in that appeal or not. That could also
Speaker 3: take a really long.
Speaker 1: I've it goes over that time and they still are
Speaker 1: allowed to appeal. Yeah, they appeal against not being able
Speaker 1: to appeal, and they end up dragging meters on one
Speaker 1: thing you mentioned there, and I think it's important talking
Speaker 1: someone that's experienced a contact with police. And I say this,
Speaker 1: when I was in the police, I felt like I
Speaker 1: did this to the best of my ability, keeping victims
Speaker 1: of crime informed on what's going on, because that seems
Speaker 1: to be and people reach out to me and We've
Speaker 1: reported this matter to police and I've got no feedback.
Speaker 1: They're not providing feedback. I think that would help a
Speaker 1: great deal, don't you in the police just keeping you informed,
Speaker 1: not giving you false hopes explaining what the situation is,
Speaker 1: but you know exactly what's taking place.
Speaker 3: I think the two main things that I always think
Speaker 3: about that the police did really well for me was
Speaker 3: that they kept me informed throughout the whole process.
Speaker 2: It's a huge difference.
Speaker 3: And the second thing was I knew they had a
Speaker 3: personal investment in the outcome of the case. Like I
Speaker 3: knew that for them. For Monika and for Tom in particular,
Speaker 3: this wasn't just a job for them, and that completely
Speaker 3: changed for me how it felt to go through the court.
Speaker 1: When you're dealing with crimes of this nature and I
Speaker 1: get showered down a lot, and people say, well, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't make it personal, but I think you have to.
Speaker 1: If I came to report the crime, a horrific crime
Speaker 1: to the cops, I'd want them to go hard. That's
Speaker 1: what you expect expect the police to do. And there's
Speaker 1: different types of crime and different roles in the police,
Speaker 1: but if you're victim based era of policing, you should
Speaker 1: have to well not have to it should you should
Speaker 1: want to go passionately and to do your job. And
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily getting the conviction, but knowing that you're
Speaker 1: doing everything one way to find out where the truth
Speaker 1: lies and find out what happens. But I'm glad with
Speaker 1: all that you've been through at least you've got the
Speaker 1: experience dealing with the two good police officers, because could
Speaker 1: you imagine the layer added onto this And I've seen
Speaker 1: this with people involved in murder investigations where the investigation
Speaker 1: has been stuffed up or incompetent for whatever. Could you
Speaker 1: imagine the trauma that adds to what you were going for.
Speaker 3: I don't think I would have gone past the police
Speaker 3: process if it wasn't for Monica and Tom.
Speaker 2: You don't think I would have. I would have. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Monica kept.
Speaker 3: Me going through all of that, and she just she
Speaker 3: was just so invested and she was so kind to
Speaker 3: me and so like available to me as well. And
Speaker 3: you know, nobody knows what to expect to this process,
Speaker 3: but if I had questions, she was there and she
Speaker 3: would answer them.
Speaker 1: Now, before you went to the court, you went there
Speaker 1: a couple of days before just to get a feel
Speaker 1: of the court. And you were sitting sitting on the
Speaker 1: bench outside the court looking a little bit stressed, and
Speaker 1: and you met someone and that was formed a relationship.
Speaker 1: But also it was the genesis of the Survivor Hub.
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell us through that story?
Speaker 3: I talk about my friendship with back a lot, and
Speaker 3: it was it was my friendship was Beck that that
Speaker 3: made me came up with the idea of the Survivor Hub.
Speaker 2: But Beck's not involved in the Survivor Hub herself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was, I was at court and it
Speaker 3: was a few days before and I just I couldn't
Speaker 3: do anything. Probably a month before court, I couldn't do anything.
Speaker 3: I was hardly out of bed, and I just remember
Speaker 3: this extreme feeling of agitation and I was just I
Speaker 3: just couldn't relax. And I just thought, I think I
Speaker 3: need to go to court and see what it looks like.
Speaker 3: And they kind of said that to me. They'd suggested
Speaker 3: it to me as an idea, and I dismissed it.
Speaker 3: And I had a witness assistance officer, deb who was
Speaker 3: like a signed to me to follow me through the
Speaker 3: court process, and she had offered to give me a
Speaker 3: tour of the court and I just said no to her,
Speaker 3: and I thought I didn't want it, and then two
Speaker 3: days before I was like, no, actually, that's where I
Speaker 3: want to be right now. So I went and I
Speaker 3: went with a friend. At first she came with me,
Speaker 3: and we just walked around the court and I just said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to walk into somebody's random court. You can,
Speaker 3: like you're allowed to do that, but I'm not going to.
Speaker 3: I said, so what do I do? I just want
Speaker 3: to see what's it like. I want to see where
Speaker 3: the judge sits. I want to see where the.
Speaker 2: Jury will be. I want to see where he's going
Speaker 2: to be sitting.
Speaker 3: I want to know what the cameras, where the cameras are,
Speaker 3: what everything looks like. And I found so it was
Speaker 3: just nobody was there. It was like just a ghost town.
Speaker 3: And this one Salvation Army worker I think she was
Speaker 3: from the Salvation Army. She said there are a few
Speaker 3: sexual assault trials going on at the moment, and she
Speaker 3: wrote down the court room numbers. And I said, well,
Speaker 3: there's no where I'm going inside, but I'll go and
Speaker 3: sit outside and just I don't know, I'll just sit
Speaker 3: down and I'll just think about it then. And I
Speaker 3: sat down, and I noticed that Beckha was a stranger,
Speaker 3: was looking at me quite a lot, and I was
Speaker 3: a bit embarrassed, and I kind of thought, well, what
Speaker 3: am I doing here? He may as well just be
Speaker 3: sitting in bed if I'm just sitting here. And she
Speaker 3: came over and she said, are you a journalist? And
Speaker 3: I said no, I'm a complainer and I have to
Speaker 3: go to court in a couple of days and I
Speaker 3: don't know where else I can be right now except here.
Speaker 3: And she said, well, that's my court case. Going on inside,
Speaker 3: and I think it was a witness that was giving evidence.
Speaker 3: She'd already finished only a couple days before, so she
Speaker 3: was a few days ahead of me. And she sat
Speaker 3: with me for about four hours, I think, and she
Speaker 3: answered all of my questions, and she told me, you know,
Speaker 3: if I can go through this process, then you can
Speaker 3: do and you'll be okay. And I'd never I didn't
Speaker 3: know that I knew other survivors at this time, and
Speaker 3: I certainly didn't know any survivors had gone through the
Speaker 3: court process. And I had been consuming all types of media.
Speaker 3: I'd read Brayley's book Eggshell Skull and Chanelle Miller's book
Speaker 3: Know My Name, and like, I just consumed everything TV shows,
Speaker 3: anything that was about court.
Speaker 2: I watched it, movies.
Speaker 3: Anything, podcasts, anything, and people survivors weren't speaking as publicly
Speaker 3: as they are now back then, like this is before
Speaker 3: Grace Tane was Australian of the Year and before Britney
Speaker 3: Higgins and Saxon Mullins. Was probably the only public survivor
Speaker 3: that I kind of knew in New South Wales, like
Speaker 3: knew of I mean from then. She would text me
Speaker 3: every morning and she would send me videos, and I
Speaker 3: have all these little clips on my phone and of
Speaker 3: her just saying, good morning, have something to eat, have
Speaker 3: a drink of water, You'll be okay, come find me
Speaker 3: at lunch time.
Speaker 2: You know, she was just there.
Speaker 1: And what the difference that would make, having someone that's
Speaker 1: going through what you're going through, because unless you're going
Speaker 1: through it, you don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like just an unimaginable difference, like just you know,
Speaker 3: my parents were so incredibly supportive, and I had so
Speaker 3: many people in my corner. My boyfriend at the time,
Speaker 3: he was there every single day with me the entire day,
Speaker 3: just waiting outside for me. He's just wonderful man. And
Speaker 3: none of them had actually experienced it. And you know,
Speaker 3: there war was office at the witness Assistant service officer
Speaker 3: deb she hadn't experienced it herself. You know, she'd been
Speaker 3: to heaps and heaps of trials, obviously in the room
Speaker 3: with people, but as far as I know, she hadn't
Speaker 3: experienced her stuff. She hadn't told me she had anyway.
Speaker 3: The prosecution they'd been there as lawyers. The police, they'd
Speaker 3: been there as police, but nobody had been a complainer.
Speaker 1: So that you found the kindred spirit as such, someone
Speaker 1: that understood all the emotions and you could talk talk
Speaker 1: about what your concerns were without judgment.
Speaker 2: Without you know, and she knew it, knew what it
Speaker 2: was like.
Speaker 1: Isn't it funny that you you spotted each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's honestly, it's just such a stroke of luck
Speaker 3: or you know, almost fat or something, because even though
Speaker 3: it was still the worst experience of my life, I
Speaker 3: know that a little bit of weight was taking off
Speaker 3: my shoulders that afternoon, Like I remember feeling, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not carrying this alone anymore, and I know that,
Speaker 3: you know, Beck's carrying this with me, and I'm also
Speaker 3: carrying Bex as well. And you know, I waited, probably
Speaker 3: almost as you know, desperately and anxiously for Beck's outcome,
Speaker 3: as she did for her own, and she the same
Speaker 3: for me, Like we were so invested in each other's Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: And I remember feeling I just remember thinking I need
Speaker 3: to replicate this feeling for other survivors and like, this
Speaker 3: is where it's at in terms of support. And you know,
Speaker 3: I was accessing counseling at the time. That counselor Emily.
Speaker 2: From Full Stop.
Speaker 3: She's wonderful and I save a lot of contact with her,
Speaker 3: and she's puts a Survivor Hub and we've done panels
Speaker 3: together and stuff as well. She's amazing and I've got
Speaker 3: nothing except great things to say about the way that
Speaker 3: she supported me. But I really needed to hear it
Speaker 3: from someone who'd been through it, and that's exactly what
Speaker 3: Back provided. And that's what we made when we created
Speaker 3: the Survivor.
Speaker 1: Hub, and that was the thought behind that you need
Speaker 1: people that have experienced what you have experienced and been
Speaker 1: able to talk freely ye the survivor and.
Speaker 2: Make decisions as well.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of it was about, like you know,
Speaker 3: people will come to us and they say, should I
Speaker 3: go to court?
Speaker 2: And I would say, well.
Speaker 3: We can't make that decision for you, but we can
Speaker 3: tell you what it was like to go through court
Speaker 3: and you can decide again.
Speaker 1: And I'm referring to comments you made at the Royal Commission,
Speaker 1: But you talk about some of the things that you
Speaker 1: talk about the Survivor Hub, and they'll let you describe
Speaker 1: the Survivor Hub, but I just in response to what's
Speaker 1: a Survivor Hub all about? This is what you said.
Speaker 1: Some of the common topics that we talk about would
Speaker 1: be things like navigating intimacy posts, friendships, fallouts from friendships
Speaker 1: so people are not being believed, disclosures, whether that to
Speaker 1: be partners or parents or workplace things like that, the
Speaker 1: court and reporting processes, types of therapy, new relations, things
Speaker 1: like telling parents, and these are things you don't even
Speaker 1: think about. It must be good to have a group
Speaker 1: of people that you can sit down and discuss all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think you know, doesn't matter how supportive
Speaker 3: the people are in your life. And I'm very lucky
Speaker 3: that obviously very privileged to have really really supportive people,
Speaker 3: and my parents and my friends and everybody. There's a
Speaker 3: feeling that is completely unmatched about being in a room
Speaker 3: with other survivors and knowing I don't need to explain
Speaker 3: the basics at all here. I can just come in
Speaker 3: red hot and say I've experienced this, what the hell's happening?
Speaker 3: And people will go, oh, so have I? And I
Speaker 3: think this about it, and then you can go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that probably makes you know that resonates with me,
Speaker 3: or it might not, but it might also give you
Speaker 3: clarity about why you know something's happened. And for a
Speaker 3: lot of people it's things that they've held onto for
Speaker 3: a very long time. And we have survivors of child
Speaker 3: sexual abuse who come as adults in their fifties and
Speaker 3: sixties in some places, in like some meet up locations,
Speaker 3: I mean, and they've held onto it for their whole life.
Speaker 3: And you know, they may have told their partner, they
Speaker 3: may have told their children or a counselor, and may
Speaker 3: have told nobody. And it happens a lot people come
Speaker 3: into the space they've told nobody before, and they just
Speaker 3: sit there and they go, you know, this is something
Speaker 3: that's happened to me, and everyone in the room just
Speaker 3: gets it.
Speaker 1: You made reference to a lady in the fifties that
Speaker 1: came along and she experienced the sexual abuse twenty thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, and she said, I just wish this was
Speaker 1: here twenty five years again. Yeah, to be aut to
Speaker 1: normalize the feelings and the processing the trauma. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's important that you're not discounting psychologists and
Speaker 1: counselors and all that. But this hub is different. This
Speaker 1: hub is about people who have experienced what you gone
Speaker 1: through and being able to talk freely about it. Then
Speaker 1: the other thing I picked up that you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to go into the details of what your experience. No, people,
Speaker 1: you just you start at the point, Okay, you don't
Speaker 1: have to tell us what's happened. We understand what you've
Speaker 1: been through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's a very sort of deliberate reason for
Speaker 3: that as well. And part of it is obviously it
Speaker 3: can be triggering to other survivors to hear explicit details,
Speaker 3: but the main kind of philosophy behind it is that
Speaker 3: we don't need to know what happened to you to
Speaker 3: support you. And we also think like we're living in
Speaker 3: the now. We're living in the healing and the recovery
Speaker 3: and the aftermath, and we're living in all of these
Speaker 3: things that you're experiencing right now that you know you
Speaker 3: might not be happy with, like things like you know,
Speaker 3: going back to the intimacy thing, people aren't you know,
Speaker 3: aren't able to be intimate.
Speaker 2: They're not happy about.
Speaker 3: That, you know, in a lot of circumstances. And so
Speaker 3: let's talk about that. And we don't need to know
Speaker 3: about why it is that you can't experience that. We'll
Speaker 3: just talk about what it feels like, and well, other
Speaker 3: survivors will be able to say, well, my counselor did this,
Speaker 3: or I tried EMDR and what really worked.
Speaker 2: Or I tried.
Speaker 3: Hypnotherapy and it really worked. And it's not medical advice,
Speaker 3: it's not counseling advice.
Speaker 2: It's not legal advice. It's peer advice.
Speaker 3: This happened, you know, this thing happened to me, very
Speaker 3: similar to you, and this is what I did about it.
Speaker 3: And you now have all the information that you need
Speaker 3: to make that decision for yourself. You know, if you
Speaker 3: want to go and try this type of therapy, or
Speaker 3: if you want to go to court, or you want
Speaker 3: to go for you know, redress or whatever it may be.
Speaker 3: This is my experience of it. Now you can decide
Speaker 3: for yourself.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that it's quite empowering for the individuals
Speaker 1: to be able to contribute in the environment like that
Speaker 1: and feel like they're helping people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I always think about it as like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's the worst thing that ever happened to me. But
Speaker 3: at least I could turn you know, something productive out
Speaker 3: of it, something good came of it. And that is
Speaker 3: that nobody has to go through what I went through
Speaker 3: in that same way. If I can give them, you know,
Speaker 3: the tools and the advice and the understanding and the
Speaker 3: opinions that I have of my experience answers. I can stop,
Speaker 3: you know, some small parts of what has happened to me.
Speaker 3: And I would never tell somebody not to go to court,
Speaker 3: like obviously you can understand from this episode that I
Speaker 3: don't like it, but I would never tell. I would
Speaker 3: never tell anybody. I would never make a decision for
Speaker 3: somebody about that.
Speaker 1: And I think with people that have experienced what you've
Speaker 1: experienced too, it's about taking control. So you and now
Speaker 1: can make the decisions what you want to do. Look
Speaker 1: at the best advice you can give. These are all
Speaker 1: the options. Yeah, and you're in control. It's interesting you
Speaker 1: say that when you turn up there, that people don't
Speaker 1: need to know what's happened, And I would imagine that's
Speaker 1: what the Survivor Hub provides to you guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's exactly the kind of feeling that we're
Speaker 3: trying to give people. And you know, you can come
Speaker 3: into that room. You don't have to explain yourself, you
Speaker 3: don't need to make excuses. And as a survivor, we
Speaker 3: spend so much time doing that in society, like we
Speaker 3: send so much time trying to explain to people, you know,
Speaker 3: for me, domestic balance, Why did I go back to him?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: That doesn't make sense to somebody who doesn't who doesn't
Speaker 3: have any understanding of domestic violence, and probably doesn't really
Speaker 3: make sense to anybody who hasn't experienced it or experienced
Speaker 3: some sort of similar dynamic to that. But when I
Speaker 3: sit in the room with other people who've experienced domestic balance,
Speaker 3: I don't need to explain that, and I don't need.
Speaker 2: Myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that understand where you're coming from. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the idea was formed from meeting Beck at court, but
Speaker 1: ideas and then putting it in the practice and getting
Speaker 1: it to where you've got. Tell us about the process
Speaker 1: of setting it up and how you came about that.
Speaker 1: You're one of the co founders of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so came very It actually really went quite quickly.
Speaker 3: I was involved in another charity and that I wasn't
Speaker 3: a co founder of, and one of the co founders
Speaker 3: or the founder of that. She sort of had some
Speaker 3: like she had some different ideas about that charity. And
Speaker 3: I know I'm speaking a little bit cryptically, but it
Speaker 3: sort of just doesn't really matter to the story. But
Speaker 3: what we wanted to do was create a space where
Speaker 3: people could come together and share. And we thought, okay, well,
Speaker 3: this charity is not really how we want to do it.
Speaker 3: We want to do peer support groups. And so we
Speaker 3: just left and we'd connected with Brenda, who's the other
Speaker 3: co founder of mine, who does the day to day running.
Speaker 3: So she and I are the only ones that do
Speaker 3: the day to day running, but there are four of
Speaker 3: us originally, and then I brought in the other co
Speaker 3: founder and we all came together and we were like, okay,
Speaker 3: so what we want to do is create a space
Speaker 3: for survivors to come together to vent, to share, to connect,
Speaker 3: to give advice, to receive advice, you know, just be
Speaker 3: with one another.
Speaker 2: How can we do that?
Speaker 3: And I really wanted to do peer support groups in person,
Speaker 3: and they all wanted to do the same thing. And
Speaker 3: within a month we had a name, we had a logo,
Speaker 3: and we had a group running in Balmain. And that
Speaker 3: happened because I went to my counselor, Emily at full
Speaker 3: Stop and I asked her for a referral to peer
Speaker 3: support and I said, I want, I want to do
Speaker 3: peer support. Where can I do it?
Speaker 2: In Sydney?
Speaker 3: Or online, and she looked into it, she did some
Speaker 3: research and she just said, well, that isn't anything, actually,
Speaker 3: and I was shocked. It seems obvious. And I think
Speaker 3: a lot of that. A lot of it came from Beck,
Speaker 3: but a lot of it also came from my dad
Speaker 3: having a long history attending NA meetings when he was younger,
Speaker 3: and I kind of thought, NA but for survivors and
Speaker 3: not so like prescriptive with the program and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: More just drop in.
Speaker 3: But the idea that you can sit in a room
Speaker 3: and shed shame with people who just get it. And
Speaker 3: so within a month we started a full stop Australia.
Speaker 3: Emily provided the first location and Emily was a social worker.
Speaker 3: So we have a social worker, a counselor a cycle
Speaker 3: similar who attend every meetup as a support. They don't
Speaker 3: talk in the meetup, so they obviously they can interact
Speaker 3: in things, but they don't run it. And we're really
Speaker 3: clear about that. They don't run it unless they're a survivor.
Speaker 1: And that's an important thing that a lot of people
Speaker 1: wouldn't quite understand, but I understand the subtleties of making
Speaker 1: sure it doesn't become like a counseling service or down
Speaker 1: of a psychologist. It's the people that have experienced what
Speaker 1: you've experienced, sharing their stories.
Speaker 3: It's meant to be non hierarchical, like I'm not this
Speaker 3: professional person teaching you things that you do in support groups,
Speaker 3: teaching you counseling skills, and not teaching you breathing or
Speaker 3: anything like that. Like I'm a survivor running a group.
Speaker 2: I need it myself just as much as you need it.
Speaker 1: And you made reference to INA and II all that
Speaker 1: type of stuff, which is very similar in the in
Speaker 1: the way that they go about their business as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And a lot of the people that I talked
Speaker 3: to really early days about the Survivor Hub are people
Speaker 3: who are still in the program, and I talked to
Speaker 3: them for advice, and I said, you know, I want
Speaker 3: to start this for survivors of sexual violence, and what
Speaker 3: are the principles of NA and AA that I can
Speaker 3: use to create the space? Like these meetups are really
Speaker 3: really well thought through, Like we have spent so many
Speaker 3: years adjusting and perfecting and thinking, and every word that
Speaker 3: we use in our run sheets and our group expectations
Speaker 3: are incredibly like thought through, and we use that we're
Speaker 3: all survivors, so only survivors have created those materials.
Speaker 2: And done those run sheets and things. But I'm also
Speaker 2: a social worker.
Speaker 3: I was a social work student at the time, and
Speaker 3: you know, I was talking to my teachers about it.
Speaker 3: I was talking to like these so many other survivors
Speaker 3: about it. Like it's it's very very, very thought through.
Speaker 3: It's very intentional from the very beginning because we want,
Speaker 3: you know, we want to create a space that's a
Speaker 3: space for survivors to come together as a community, and
Speaker 3: we want to be accountable to that and to always
Speaker 3: create a safe space and you know, be ongoing and
Speaker 3: have trauma informed principles and.
Speaker 2: Things like that.
Speaker 1: And you call your sessions meetups meetups, and how often
Speaker 1: do you have them and what locations do you have them?
Speaker 3: So most of them are monthly, but we also have
Speaker 3: some fortnightly ones as well. I probably actually need a
Speaker 3: list now to tell you all of the locations, but
Speaker 3: we have three or four and in like Central Sydney.
Speaker 3: We also have an LGBTIQA plus meet up in Sydney,
Speaker 3: which was our first sort of like experienced specifical, like
Speaker 3: population specific group. We have a meetup for parents partners
Speaker 3: and family members in Sydney, and also one online.
Speaker 2: And that's because we were having a.
Speaker 3: Lot of survivors coming to us and they were kind
Speaker 3: of saying, like my parents or my partner or whoever,
Speaker 3: they just don't really get it, and I don't want
Speaker 3: to have to be the one that needs to explain
Speaker 3: it to them, and they need help.
Speaker 2: Where can they go? So we created a space.
Speaker 1: I understand the concept there because it's not just one life,
Speaker 1: that's its people people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we also have locations in Melbourne, Ballarat, quite a
Speaker 3: few regional and rural locations with Broken Hill which is
Speaker 3: far west New South Wales just where I live. We've
Speaker 3: got Byron Bay, we have Gold Coast, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra,
Speaker 3: hober Hearts. So we have all SATs and territories except
Speaker 3: Northern Territory and South Australia. But I think we'll open
Speaker 3: in Adelaide soon and I'm moving to the Northern Territory,
Speaker 3: so I imagine we'll start and dealt and pretty soon too.
Speaker 3: And then we have our online one for everyone. We've
Speaker 3: got an online one for the defense and veteran community
Speaker 3: as well, which was well that actually was our first population.
Speaker 1: This is far, far reaching.
Speaker 2: How long been going for four years?
Speaker 1: Four years and you can put an appeal out out
Speaker 1: now feel free?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that has been the hardest, well it's been
Speaker 3: the only hard part of it really. Like Brenda and I,
Speaker 3: we we work on this full time. I have a
Speaker 3: full time job as a social worker. Brenda's doing her
Speaker 3: PhD full time. But we can't afford to pay ourselves
Speaker 3: to do it full time. The meetups, they're funded by
Speaker 3: grants that cover a year, and so every year we
Speaker 3: have to reapply and every year we don't know if
Speaker 3: we're going to get it, and we want to be
Speaker 3: able to keep locations open. We have tried desperately to
Speaker 3: never close the location because once we start something, we
Speaker 3: want to stay, particularly in a rural in a regional area,
Speaker 3: limited access to support, and when you come into those
Speaker 3: communities you make a commitment to them by starting.
Speaker 2: You want to stay.
Speaker 3: And you know, having lived in Broken Hill, which is
Speaker 3: a real town for like two and a half years now,
Speaker 3: I know how important it is that we stay. So
Speaker 3: grants and things cover it. We have a fundraiser every
Speaker 3: year which gets us a little bit of money, but
Speaker 3: not enough money to pay ourselves or anything. And then
Speaker 3: we've had some really generous philanthropic donations, but not enough
Speaker 3: to pay ourselves, so it's pretty tough.
Speaker 1: If anyone wanted to reach out to you, how do
Speaker 1: they find you.
Speaker 3: We've got a website, the Survivor Hub. You just google
Speaker 3: the Survivor Hub otherwise we also our email will come
Speaker 3: up on there, but it's info at the Survivor Hub
Speaker 3: dot org dot au. People also contact us through social media,
Speaker 3: often Instagram or Facebook, things like that. We get a
Speaker 3: lot of emails every day. It's pretty much full time
Speaker 3: job just responding to emails. A lot of survivors reach
Speaker 3: out to us.
Speaker 1: How many people have been involved in the program over
Speaker 1: the years just roughly participants.
Speaker 2: Thousands, yeah, yeah, at least.
Speaker 3: So we have one thousand, five hundred sign ups every
Speaker 3: year at the moment that sign ups, so that means
Speaker 3: that some people will come back, so it's not fully
Speaker 3: that and it also means that sometimes people sign up
Speaker 3: and they don't come they're not ready or whatever reason.
Speaker 2: But easily thousands.
Speaker 3: And then we have a Facebook group which is really
Speaker 3: popular that has I can't remember the top of my head,
Speaker 3: but thousands of people on it and they're survivors asking
Speaker 3: each other for advice and inventing in the same way
Speaker 3: that you wouldn't have made up.
Speaker 2: But they can do it anonymously.
Speaker 1: And again that's giving them the control, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that control.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they do.
Speaker 1: That's amazing that you've you've found purpose with that, and
Speaker 1: it seems in the way you've explained that, it seems
Speaker 1: like a no brainer. Yeah, something that's that's that's so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was kind of the shock about it, Like,
Speaker 3: how is it that in twenty twenty one we were
Speaker 3: the first people to start a free peer support space
Speaker 3: for survivors of sexual violence.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, there are other people who do similar work.
Speaker 3: There's Craig cash Moore, Hues from Survivors and Mate Support
Speaker 3: Network Samson and he runs his organization runs peer support
Speaker 3: groups for male survivors of child sexual abuse, so that's
Speaker 3: kind of similar and it's a bit more programmed and
Speaker 3: then they do have drop in sessions as well. But
Speaker 3: we started to meet up a space for any survivor
Speaker 3: older than sixteen, and it didn't exist at the time,
Speaker 3: which is just quite shocking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you've explained it and thinking about how did
Speaker 1: we miss that? I know we had victims of homicide
Speaker 1: set up thirty years ago or yeah, or more because
Speaker 1: there was people that want that shared experiences and so
Speaker 1: they could understand what's gone on. Yeah, we touched on it.
Speaker 1: But the impact that has on your family, and you've
Speaker 1: talked about survivor Hub has a made up for family members. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was the impact that had on your family? What
Speaker 1: you're been through, Like we've heard from your perspective, but
Speaker 1: they obviously love you and care for you. What was
Speaker 1: the impact that it had on your family?
Speaker 3: It was huge impact. I think probably most obviously around Court,
Speaker 3: because I couldn't hide how I couldn't hide the impacts
Speaker 3: on me around that time, and I think a lot
Speaker 3: of the other times I wouldn't talk about it around
Speaker 3: my brothers because they were very young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Court, it.
Speaker 3: Was pretty unavoidable that it was all I was thinking
Speaker 3: about it. I was living in breathing Court. I wasn't
Speaker 3: eating at the table with my family for dinner because
Speaker 3: I couldn't eat. I was asleep by five pm. It's
Speaker 3: impossible for people not to notice. And I remember my
Speaker 3: youngest brother, Louis. He's ten years younger than almost ten
Speaker 3: years younger than me. I remember the impacts on him
Speaker 3: being really huge, particularly around court, because you know, he
Speaker 3: was like seven or eight years old, and he'd known
Speaker 3: that he knew that his sister had been really badly
Speaker 3: hurt by somebody, and he didn't know the details because
Speaker 3: he was too young, and we didn't talk to him
Speaker 3: about it, and he could see me unable to eat,
Speaker 3: you know, wasting away in front of him. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I remember him, both of my brothers having their own
Speaker 3: feelings of like guilt and shame for not being able
Speaker 3: to protect me, which is just like just so incredibly heartbreaking,
Speaker 3: because you know, the only person who's at fault for
Speaker 3: having used violence against me is a person who chose
Speaker 3: to use violence against me. And then there's you know,
Speaker 3: my baby brother, he was five when he would have
Speaker 3: met my ex, who thinks he's somehow you know, got
Speaker 3: some responsibility and having to have you know, protected me
Speaker 3: and my parents obviously as well the same thing like
Speaker 3: how could this happen to our baby girl in front
Speaker 3: of us? But I think, yeah, particularly heartbreaking for me
Speaker 3: to think about it, for my younger brothers.
Speaker 1: Looking back, if there's young girls going through what you're
Speaker 1: going or young boys for that manner. What are some
Speaker 1: of the things What advice would you give to if
Speaker 1: someone came and said, look, I'm in this situation, what
Speaker 1: advice would you give advice or would you just say
Speaker 1: these are the things you've got to look out for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really hard one because I mean I
Speaker 3: do that for work. I have a lot of people
Speaker 3: who are currently experiencing the mental mess advance that I
Speaker 3: work with, and people need to come to the realization themselves,
Speaker 3: and you can give them all of the tools and
Speaker 3: information and advice, but people will continue going back until
Speaker 3: they're ready to not go back anymore. You know, sometimes
Speaker 3: you really worry about, like when there's children involved in
Speaker 3: things like that, and that's been something that I have.
Speaker 3: I deal with that work quite a lot. All I
Speaker 3: can kind of do is put a seed of doubt
Speaker 3: into people's minds and keep, you know, consistently trying to
Speaker 3: put that seed of doubt into their mind that you know,
Speaker 3: maybe this relationship isn't right. And all I can do
Speaker 3: is hope that they'll be able to make that decision themselves.
Speaker 3: And I think a really important thing when you're supporting
Speaker 3: someone who's experienced messic violence. Is that consistency, and so
Speaker 3: you know you're going to be frustrated. It's an inevitability
Speaker 3: of supporting someone who will just continue to go back
Speaker 3: to someone that you know is not good enough for them.
Speaker 3: I will, like I've said to my friends, I've had
Speaker 3: experienced many times I've said to my friends, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't think he's good enough for you.
Speaker 2: And I worry about you.
Speaker 3: And sometimes I've had to really like, I'm really worried
Speaker 3: about you, but I know that you're not going to
Speaker 3: leave until you're ready, and I'm going to be here
Speaker 3: when you're ready.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, that's that's good because I think part of
Speaker 1: the part of the concern in leaving relationships is you
Speaker 1: don't know what's on the other side. Yeah, And if
Speaker 1: you've got a friend or family member or someone saying, look,
Speaker 1: when the time comes, I'm here for you, Yeah, just
Speaker 1: that type of commentary might be of great comfort.
Speaker 3: And it's also really embarrassing, like being the person that
Speaker 3: goes back, Like I was embarrassed. I knew I deserved
Speaker 3: better towards the end, and I was embarrassed, and I
Speaker 3: didn't want to tell people about it, and so to
Speaker 3: know that there was someone like for me, it was
Speaker 3: going to be my parents and all my friends. You know,
Speaker 3: they were there in their own way that they'd forgive
Speaker 3: me for being a bit of an idiot and going
Speaker 3: back to him heaps of times. And I've said to
Speaker 3: my friends like, there's nothing that you can do to
Speaker 3: shake me, Like I will be here when you when
Speaker 3: you live.
Speaker 1: That's the type of support you need. Yeah, theseus, that's
Speaker 1: all you can really do.
Speaker 3: And after the Australian Story, biggest group of people that
Speaker 3: contacted us were not survivors. It was fathers mainly. Then
Speaker 3: next mothers of survivors, young women who are fifteen to
Speaker 3: seventeen years old, currently in or just recently out of
Speaker 3: experiencing domestic violence like it was. They saw my parents
Speaker 3: on Australian Story and they emailed us and they said
Speaker 3: what can I do for my daughter?
Speaker 2: Like what would you? What did your parents do?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Because it said there's all these people that are watching
Speaker 3: it happen and they just want to know how to
Speaker 3: be good supportive quar.
Speaker 1: Well, that to benefits and an important part of you
Speaker 1: guys speaking out and when I say you guys, because
Speaker 1: your family, your parents have spoken out as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, and it's something it was almost like the
Speaker 1: unspoken thing that was happening, domestic violence in young teenagers.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and it's so so common. It really was
Speaker 3: thousands of emails that we and we still get emails now.
Speaker 3: And you know, there was someone recently her email from
Speaker 3: South Africa and I don't even know how she got, like
Speaker 3: who watches Australian Story in South Africa? But you know
Speaker 3: she emailed and then she started coming to our online meetups,
Speaker 3: I think, because you know she there wasn't anything like that,
Speaker 3: and you know, here she is seeing her story or
Speaker 3: something similar to her story represented in media. And I
Speaker 3: was so incredibly embarrassed to the Australian Story episode. I
Speaker 3: said no for so long and I really didn't want.
Speaker 2: To do it.
Speaker 1: Well, takes character. You're exposing yourself again, Yeah, record environment.
Speaker 3: But it feels a bit self indulgent to be doing
Speaker 3: media as well, and also being like her I am,
Speaker 3: and like having so much access to privilege as well,
Speaker 3: and you know, I had all these questions about, well,
Speaker 3: is my story the one that should be told in
Speaker 3: the media and all of that, and I still wrestle
Speaker 3: with that every time I do media, and I do
Speaker 3: believe that there are people's stories that I would rather
Speaker 3: shared before mine. But the reason I do it is
Speaker 3: because I'm privileged to be able to speak about it,
Speaker 3: and privileged, I think, to be able to explain concepts
Speaker 3: to people, and I want to be able to use
Speaker 3: that privilege for good and to speak publicly. And I
Speaker 3: also just want people to know about the Survivor Hub
Speaker 3: and know that there's a place that they can go
Speaker 3: when they feel alone and they feel that people don't
Speaker 3: understand them.
Speaker 1: Well, look, from my point of view, you don't have
Speaker 1: to justify why you've done any of that. I think
Speaker 1: it's so impressive. I really do the fact that it
Speaker 1: would the simplest thing for you to be would have
Speaker 1: been to walk away from all this and just go, Okay,
Speaker 1: that was in the past. I don't even want to
Speaker 1: talk about it. So you are doing good. And I
Speaker 1: think your dad summed it up nicely where he said,
Speaker 1: you know, from a terrible thing that's happened, there's some
Speaker 1: good that's come out of it, and the good being
Speaker 1: that you're bringing some public attention to it and what
Speaker 1: you're doing with the Survivor Hubman. You've been a champion
Speaker 1: for social justice right from the start with saving South
Speaker 1: Sydney Rugby League Club. How old were you eighteen months
Speaker 1: South Jersey, So look at you and you're still continuing.
Speaker 1: I was going to talk about restorative justice. It's a
Speaker 1: topic in itself, and I heard that conference you guys
Speaker 1: you were coordinating and experts talking about in regards to
Speaker 1: sexual assaults and how that can be empowering to what's
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that restorative justice space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Deacon Greenwood came to us from Transforming Justice
Speaker 3: Australia and they do restorative justice work, and I didn't
Speaker 3: know anything about it. And I did have a friend
Speaker 3: who'd attempted to go through restorative justice and the person
Speaker 3: who advanced against had declined and so she couldn't go
Speaker 3: any further, which I have a huge issue with because
Speaker 3: how can you say notice someone who you've caused harm to?
Speaker 3: But that was through the through a formal process, not
Speaker 3: through Transforming Justice Australia. But I was really interested in
Speaker 3: the idea because court didn't work for me, and I
Speaker 3: knew that court didn't work for.
Speaker 2: Everyone I've spoken to.
Speaker 3: Really, I don't know if there's anybody who has worked
Speaker 3: for and even when you get a guilty verdict, people
Speaker 3: will say that they don't feel a sense of justice
Speaker 3: from that. They you know, they may feel a small
Speaker 3: shred of relief, but they don't really feel justice.
Speaker 2: That's what being tired.
Speaker 1: I often still feel violated from what they went through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they never get custodial sentences. And some of
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't even want custodial sentences, Like
Speaker 3: there's some statistic that more than eighty percent, it's probably
Speaker 3: way higher don't want custodial s.
Speaker 1: I think restorative justice, and it's such a complex issue
Speaker 1: and that each case is different and each crime is different,
Speaker 1: but it's basically making people accountable for their own Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, there is some space in it. And
Speaker 1: if it's if you've been just picking a subject to
Speaker 1: sexual assault or sexual abuse, it might be quite empowering
Speaker 1: to be able to tell that person what the impact
Speaker 1: it's had other people would be the last thing they
Speaker 1: want to do, and I respect that. Yea, it's something
Speaker 1: that we should should look at. We should explore all options.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I never kind of went through that court process
Speaker 3: wanting him to be punished, like in some sense, you think,
Speaker 3: you know, you need to be held accountable because you've
Speaker 3: caused me harm, but I didn't. It wasn't really like
Speaker 3: I'm going into this because I want him to go
Speaker 3: to jail. It's never really about that. It was just
Speaker 3: I want him to know that this is bad and
Speaker 3: that this has really really hurt me. And restorative justice
Speaker 3: can give you that, but the traditional legal process can't.
Speaker 2: In my opinion anyway, I have a lot.
Speaker 3: Of kind of questions about restorative justice, Like I don't
Speaker 3: think it's a perfect process. Like I'm not really going
Speaker 3: to say, you know, abolish courts and do that stead
Speaker 3: yet well, yeah, and to some extent, I do believe
Speaker 3: that we should just abolish it and just like rebuild
Speaker 3: it and do that in a big way with it.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of consultation, a lot of surviving
Speaker 3: and things like that.
Speaker 2: But for right now, there are some kind of problems.
Speaker 3: I feel like some people could be manipulated into the process.
Speaker 3: So for people who may have been harmed by a
Speaker 3: family member, other family members might say, don't take him
Speaker 3: to court, let's do this.
Speaker 2: Resort of justice.
Speaker 3: He can say sorry and we'll have it over and
Speaker 3: done with and they do have checks and balances on
Speaker 3: that so that it doesn't happen, but it still can happen,
Speaker 3: and people there's you know, problems with the legal process
Speaker 3: as well. So I'm not saying that it's either or
Speaker 3: it's better there. It's not better there. So I do
Speaker 3: have a lot of questions about it. I'm not like
Speaker 3: a one hundred percent die hard advocate for it, but
Speaker 3: I'm very interested in it, and I think that I
Speaker 3: can imagine that it would be a really really beneficial
Speaker 3: process to a lot of people. I think if I'd
Speaker 3: known what court would have been like, and I'd been
Speaker 3: offered to choose between the two, would have just picked
Speaker 3: the restorative justice. You know, there was a time, probably
Speaker 3: for two years after I last saw him, after I
Speaker 3: left him, where if he had just genuinely repented to
Speaker 3: me about what he'd done, I may have just been
Speaker 3: able to kind of forgive him. But then again, in
Speaker 3: domestic violence, and this is why they often don't use
Speaker 3: it for domestic violence, they do repent and they do
Speaker 3: show remorse, and they do look like they're doing that,
Speaker 3: and sometimes maybe they are genuinely repentful, remorseful for a bit,
Speaker 3: And what would it have looked like for me to
Speaker 3: sit in a room with him saying whatever he needed
Speaker 3: to say, you know, sweet talk to get me to
Speaker 3: not take him to court.
Speaker 2: So I have questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a difficult part with domestic violence offenders that, yeah,
Speaker 1: they manipulate to start with. I do think they need accountability.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, society needs to turn on them and
Speaker 1: get no, mate, that's not on them, And blokes need
Speaker 1: to play a part in it, as in standing up
Speaker 1: against other blokes that they suspect of being involved in
Speaker 1: domestic violence. But just some form of accountability. It's acknowledging
Speaker 1: what they've done is not acceptable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think ultimately the most important part in all
Speaker 3: of this is survivors agency in autonomy and choice. So
Speaker 3: you know, if the legal process is something that they
Speaker 3: think they'll get something out of, go ahead and do it.
Speaker 3: If restorative justices, go ahead and do it like it really.
Speaker 1: Get the control back to the people that yeah, impacted upon. Well,
Speaker 1: they bought in the victim impact statement for homicides. It
Speaker 1: would have been twenty years ago and I was involved
Speaker 1: in the first homicide where it was used in court,
Speaker 1: and I thought that was the first time, courts and
Speaker 1: the legal fraternity didn't like it. And I think it
Speaker 1: was the murder of Eileen Cantlay and the elderly woman
Speaker 1: that was murdered and had a victim impact statement, and
Speaker 1: the courts were horrified. How dare someone offer an opinion
Speaker 1: on the impact this crime has had other than the courts?
Speaker 1: But empowers people, empowers the people that have been family
Speaker 1: members killed, the impact that has and that might mean it,
Speaker 1: you know, the psychopath that might be the killer mightn't
Speaker 1: have any impact, but there's some there with the victim
Speaker 1: being able to say, this is what you did to me,
Speaker 1: this is how it made me feel, and this is
Speaker 1: the impact, and let them sit with that.
Speaker 3: I think courts and lawyers in particular as a profession
Speaker 3: are so scared of victim's anger. They're so scared of
Speaker 3: the fact that we actually feel emotions and anger and
Speaker 3: frustration and sadness and fear and whatever it may be
Speaker 3: in response to the fact that we've been harmed. And
Speaker 3: it's so hard for people to kind of like hold
Speaker 3: space for that emotion, like particularly that emotion anger, like
Speaker 3: it's okay, you've been wrong, someone has hurt you. Yes,
Speaker 3: in my case, someone that I really loved or you know,
Speaker 3: thought I really loved.
Speaker 2: He has hurt me.
Speaker 3: It's okay to feel angry about that, but the legal
Speaker 3: system has no space for that kind of emotion and
Speaker 3: victim impact statements being brought in for homicide like that
Speaker 3: was a really big deal, as you say, because it's
Speaker 3: bringing emotion into a process where you're not meant to
Speaker 3: be emotional, but how can you not.
Speaker 1: Be well, Yeah, the legal systems there to support the
Speaker 1: society that say the serve, and I think emotion does
Speaker 1: come into it. That's the important thing. The thing that
Speaker 1: impresses me about what you're being through is that you're
Speaker 1: not coming across as as bitter. I can tell that
Speaker 1: you enjoyed life. You've got you can have a laugh,
Speaker 1: and you're getting on with your life. And full credit
Speaker 1: to you to like for turning turning a bad thing
Speaker 1: into giving you some purpose in life. And clearly your
Speaker 1: parents have brought you up with the right sense of
Speaker 1: social justice. And I think we're going to probably hear
Speaker 1: more about you. I don't think you're going to stop.
Speaker 1: You're leaving a big footprint. Yes, in this world.
Speaker 3: My dad said to me around court, he said you're
Speaker 3: my and it is like Waterfront Point Piper, multi million
Speaker 3: dollar real estate.
Speaker 2: Don't let him live there. Don't let him live in there.
Speaker 1: Well that's the advice. Your dad goes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well done, he said, don't don't let him take
Speaker 3: up any of his space. And I'm you know, when
Speaker 3: you're in court, it's unavoidable. That's going to happen for
Speaker 3: a bit. But after that, everything that's happened since then,
Speaker 3: you know, the charity moving to Broken Hill.
Speaker 2: I'm about to move to Northern Territory. All of the
Speaker 2: good things in.
Speaker 3: My life, the travel, the friends, the people that I love,
Speaker 3: everything that's got nothing to do with him nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the perfect way of dealing with it.
Speaker 1: And good on your dad for giving giving them. What
Speaker 1: are you doing in Northern Territory.
Speaker 3: I've taken a new social work role in Norlan Boy,
Speaker 3: but I'll be kind of going back and forth in
Speaker 3: other communities as well.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's that's important work. And I would imagine
Speaker 1: very satisfied.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's amazing, It's yeah, I'm so lucky. Just yeah.
Speaker 2: I love being a social worker.
Speaker 3: I love all of the clients that I get to meet,
Speaker 3: and I think no One and boys can be really
Speaker 3: cool new experience.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I've enjoyed
Speaker 1: the chat. And yeah, people that are listening to it,
Speaker 1: have a look at the Survivor Hub and the work
Speaker 1: that they're doing. And yeah, I think you've really feel
Speaker 1: the space that needed to be filmed.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, It's awesome.