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