The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome back to part two of my chat with Nina Fanell, who is an advocate for education and reform in regardless
to sexual assault and reform and prevention. And Nina, I'm going to give up looking at my notes because that was a fascinating in conversation we had in the first part of Eye Catch Killers, and you made me look at things a little bit differently in a simplistic way of giving examples of how things can gave skew if and ethical bystander behavior, and the important role there is for all of us to make sure that we embrace that.
You're clearly passionate about the work that you do, your advocacy for sexual assault victims, and all the issues that relate to the culture that causes those type of things. It's a personal story too for you when we sit down here, because you are actually a victim of a violent, violent sexual assault. And I know in speaking to you that I checked with you because I think that's important
that you're comfortable to talk about it. I think it might enlighten people into what drives you for the work that you do and the importance of the work that you do. Are you comfortable to talk about the situation you found yourself in? Yeah?
Absolutely, And thank you for checking so kindly and seeking my consent first. But yeah, definitely. I'm an open book, so.
Shoot, okay, And I think on that too, and what we talked about in part one. If you've been a victim of a sexual assault, there's so many other things that traumatize you following it, and you need to have control when people would come to me to report the sexual assault I always gave them advice on these are all the options. These are all the options. I think you need to allow people to have that power of control on their situation and it helps in that little bit.
Do you want to talk to us now then about the incident that happened to you? How old were you at the time? Yeah?
Sure, and sorry, just before we get to that, just on that as well. What you've just said of I think you know, sexual violence is a crime about power and control, where your agency and your control and your choices are removed from you. And that's why in any process that follows, whether it's a legal process or a medical process or a journalistic process, being given options and being afforded choice an agency is healing because it reverses
that feeling of powerlessness. And so what you just said then that's perfect of providing people with their options rather than trying to control or steer what they should do or ought to do or must do in that situation.
And for anyone out there, you know, if you ever receive a disclosure of sexual violence, what that tells me is firstly that whoever's chosen to disclose to you really really respects you and your opinion, but also that you're in a very powerful position to then help that person, and the best way is by giving them them options and choices and affirming what they decide is best for them.
And yeah, for me, this is obviously personal. I was twenty three and as mentioned in the first half, I was studying journalism, media and communications at UNI and I decided to do my honors year in media. And it was actually the day of my honors presentation afterwards, I
was traveling home. At the time, I was living with my parents in Sydney's Lower North Shore, and I was walking home down our street and it's, you know, a place that I have walked every day since I was very little place where I walk my dog, and I had headphones, phones in and I was listening to music and I can still remember the song I was listening to. And I had a man who I'd never seen before.
I just the first thing that I that alerted me to the fact that something was happening was I felt this whack across my back and it was here a man had come up from behind and grabbed me. And the next thing I remember, he was standing in front of me and he was holding a box cut of blade with the blade extended, and he said, I'm going
to kill you. And then he made a fist and he punched me in the face and I fell onto the ground, and the next thing I remember after that was he was on top of me, strangling me, and he he again. I remember he repeated the words that he was going to kill me, and I understood what he was saying, that he was going to rape me, and that he was going to use force and violence if I resisted. And I lay there and he indecently sexually assaulted me, and then I and my memory flashes
backwards and forwards in different bits. I still don't even now I've had a lot of therapy, I still don't have complete chronological recall of what happened exactly in which order, which again I should say, is not unusual for PTSD, but I do. I did at one point then get a surge of adrenaline. And people talk about the fight flight fight flight freeze response. There's also the foreign response.
I know now with the benefit of having some education around it, that initially I was in a complete freeze paralysis response, but halfway through the attack that suddenly switched and it was like a light switch. It just went like that, and I got this surge of adrenaline and it clicked in for me what turned into a fight response, and I began fighting and thrashing, and because he'd been strangling me, my throat had been somewhat you know, I
couldn't breathe and it had been somewhat crushed. But I tried to scream, and I tried to yell, I'll kill you first, and I went for his eyes with my hands. I remember it as a scream, but in reality it was probably a horse or a very coarse attempt. And what happened was when I started fighting, he then stopped what he was doing. He and there was a moment and where it was clear that he'd lost control, and he then stood and fled. And the next thing I
remember after that is being in a standing position. I
don't remember climbing off my back. I just remember I was suddenly standing and looking down at my hands, and there were blood on my hand, there was blood on my hats, and I remember I do remember having consciously having a thought of I don't know if this is my blood or his blood, because I'd fought, and so I remember looking down at my body to see if I was bleeding, because I was worried that because I'd seen the box cut blad, I was worried I might
have been stabbed. And I had so much adrenaline, and if you've ever had that kind of adrenaline, it's it was so intense that I knew that if I had been stabbed, I wasn't feeling it. So I checked my body to see if I'd been stabbed, and I hadn't. We found I discovered later it was just some defensive scuffs that had caused blood. But and then I picked up my phone and called the police, called Triple zero, as I was then running home, and I remember saying,
you know, my name's Nina Fanel, I live it. Blah blah blah blah blah. I've just been attacked. And they took the details, and I remember at the time on the phone thinking I need to be calm, I need to be calm and try and give my address and
give the information. And the person who who was on the phone to me took the information and then hung up and I wasn't home yet, and I remember in that moment, I have never felt so abandoned in my life as I did in that moment, because that was my one lifeline, and I didn't know whether he was still in the area, whether he was going to attack me again, whether he was I had that kind of image in my head of you know, the horror movie,
whether the hand comes back and grabs the person. And I called back and I said, you know, I repeated the information and said I think I've been cut off the phone, and they said, no, you weren't cut off. Yeah, yeah, and you weren't cut off. No, that we're sending someone. And I just remember thinking, I mean, I think now there's much better training and they know you have to stay on the line to someone until you get to safety.
But so I got home and because this was all a few hundred meters from my front door that this happened, and I remember getting my key out and my hand was shaking so much. I couldn't couldn't hold the key stable to get it into the door initially, but then I got in and pretty shortly after the police arrived and it was the weirdest It was the weirdest conversation I think I've ever had because it was such a horrific, shocking thing that had happened that I didn't know how to.
You know, the police arrived at my front door, and my reaction was to kind of play host, like would you like to come in? Would you like a cup of tea? Like, because I was like, how does somebody what do you do in this moment? How do you make sense?
You know, we shouldn't be laughing, but I understand it's because people like yourself haven't had situations like that occur, and so your your behavior is understandable, weird but weird, weird but understandable.
So they they took me back to the park straight away where and looking back, I'm so glad that they did that because I was still in such a heightened fight stage.
I was.
I was ready to get the guy, like I wanted to go back with them, and I thought they would find him and getting there, like.
And I was go back and hunt him down.
Yeah, I wanted and I wanted to kill him like I was. I was angry, And I'm glad that we went back then when I was in that stage, because I went back with guys and by then the dog squad the dogs had there was a dog person there and other people. There were other police cars there, and I felt safe because there was all of this energy
and you know there, so I didn't feel afraid. And I'm really glad that that happened before the next day because I think it would have been I think it made going back to that place in that park much easier than it would have been had I avoided still in the moment. Yeah, So we went back to the park.
They could see the signs of the scuffle. My necklace had been ripped off, I'd dropped my university notes, you know, I'd been drinking a bottle of soft drink that was lying like you could see what had happened sort of thing. And then they took me to the police station and you know, for me to give a statement about what
had happened. And I remember, because this is going back to two thousand and seven, so it's been a while now, but one of the things that I had a very good female sexual assault detective who came out that night and she was great, but I remember them saying, would
you like a support person with you through this? And at the time, my mum was in perth on business and my dad was at home and he hadn't seen me because of the way the layout of our house is such that he was upstairs in his bedroom and he hadn't heard me come in and hadn't heard me bring the police in. We just I'd done that very
very quietly and then gone. And I'd made that decision because I knew that if my dad was there and he heard what had happened to me, he would want to go out and probably kill the first person he found that looked remotely like the person who had done
this to me. And I knew that if he was sitting there having to hear what had happened, I would probably self censor some of the more graphic detail to protect and and shield his emotional response into And so for that reason, I made the decision that I was going to report alone, which I did, and then they linked me in with the Sexual Assault Service after that, and I remember the Sexual Assault Service. The counselor an
amazing woman. This was over at role not sure sexual Assault Service, so I very much credit with kind of piecing me back together in the aftermath. And the counselor is an amazing woman called Susan Kendall, and she said one of the first things that she said when I came in, she said, I want to tell you that this is not your fault. You're not to blame. And my response to that was, of course, not my fucking fault. What's wrong with you? I didn't say it was my fault, like,
is that what you think? And she stopped and she said, no, I don't. But most people who walk through that doorframe do think it's their fault, and that really kind of it's always sat I've always remembered that moment because I remember being very offended that she had even kind of suggested that I might. Yeah, but then when she put it in that context, and I realized, like, right, that's right, Like people come through this door every day thinking that
this is their fault. And I think that, you know, part of the reason why I, very very early on in the process didn't feel blame, self blame or self shame is probably because I grew up with a very strong feminist understanding of the causes of these crimes and that it's not a person's fault. But also, I think the other thing is is that you know, if we look at the statistics around sexual violence, most sexual violence
is not the stranger danger stuff like I experienced. It is the family member, the friend, the boyfriend, the person known. And because my experience did fit that, and it's a cliche, you know, the stranger danger thing, but it's because it fit with that. I already had an available narrative or mold or stereotype to place my assault as rapist, yeah, and that this guy was a bad guy and that this was not my fault. And of course it's never the person's fault, but I I that night at the
police station. They took photographs of my injuries because I've been punched and strangled and so on, and my hands and everything, and they also took DNA swabs. And my
primary response after that was anger. And it's actually interesting that we talked before about the NRL work that I've done, and we used to ask the players to imagine a female friend of theirs coming to them and revealing that she'd been sexually assaulted, and we would ask the players what feelings she'd be feeling, or if someone's been sexually sulted, what might they feel, And some of their responses would be things like a shamed, embarrassed, so on, And then
I would ask them and how would you feel if you'd been sexually assaulted? And you can see them like double in size, and they immediately go angry, angry, And that was my reaction. I was angry. And it's interesting that culturally, I think anger is often an emotion that we reserve for men, and it's not often it's not the most common reaction when you say, how do you think a woman would feel who's been sexual assaulted? But
a lot of women do feel angry. They feel really fucking pissed off that their rights have been violated in this way. But of course, you know, and I should say, there is no one normal way to feel following a sexu assault. That was just my response.
Yeah, but it's the division between the male response and the female I understand what you're saying. And yeah, it's interesting, isn't it the group of blokes or shame and yeah, like I'm a victim and their responses.
Anger and yeah, like you're And so where this had happened. It was the street that I lived on at the time. It was opposite a girl's high school. And I remember also feeling very angry that, yes, he had attacked me because I happened to be the person walking there at that particular moment. But had it not been me, it could have been any one of those girls, or one of the teachers, or you know, it could have been any woman. And so in that moment, I understood that
this was not just an attack on me. This is an attack on all women and girls and their right to feel safe. And so so I went public five weeks after the assault. And part of that was because they hadn't found the guy. And I knew, you know, having studied journalism, I knew that if I put my face and my name to my story it would help.
Had it attracted some media attention prior to you speaking out.
No, No, So the police were doing their investigation. They had that I'd done the comfit, which.
You might want to explain that a comfit is you would have sat down, don't provide the description of what the person looked like. And then then are you talking about being shown fatos as well or just a comfit? First up? When it's done the artists.
Yeah, so they did the impression. They did the artist impression first start.
Sometimes they all look the same look, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But I've jake sometimes throughout my career. How come this one looks like that one looks like that one. Yeah, they all look the same.
So I'd done, I've done the comfit, they'd drawn the sketch, and then they'd brought me in to go through the through these big folders of photos.
Of fenders folds.
Yeah, and he wasn't in there, and I felt like I would have recognized I got a good look at him, so I felt like I would have recognized him. So after five weeks, I.
You told me is something yesterday and I said, I want to talk about it too, because I just think that these type of subtle things need to be understood. And you've said, full credit to the female sexual assault detective, that was very good. But when you were being showing the photos, there were two police probably detectives standing behind you having a conversation. And what was the conversation, So.
The conversation that they were having, and you know, to set the scene, this is an incredibly stressful you know, my injuries had not healed at this point, and it was an incredibly stressful I'm looking through these images and quite scary to be looking at all these different offenders' faces and the conversation was about girls and the problem like the risky situations that women put themselves in, and how women don't understand the risks, and it was.
It lacked sensitivity and awareness.
Yeah, and in that moment, and you know, this is something I've reflected on quite a lot. I was it was so raw, it was so incredibly raw, and anything other than calm, compassionate support was going to trigger feelings of like that that they are victim blaming me. I don't think that was their intention. I think that they were almost that they almost may have had a benevolent, paternalistic kind of approach to young women or these poor young women they just don't understand the risks are putting
themselves in. But in that moment, what I heard was them saying, this is your fault. Love, That's what I heard. And so I think, you know, it's really important that we do a lot of education and support for any kind of person who's working in a frontline role who might be interfacing with sexual assault survivors because the damage.
You know, we know now that one of the the number one thing that impacts on a person's capacity to recover following a sexual assault is the attitudes that they hear on disclosure and if those attitudes are I believe you, this is you know, I believe you, this is serious. What's happened is not your fault, and I am here to support you in whatever way that looks like for you.
That can have a really profound impact on a person's capacity to other whereas comments like oh you know girl, you know, like whatever the comment is, if it deviates from that, that can cause a person to shut down. And some people may not ever disclose again.
Because the traumas happened. But then you've been re traumatized if it's not handled handled properly.
Yeah, and I did you know, I did have There were people in my life at that point who did say unhelpful things like I had one one friend say, you have to admit it was pretty stupid of you to be walking home alone. There's no other way to get it, you know, like that's how I get.
Home, idiot, what were you thinking walking on the street.
Yeah, and you know, lots of when my story did go public, there was a lot of you know, silly girl, she shouldn't have been wearing her headphones, that kind of stuff. The worst comment And again like, this was back in two thousand and seven, so very different in terms of social media. Facebook. I remember Facebook, I think was established that year and someone made the comment underneath an article
about me that said, what can I still remember? It was what a conceited bitch for thinking she was worthy of being raped? The guy just probably gave her a good bashing, in which case, job well done. And I just like, now I look back and go, well, that's you know, that's why we turned comments off. That's why we don't have open comment sections on articles. And I don't know why back then they didn't, but I still
remember word for word that comment. And of course now you know, I can see that that's clearly a nutter, but back then I didn't. When I went public, I
didn't actually have anyone steering me through that process. So one of the things that I do now when I'm working with sexual assault survivors who are going public for the first time, is I have a whole checklist, and one of those one of the things on the checklist is is there anyone in your family, all your friends who hasn't heard your story yet who you would like to tell before it comes out in the media, Because by the time I went public my I told my
parents the very next day. I waited till my mum got home from Perth, and I sat them down at the kitchen table and they could see something was obviously very wrong. And I sat them down and I just said, I told them, and then I said, before you say anything, here are the things I need you not to do. And I sort of gave them a script of what I wanted them to do and not do. And they were They were great, they were fantastic.
What can I ask? What were they?
I said to them, I need you not to ask me while I was walking home alone, or what I was wearing, or if I'd been drinking, or because I actually had had a couple of drinks after unique because we've done our presentation, celebrated and sold and so I kind of went through, like I need you when I when that question had come up with the female detective, Actually that was quite interesting. She was as I said, she was great. She said to me, I'm going to
have to ask you some questions. And some of those questions might sound like I'm blaming you, but I'm not. But I need to ask these questions. Clarification, Yeah, and she said, so, I'm needing. I need to ask you if you've had anything to drink tonight. And the reason why I need to ask you is because of Da da da da da, and by her putting that framing around it, then when she asked the question, I didn't
take offense or feel slighted by it. And I think because of that, then when I was speaking to my parents, I almost adopted that of that script of saying, here are the things I don't want you to say to me, and here are the things that I do want want, which is I want to you know, I need a hug and yeah, so so yeah. Five weeks later I oh, yeah. One of the when I said the thing about who is there anyone in your family or friends, the reason for that was because my immediate family knew by the
time I went public, but extended it. Standard relatives, for example, didn't, and so they were finding out via the front page. And that of course sets off a round robin of phone calls and panic and confusion about you know, should we be sharing this story, should we be like does she want us to call?
Do we not go? So?
Now with survivors, one of the things that we'll do is we'll we'll actually talk them through. Before your story comes out, you might want to think about who you tell if you haven't told everybody, But you also might want to think about putting up something on your own social media that guides people on what response you want, so that says to them, you know, ways to support me. You know, later this week you might see my story
coming out in the media. Some really useful things that would help me would be if you share my story because I want it, because that shows people what you want. I'm you know, sometimes people might write, I'm going to be logging off for the next couple of weeks, but by all means send me a text message of support. Just don't call me right now. I need some space, so,
you know, actually mapping out for people and managing people's expectations. Yeah, So with the I guess the process of going public and having some bumps in that then also taught me why I wanted to become a journalist who specialized in reporting sexual violence in a way that was safer or more empowering for the survivor that returned agency and control. Because I did have some journalists tell my story very respectfully but I also had a couple of shockers.
And they're the bumps you're talking of.
Yeah, yeah, there were, but also just like little things like I remember one editor she she had gone around me to the police to ask for a copy of my police state. And when that happened again, because I'm so hypersensitized at the time, I experienced that as her disbelieving me, because I thought, why are you why checking up on my like and why not just ask me for a copy of my police statement? Why have you gone around me? And so I experienced that as her
disbelieving me. Now, as a journalist with a different hat, I go, oh, she was fact checking like that, it's standard, But no one explained that to me in that moment. And so part of what you know, a trauma informed practice as a journalist is about is understanding things like why it's really important to explain every single step to the person of what you're doing and why you're doing
it and when you're doing it. So now if I have to, you know, and if I was in that same situation now as the journalist, I would tell the person, Hey, I need to contact the police and ask for a copy of your police statement. The reason why I'm doing that is X, Y and Z, and in that way, when it happens, it doesn't feel uncomfortable. So yeah, there were things things like that. I also had one male journalist and this is astonishing looking back, and I hope
you know it's an era. It's a marker of the era. I had one male journalist who interviewed me about the attack and then proceeded to hit on.
Me, Hello, you're missing the point there a little bit.
Yeah, but that was probably the most looking about that was probably the most shocking thing. And I had one female journalist say, oh, she said, you're a pretty girl. You could take it as a compliment that he selected.
You, and I just again missing missing the point completely.
And I think in that moment it was because she didn't know what to say, and so she reached the awkward. She reached for something, and she realized as soon as she'd said it, how stupid, stupid it was, and how
clumsy it was. The the thing though, that I probably learned most from that process of going public was, or the thing that I hadn't anticipated, was that when you go public with your story, yes, there are unexpected bumps that you that happened, But the biggest one was the amount of disclosures I received from other survivors, and that was the thing I wasn't expecting, and no one had actually preconditioned or prepared me of what do you do
with that information? And at you know, all of twenty three, I thought it was my responsibility to try to. You know, someone opens up and they tell you that they're hurting, so you want to heal that hurt. You want to respond in a way.
That's it's not empathy, just your small circle of friends. You've opened yourself up to so many people getting undated.
So I was getting I was getting yeah, complete strangers, as well as people in my own life. And I remember like one of the things that happened was some of my high school teachers contacted me after I'd gone public and disclose their own experiences of sexual violence, which was really overwhelming for me, not just because I was suddenly coping with my own trauma, but now I'm also taking on all of these additional stories without necessarily having
the right boundaries and frameworks in place. But also when you're in school, you kind of see teachers as that you know, you don't think of them as having a life outside of being that teacher. They're you know, they're kind of their existence and so to suddenly have this information was somewhat overwhelming. So again, now when survivors do go public, one of the things that we're working through journalistically is preparing them for what the impact or fallout
might be. Also preparing them by giving them strategy so that if they do receive a disclosure, understanding if we're not trained counselors. You know, one of my beliefs is that anyone who's been impacted by sexual balance is entitled to the best to help out there. And I'm not a counselor, so that's not me. The best thing I can do is refer that person on to a professional service. Yeah, so that's a conversation that I now have with any survivors who are going public. If you receive a disclosure,
it is not our job to play therapist. The best, most respectful thing that we can do in that moment is to help refer to a warm referral by all means, but which means, you know, helping connect that person in with service.
So the experience that you got from from being a victim, there there was some other aspects of it there that in discussions we've had that the DNA samples taken hadn't been tested for what seemed to be an extraordinary time frame.
Yeah, it was. It was. So they took the DNA that night from me with swabs, and I think it was about five I'd have to check, but about five months that had passed and it still hadn't been tested. And I in that the headspace that I was in at the time was like every day I couldn't think about anything else. The assault was in like replaying every day in my mind, and I wasn't sleeping, I was having panic attacks. I was a mess. And I remember really needing that answer of have they tested the DNA
and do they have a match? Because if they do have a match, then they're going to go off and arrest the guy, and that means that I'm going to need to prepare for a trial. And so that's one course. The alternative is they don't have a match or they don't get any DNA, in which case I may never get justice, and I need to start making thinking about what does recovery mean? What does justice mean if there is no formal criminals.
So it requires a different mindset totally.
One mindset is about preparing for court. It's about not wanting to lose any of the detail. It's about retaining as much of the memory as possible, so revisiting and replaying the memory every day in my mind so that I'm not losing words or colors or whatever. The alternative is trying to make peace with the fact that I don't control the outcome of this and I may never go to trial, and I am allowing myself to forget or to I guess you'll never forget, but allowing myself
to not obsess over the memory. And you know, since then, I've had a type oftherapy called E MDR therapy, which actually helps put some distance between you and the memory. And that's the kind of thing that you know, I could only make that decision that I was going to do that kind of therapy. I mean, this gives it away of what happened. But once I realized that I
was very unlikely to get my day in court. So yeah, so after five months of me not hearing and wondering every single day, is today that I get the phone call. I couldn't handle it anymore. So I, and I'd been asking for updates and so on, and it just hadn't happened. So I wrote a press release and I sent it off to the media to say, you know, this is the crime. It happened office at a girl's high school,
and the DNA has not been tested. And that's because of the nature of the crime and because of the fact that he represents a threat not just to me, Nina Fanel, but a threat to the entire community. I would have thought it would have been a priority to get that DNA tested, And so it was picked up
on the seven nightly News. They run it as their lead story that night, and the following day the Premier, Morris Yemma gave a doorstop interview about it and he said that he had seen the report and that he was insisting that they test the DNA that had been provided.
So that got tested within about twenty four to forty eight hours from doing that media story, and what they found was they did get male DNA, but they didn't have a match in the system, which was a part like that for me was it was helpful vindication that there was male DNA because it meant that no one could then ever I mean, like not that they could anyway, like I had bruising and all this, but it was good to get an answer and at least to know
where I stood. But of course it was frustrating that they didn't have a match in the system, but it did allow me to, I guess, begin planning a little bit for the future, because I realized that as time went on and there were no leads, I had to begin to kind of make peace with the fact that I wasn't able to control the outcoming. Again, you know, I said before sexual assault, it's all about, you know,
feelings of loss of control and powerlessness and helplessness. And to not be able to be in the driver's seat afterwards, and not to be able to control the outcome and to have to surrender that to the cops and the universe is a really hard thing to do. But in that moment where the premiere stepped in and said, okay, test this girl's DNA, I also realized I'd made a really categorical error, which is I'd only ask for my DNA to be tested and.
Could have been on the platform.
And looking back, I wish and this is probably what also so to seed in me to become a campaigner because I realized. I mean, look, I was so traumatized at the time that I wasn't thinking straight anyway and
hardly sleeping and so on. But looking back, I can say like in that moment, I missed a campaigning opportunity, which was I should have asked for there to be a complete resolution in the backlog of DNA testing so that otherwise what's happened is I've just jumped to the front of the queue and everybody else has been pushed by one day in the qere.
But the sad part on that, there's a couple couple of points. I'd just like to make the nature of that crime. What's happened to you that is, that's right up there with this is danger, as in this person could reoffend again. And I think I mentioned to you yesterday I worked on the North Shore rapist, which I think predated this attack. But he was attacking people on the north Shore at night walking home, just ladies walking walking home on their own. Graham Kay, his name is.
He's been in the media a bit. It frustrates me that police can't identify that there's a serious matter that you had to go to the media and then get the premiere involved and then all of a sudden it can be done. I take on board what you're saying that was a campaign opportunity, but we would like to think that is done and that any victim that goes to the police that yeah, the world has changed in terms of crime investigation, DNA and forensic science is such
a crucial part as a victim. It would be frustrating to you that you have to keep contacting and then had to go. At least you had the ability to go to the media. But could you imagine if you didn't have the ability do well or yeah.
And the ability to go, but also the willingness to be identified, you know. And of course it shouldn't be it should never be on the backs of survivors to have to advocate for their own justice where you know that they survivors should be focused on their healing and recovery,
not on having to hold this system to account. But it's interesting now in the work that I do journalistically that one of the most common concerns or complaints that I hear from sexual assault survivors about the criminal justice system are the long delays and the radio silence. It's such a common frustration. And again it's the reason why it's so traumatizing or re traumatizing to be met with radio silence and long delays is because it again makes you feel powerless. So it again puts you.
Back in that that trauma, that.
Trauma of feeling helpless and unable to control the outcome, which you know, I sort of look back at my career and I can now you know certainly that night it's twenty fifth of May two thousand and seven. It is the line in the sand for me. There was Nina before and Nina after.
I was going to ask that very thing. How has it impacted on you? And I can see you're talking about it. I can see you actually processing your emotions as you talk talk about it.
It's been a really long time since I have talked about it like this. This is the first time in a very long time that I've revisited the memory in a sense, it is there every day because it's just part of the back of my like it's in the back of my brain, and it's part of why I do what I do, but I don't often verbalize it. And it definitely was as I said, it was a line in the sand. But before that moment, my outlook on the world was quite different.
I think.
I think one of the things that was robbed from me that night was my sense of safety in the world and my belief that the world is generally a safe place. And so I do have PTSD and it does impact a whole bunch of things.
But the.
Aftermath of that has been I have tried to use it as a springboard and as the fuel to drive the advocacy, the journalism and so on that I do now, and to try to take what was essentially an event in my life that I had absolutely no choice or control over it happening to me, and I've then tried to use that and turn it into a platform to assist others or to draw constructive meaning out of something
that was inherently senseless. And I suppose part of that is also because I didn't get formal justice and won't well, it's unlikely at this point that I've had to find what does justice mean for me? And if I'm not going to get formal justice from the criminal system, what does it mean to recover in a community? And how do I use the skills or the tools or whatever
that I do have to extract justice. And for me, part of that is, like if you look at when I was doing the let Her Speak campaign, part of that was, you know, I'd met Grace when she was twenty two and I was twenty three when I went public, and it very much struck me that had my assault happened in Hobart instead of Sydney, I wouldn't have had that ability to go public, And so fighting for the rights of other survivors to be able to tell their story,
for me, that's part of my justice because that's part of me getting agency back.
The longer I see the world of crime and the things that happened, justice comes in many ways. And yeah, I also see how people turn negative events into not let the anger define them, but channel it into something positive. We talked about Thomas Kelly's parents and the work that they've done, and there's countless people that have been touched by crime in the most horrific of circumstances and turned
it round. But looking at the work work that you're doing and the messaging that's getting out, the campaign you're working on, now, do you want to talk about that?
Absolutely? So it's called justice shouldn't hurt take the stand, which the idea came back in twenty twenty two, I was contact by two sisters, Rose and Pipper Milthorpe who had been sexually abused as children. And they had and this was in Aubrey, which you don't know it. It's a little country town on the New South Wales border with Victoria. And those girls had told their parents when the youngest was age five. The guy was charged. It took two and a half years to get to court.
And for those two little girls, because they were both going to be giving evidence, and because their parents were both going to be giving evidence as well, it was the offender was a family friend, they were not allowed to talk to each other about the crime in that two and a half year lead up because you know, as you know, it contaminate evidence, etc. So for two and a half years, these little girls were carrying that knowledge of what had happened to them without being able
to speak to their parents. Then when it got to court, they ran into the pedophile of the offender. Like most people don't realize that courts don't have separate waiting areas of separate entrances, so they literally ran into the offender in the foyer. It was then the case was moved to Sydney, and so these little girls had to live out of their suitcases for three months for the trial in a different city, with their parents who weren't allowed
in the courtroom while they were giving evidence. And then one of the little girls, she faced days of cross examination before a jury member fell asleep, and when the jury member fell asleep, the judge decided they had no other option than to release the entire jury and panel a new jury and start all over again. And both of the girls said that they left that system more traumatized than when they entered it.
What you've just explained, I can understand, understand.
It's horrendou And so for years that family were writing
to the Attorney General saying this is not acceptable. And by that stage a program called the Child Sexual Offense Evidence Program had been developed, and the point of that program is to make court far less traumatic for child sexual assault survivors and also to massively reduce the amount of time so that from that moment of giving your first police interview to the end should be no longer than about six months, so that you don't have your
life put on hold. And you know, it's horrendous enough when an adult has their life put on hold for two to three years going through the system, but at that age developmentally, to have those girls aging, you know, graduating from year five, you.
Know it could be stunting them emotional.
Absolutely. So this program called the Child Sexual Offense Evidence Program was developed and it was evaluated and it's been proven to be incredibly effective at reducing trauma. But the problem was that it was only available in two courts in New South Wales, being Newcastle on the Downing Center. And this is what we call post code justice, where your ability to access a program or a service or justice is conditional on the post code that you live in.
And so for kids who were in rural, regional or remote areas, you know, it was tough luck. You don't get access to this program that's proven to be effective in reducing trauma. So the sisters contacted me and they said, we want to advocate for this program to be properly funded so that it's available in every district court. And I thought this has all of the makings of a really good campaign. The ask is clear, measurable and specific.
There is a clear decision maker, and there is a clear evidence base that shows the program works and they have a very strong case study. My concern is that at the time that they contacted me, the youngest of the sisters were still fourteen, and I thought, ah, she's too young to go public. And in New South Wales, incidentally, the age is fourteen that you can go public. But
I just thought it is such a big decision. And she wrote me a letter and she said, Nina, at age five, I was old enough to sit in a room and tell the police what had happened to me. At age seven and a half, I was old enough to sit on the stand and be cross examined for days on end. Who are you to tell me that at age fourteen, I'm not old enough to own my story, she said, Nina, she wrote. And I'll never forget, she wrote, I've been a survivor longer than not. This is a
part of my story. I should be the one to control when I tell her. And they were the exact themes that I talked about. And they'll let her speak, let us speak campaigns, I thought, shit, Yeah. So, as it turned out, for a different reason, which is a technical legal reason, we did have to get a court order to name them, and I thought, all right, if we get a court order and we go through those steps and they still want to be named, because that builds in a calling off period, we'll do the paign.
And six months later, when we got the court order, they still wanted to do the campaign. And by that stage they'd also the sisters had also told people in their local communities about what they were planning to do. They'd had school assemblies, they'd done they'd raised money for Brave Hearts with a bike ride, they'd done a footy awareness night, they'd had movie nights to raise money for
Brave Hearts. So in that process they had told their community about their story, so they wouldn't be outing themselves, and they also had the other reasons why I thought, okay, all right, we can tell the story is they had full support of both parents, full support of their counselors, their lawyers. They also they'd also we did a lot of work with both of the girls' schools to make
sure that there was support there. And so we went ahead and I broke that story back in twenty twenty two, and this was the beginning of the justice shouldn't Hurt campaign and we campaigned with the Millthorpe family really strongly for three months and in three months time the premiere at the time in New South Wales agreed and committed sixty four point three million dollars to expand that brilliant program.
So it's now available because of the MILLFORLK family, that program is now available in every district court in New South Wales, which is a was a great success. So that was twenty three and then after that I thought, using that as a template for the campaign, let's now expand it nationally, but not just you know, court isn't just traumatizing for children, it's traumatizing for anyone who's been
sexually violated. So and we know as well that most people who have experienced sexual assault in childhood don't report that experience until adulthood, so they're not going through the court as children. And this program was really only to help people who were still under the age of eighteen.
But we know very clearly from the evidence that when you have a forty year old who is on the stand giving evidence about what happened to them at age five, you absolutely return to that psychology and the vulnerability of
a five year old. So for the last few years, a couple of years, I've been following twenty individuals who made a report of rape in Australia to the police, through their experiences from war to go with the criminal justice system, to find out so in all different states and territories, to find out through their eyes, what is that pathway, what is it that their experience in going through And unsurprisingly, every single one of them has said that,
including all of those who did receive a guilty verdict, they have all said that they left the system more traumatized than when they first entered it, but also that it doesn't have to be that way, and that with some of the things that were in the original Child Sexual Offense Evidence program and which have been trialed around the world and evaluated, there can be things that can
be done to make that pathway less traumatic. So the new campaign, which builds on the original justice shouldn't hurt. But we've rebooted it for twenty twenty four and we've now made it a national campaign, so it's been hosted on news dot com dot Au and we're calling for all governments to invest in these reforms to the criminal justice system to make that pathway more streamline, less stressful, fewer delays, et cetera.
Okay, and some of the reforms breaking down the reforms that you're looking at.
Yeah, So, right from the very first step, which is that for some people anyway, is the forensic step. We want there to be so at the moment, sometimes when people are particularly in rural and regional areas, when they're presenting to hospitals, they're sometimes having to wait over forty eight hours before they can have a rape kit done, and in that time they're told not to wash or shower, So you can imagine how.
It's degrading, just the continued trauma.
It's horrendous. And you know, I remember not that long ago, I got a call from someone who had been sexually assaulted in Gosford. Gosford is an hour from Sydney, you know, and they this person had to wait over a day for someone for rape kit and someone who could perform the rape kits. So from the first step, we would and you know, there are other countries, like I believe it's Sweden, where any GP can perform a rape kit.
You know, Australia's really far behind with this. So from the first from that first interaction with the criminal justice system. We'd like there to be better resourcing and better training through to what's happening in court rooms. There needs to be a lot of work and there are some really great initiatives that are out there now. Like one of them that I love is the Court Support Dog program, which.
I saw that in the documentation that you sent, So talk us through that, because when I'm looking at that, I'm going support dogs. Yeah, okay, so that's some of the dogs. I know it wouldn't be great support, but these are especially trained dogs. Yeah.
So the court support dogs, they actually receive more training than guide dogs. They trained from when they're very very young puppies to remain calm under all circumstances. And the programs come out of America. They've had had it in America and Canada since about two thousand and four. And the idea is that right from at least in America, right from the first interview with the police, the dog
is there to help calm and ground the survivor. And what they've found is that when people are in the presence of a dog, their heart rate slows down, blood pressure drops, stress levels drop, and that allows you if you think about the brain when it's in its trauma fight flight mode, when your brain calms down, you can actually access your memory, You have better recollection, you can access your memory better, and your speech functions, et cetera,
those parts of your brain. So people are able to give clearer evidence, and that's leading to more convictions in America. With the program, they've found that there are children like if you look at what makes a good sexual assault counselor, they're people who are good listeners, who are non judgmental, and who have unlimited positive regard for the client. You look at a.
Dog, bring out rover.
They're good listeners, they're completely non judgmental, and they have that unconditional love which for a person who's feeling traumatized. And I remember, you know I talked before about my own case and how on the night of my assault, I didn't want my family member in the room with me giving giving evidence because I would self censor. But I grew up with a Golden Retriever and had I had a dog there, you know, I didn't want the police to touch me, but I would have really appreciated that.
Warmth of Yeah, I understand, I understand it.
So in Australia we now have the Court Support dog program in Victoria, but they've only got two dogs and what they're finding is that, well, they found a few things, one of which is fascinating, which is that when a survivor is supported by the dog in court, they take fuel breaks because they can get through more more material
before there too high emotionally. And so because they're taking fuel breaks, they're getting through cases quicker, which is saving the courts a lot of money because you know, every time a survivor takes a break, the charge everybody has to stop.
Yeah.
So they're also finding that survivors are overall, they're less traumatized because if they've been supported by the dog because of that calm, unconditional support that they give. So one of the goals of the campaign is to ensure that in Victoria there is an expansion of that program because it's I mean, like if you look at the American case study as well, they've found over there that there's
benefits for everybody. The police have less burnout, there's less turnover if there's a police, if there's a dog running around.
Look I'm not laughing because I was in a maximum security prison. Then they're training dogs as support dogs, and the way the dogs behaves and just to calm prisoners. Now, the way that the dog had seense if someone's getting agitated then would come up and just sit down beside their feet.
Then and sometimes I was speaking a couple of years back when we were first introducing the program out here in Australia. I'd gone over to the US to the International Court Support Dog Conference and we'd come back out here and I was presenting to a room full of prosecutors and I was shit scared because it's a room
for prosecutors. And I was standing there with a court support dog next to me, and I was telling my story and explaining how I believe the court support dog would have made a difference to me on the night
of the police interview. And the dog Coop started licking my hand, and the handler explained and said, so the dog is trained to pick up on stress pheromones, and Nina's giving off stress pheromones, which is why the dog has started licking her hand, and that's to kind of ground me and bring me back into my body and to settle me. And it did. That's exactly the effect that it had. And I've raised one of the women whose case I've been following for the last few years.
She's experienced extreme domestic violence and extreme trauma in her life. And I've had countless conversations with this woman and when I went to interview her for the campaign, and I thought, this is going to be really hard on her because it's you know, having a camera in your face is stressful, and talking about very personal experience of violence is stressful.
So for the interview, we brought in the dog, and she had the dog throughout the interview and she has never been I have never heard her so articulate as she was, Like in all the phone calls I've had with her, she's never been as articulate as she was in interview. When supported by the dogs, I've seen it work first time. So that's I mean, that's just one
of the reforms. But the other reforms are things like specialist judges making sure that there are fewer delays in courts, having witness intermediaries so there are people who help particularly children or people with complex communication needs, independent lawyers for survivors.
There's a lot of things, and I think that was under the heading I've got human rights survivors, victims go and the way what I was reading about it and it articulated it very clearly in that people were victims of crime attend court thinking they've got someone representing them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah it's a prosecutor. The prosecutors not looking after their interests. The prosecutions prosecuting their case. You'll get some
good prosecutors aware of protecting the victim. Yeah. I don't want to give more money to the legal fraternity, but there should be I think at some point in time, some legal representation that victims can get because the prosecutor is not representing the victims and that's such a foreign thing for them. They don't understand.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions. So many people think that when you report a sexual assault, Okay, we all understand that the defendant is represented by the defense. The prosecution does not represent the rights of the victim. The prosecution represents the rights of the state or the communities. As the victim survivor, you are classified as a witness and you are there as evidence. You're not actually even
a party to proceeding, and that has implications. It been things like you know, I've worked with a lot of survivors who have real difficulty getting things like updates or access to the transcript, which you don't automatically get because you are not a party to proceedings. So in other countries around the world, like there's there's a bunch of India, Japan, Canada, Ireland, Germany, they actually allow a victim to have their own lawyer
present in court, which I mean, it's fascinating. I remember speaking to one victim survivor who said to me, so I went to court and I knew that he would have the defend the defense. And I said to them, you know, so the prosecution who objects if I'm being harassed or whatever. Well, the prosecution can object, but they're not legally obligated to because I don't actually represent you as their client. And she said, okay, so who does speak up for me? Who does stand up for me if something happens?
Who objects?
And the answer was no one, No one is. Legally the prosecution might, but they're not obligated to. And that's actually where the name of the campaign, the second part, the justice shouldn't hurt take the stand, came from because she said, who stands for me, And I thought, that's a bloody good question. And you know, we know that when sexual assault survivors. If you ask any sexual assault survivor who has been to call, why did you go
through it? Overwhelmingly it's not actually for them. They're doing it to protect the community. Like they'll say, I'm doing it to protect to protect the next girl, I'm doing it to keep the next person safe. So they are taking the stand to protect us as the community. And so the belief of the campaign is to say, as a community, we should take a stand to protect these people because there's no fun going to court for these survivors.
There's no you know, one of the myths I guess that I the you know, there are rate myths in terms of the rate myths that foster belief about why rape doesn't doesn't happen, But there's also rape myths in terms of media, and one of the most common ones is that people tell their story in the media for fame, money, or attention. And I can tell you none of that is true. That there's no there's no you know, magical leprechorn that arives with a big bunch of gold coins.
When you tell your story. If anything, it costs survivors money to.
Put yourself out there. You become public property then and you're not making any money from it in your life got a lot more.
Difficult again, if you ask survival like every time I interview a survivor, the two questions that I start with, what are their objectives in telling their story? And what are their fears and concerns? And that first question of what are your objectives? Very individual some people it might be.
You know, I've heard a lot of different things from I want to tell my story to raise awareness about the need for consent education, through to I want to raise awareness to about some reform in the criminal justice system, etc. What all of those answers have in common underpinning them is I want to tell my story so that it has some sort of impact and some sort of change, which means that somebody else doesn't have to walk through my nightmare again, that somebody else has a different out
come to me. That's why it's driven by altruism. That's overwhelmingly I find that people who tell their story or people who go to court, they're doing it for an altruistic reason, which is to help other people and when I asked that second question of what are you afraid of again or what are the fears again? The answer is us are somewhat individual. But the one through line is I'm afraid some version of I'm afraid I'm going
to be blamed or judged. And as a journalist, I can't lie and say that's not going to happen, because statistically I know it is going to happen.
People make comments, people.
Yeah, and the in terms of like trauma inform practice. As a journalist, the media is not a safe space. It is not you know, I know that by doing this interview, I'll probably get some you know, a handful of risks of emails that are nice, and I'll probably get a couple of wacko ones.
You'll get attacked on something, yeah, you've said.
And but the reality is is that survivors still make the choice to go to court, or they still make the choice to do the media because they make a calculation that the benefit or the possible good that can come from that offsets the risk and the personal risk. And it's always a personal risk. It's always a personal
price that you're paying. So for me, when I you know, as I said, I didn't get my own day in court, but I have so much admiration for those who do go through that through that system because you know, if you win the case, you don't get you know, you don't get a civil payout, you don't.
Gain another misconception life is going to be better for you when if you've got got a victory in court.
And most people who do go through court, their life is on hold for two to three years when they do it. It impacts their relationships, their careers, like everything, but
they're doing it to keep the community safe. So I think as a community, the least we can do is ensure that if someone is brave enough to go through that pipeline, that we make that pipeline as safe and easy and trauma informed as possible by doing things like not making sure that the cases don't drag out for three years, that they're done as quickly and it's some one as possible.
The other thing with sexual assaults as well, there is a serial nature to it. Like sex offenders in my experience throughout my career, they don't stop. If they get away with it, there's a likelihood that they might reoffend, So there's a benefit in there in speaking up, going to court and making people account for their actions.
Yeah, and I mean like like absolutely right, Like statistically we know that. And I remember going back to that question of why did I go public? And part of it was about trying to generate leads and solve the case and get an arrest and keep and within that keeping the community safe. Part of it was also for me, about me sending him a message of you didn't beat me, you didn't win. I'm not afraid of you anymore. Like I mean, I'm honest. I was shitting myself and having
panic attacks. But on another level, I was saying, this does not define me, and I'm not going to live the rest of my life in fear of what's happened.
And I get so much inspiration by people that have been victims of crime and then stand up and say this is not going to define me, and it's so important and it's quite inspirational. I find that when people adopt that approach.
But I think that's I mean, that's the reality for me is, you know, and I'm conscious that there will be survivors listening. The reality for me is that someone else's choices do not define you. Those choices are a reflection on them. They defined the person who's made those choices, or they reflect on the person who's made those choices.
My choices are what define me. My choice two you know, everything from my choice of what I eat for breakfast in the morning, how I parent my child, how I conduct my into personal relationship with my partner husband, through to how do I use my experience of what's happened to me without my you know, which I didn't have agency over. But how do I use it now to you know, as a platform for betterment? I guess Okay.
If people want to find out mora or support your campaign, where can they Where can they find you?
Yeah? Absolutely so the justice shouldn't hurt. Take the Stand campaign is being hosted on news dot com dot you. You can also follow me on x formerly known as Twitter.
I'm just it's a strange calling it expert.
Yeah, I'm just at Nina Fanel. There's also a petition which it'll be great if people can jump on and sign the take the Stand petition. Again, what we're pushing for are really like other countries have been doing this stuff for years. Australia is a bit behind and there's no need for us to be so jump on sign the petition, give us a follow Thanks.
Well, I'd greatly encourage people to do because I found it fascinating talking to you. I'm just packing up my notes here because there've been a total waste of time. We might have to get you back on the podcast so I can use the notes I've prepared to have a chat. But really, look, thank you for the work that you're doing. Honestly, the work that you're doing is so important, and the way that you're getting your message across is where people can understand that it's useful and
people can relate to it. So congratulates on what you're doing. All the best for the future, and I'm sure you're going to keep making the difference out there, and you've made a huge difference in a lot of people's lives.
So thank you.
Thanks for your efforts. Now, thanks cheers. Well, just in that conversation I have with Nina, she's taught me so much about how we should view sexual assault in the society, and about changing cultures and the way that we look at things, how victims of sexual assaults should be treated through the court system, and a whole range of things. It was really impressive conversation and I learned a lot from it.