exclusive Freedom of Information investigation by news.com.au<\/a> revealed that 1800 RESPECT is being subpoenaed an average of once a week, for counselling notes, and audio and video recordings. <\/p>\nThese recordings have been shared with perpetrators, and played in court, in both criminal proceedings and in Family Court matters.<\/p>\n
For victims, the privacy intrusion exacerbates feelings of violation, humiliation, powerlessness and distress.<\/p>\n
Last night, Unions NSW declared their support for the campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NSW Criminal Procedures Act must be amended,\u201d Unions NSW secretary Mark Morey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo survivor should walk into a courtroom and discover that the defendant\u2019s lawyers have been reading their therapy sessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cNearly 100,000 Australian women have been sexually assaulted by a co-worker. This is a workplace issue, and Unions NSW will not stand by while the legal system weaponises their most private moments against them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sexual assault survivor Jess Denham* also spoke at the Trades and Labor Council meeting, and launched a number of related art pieces.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first time I walked into the sexual assault counselling room they said \u2018This is a safe and confidential space\u2019,\u201d said Ms Denham, who was raped from age five by her biological father, Rob Gilfillan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe room was calm and inviting\u2026I spoke about my childhood trauma\u2026 I spoke because I was told I could trust it would stay in the room and that my disclosures would be kept in confidence. I spoke because I believed my emotions, my feelings, my pain would not be taken from me and shared with my abusers.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that promise came crashing down, when my abuser\u2019s lawyers subpoenaed my sexual assault counselling notes. My therapy was turned into evidence for the defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom that day, I could not fully trust another crisis line, hospital or counsellor. The one thing I had worked for, a safe, judgment-free space with a trusted person, got ripped away from me\u2026Once again there was nowhere for me to go that was safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both of Ms Denham\u2019s parents, Rob and Karen Gilfillan were ultimately found guilty. Rob Gilfillan is currently serving the longest jail sentence for child sex offending in Australia, with more sentencing to be handed down in April.<\/p>\n
Ms Denham said her art pieces helped her process her trauma, when counselling became unsafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my notes were subpoenaed, not only did I lose trust in my counsellor, I also lost an important avenue to express myself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed to find a new method of expressing myself which was safe and which I knew couldn\u2019t be taken away from me.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsing art was a way to be able to get through the trial. It meant I could put my feelings and my shame somewhere where it could not be subpoenaed. That kept me alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the darkest of days when you feel so alone, when you feel you cant trust anyone, I looked to myself, and realised my art could not be taken away from me. I\u2019m now ready to share my art with the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Keep Counselling Confidential petition calls for tougher legislation to protect counselling notes. The campaign is also backed by sexual assault services, academics, counsellors, social workers, lawyers, survivor-advocates and psychologists.<\/p>\n
Comments on the petition include: <\/p>\n
\u201cI signed to stop the misuse of my profession against survivors,\u201d wrote one person.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow is this not already illegal? Victim-survivor counselling access must be protected and any information about that access (including case notes) must remain confidential and owned by the victim-survivor themselves,\u201d wrote another.<\/p>\n
\u201cVictims should not have to suffer humiliation in front of anyone, let alone their abuser,\u201d commented a third.<\/p>\n
Nina Funnell is a Walkley Award winning freelance journalist<\/p>\n
*Jess Denham gives conditional consent to be named in this article and other articles by Nina Funnell. No other media have permission to name Jess Denham or in any way identify her or other survivors and sexual assault complainants who are connected with this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 3000 people have signed a survivor-led petition to keep sexual assault counselling notes private, after an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,137,514,515],"class_list":["post-551389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}