A foundation set up by a reformed bank robber to help support victims of institutionalised abuse has gone under.
Russell Manser served 23-years behind bars in Northern Territory, Queensland and NSW prisons and made a name as one of Australia’s most notorious criminals before leaving a life of crime behind and starting a charity, The Voice of A Survivor.
The foundation offers support to victims of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of institutions, as they seek justice.
The company was placed into voluntary liquidation on Monday.
Manser said victims had been hesitant to seek justice because of recent applications made by institutions in the NSW Supreme Court for permanent stays on cases where the alleged perpetrator had died.
If a stay is granted, it means the matter can not go to court and the victim is unable to receive justice.
‘It’s been really tough going of late,’ Manser told Daily Mail Australia.
Russell Manser served 23-years behind bars in Northern Territory, Queensland and NSW prisons before starting his program The Voice of A Survivor
‘The directors have decided to put it in voluntary liquidation because we’re not having the same volume of clients because of the response to these claims.
‘It’s just not viable for us to continue on.’
Manser said The Voice of a Survivor clients would still be given the same support through another foundation, Warriors Advocacy.
However, the foundation will only be able to support victims whose alleged attackers have since died.
Ex-con Russell Manser (pictured right) has attracted large online following for his straight-talking videos about his time within the Australian prison system
Manser also took aim at the government’s National Redress Scheme, which was introduced following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The scheme which was started on July, 2018, was created to support people who have experienced institutional child sexual abuse ‘gain access to counselling, a direct personal response (from the institution, such as an apology), and a Redress payment’.
Payments will be decided on an individual basis and range from less than $10,000 through to $150,000.
Manser, who has turned his life around after decades behind bars, took aim at the government’s National Redress Scheme, which he says doesn’t do enough to support victims of institutional abuse
The scheme only applies to people who were abused as a child, if the abuse happened before July 1, 2018, and an institution was responsible for bringing the victim into contact with the abuser.
The scheme also only applies to those born before June 30, 2010.
It also warns an application may be treated differently if the victim has served more than five years in jail.
But Manser, a victim of sexual abuse himself at the hands of an institution, said victims were better off pursuing their cases in a civil matter and labelled the scheme a ‘scam’.
He said the redress process was ‘subjective’ and whilst trying to eliminate the judicial process which can be traumatising for some victims, it often took just as long as a civil matter to get an outcome.
He also claimed victims simply had to fill out an application with deeply personal information which often took months to hear back on.
Manser added many victims had spent longer than five years in jail over their lives, with many turning to drugs and crime as a result of the abuse they suffered.
‘These people have suffered enough, they deserve justice,’ he said.
Manser (pictured with his partner) runs a support and advocacy group that helps connect survivors of abuse, prisoners, and former prisoners with legal advice and rehabilitation
He claimed he’d also heard from people with similar experiences of abuse who had been awarded a much larger payment by taking the matter to the civil court, instead of going through the redress scheme.
‘The redress scheme was to minimise trauma on survivors and it’s not,’ he said.
‘These people are coming out and telling their deepest darkest secrets, there’s an art to how you talk to them, not just fill in an application and talk to them in 18 months time.
‘I’m a survivor, that’s the difference between me and them, it’s like speaking another language to them.’
Those applying for the scheme are encouraged to seek their own legal advice about their options.
The threshold for evidence in civil claims is higher than it is through the scheme, where a ‘reasonable likelihood’ is used to determine whether a person was sexually abused at the hands of an institution.
Proving evidence of abuse through a civil matter is harder to prove, however monetary payment may be higher.
The scheme, while in some cases offers a lower payment, was set up as an easier alternative to civil litigation.
A Department of Social Services spokesperson said the National Redress Scheme had been set up ‘as an alternative to costly and traumatic civil litigation’.
‘Survivors of institutional child sexual abuse can seek justice for harm and injury caused in different ways, including through redress and civil litigation,’ they said.
‘The Scheme aims to progress and assess applications in the shortest time possible. However, processing times may vary depending on the applicant’s circumstances and the complexity of the application.
‘The Government recognises that this wait time may be difficult for applicants, and for many survivors, their redress application is the first time they’ve told anyone about what happened to them.’
Manser was sexually abused himself when he was thrown in an adult prison despite being 17
Manser, who has publicly weighed in on how he thinks high-profile prisoners such as Ivan Milat and Chopper Read would’ve been treated behind bars, began his criminal career boosting cars and abusing recreational drugs.
When Manser was 17, the Attorney-General made an example of him, after he and his mates car-jacked a luxury Porsche from Sydney’s affluent northern beaches.
He was jailed in an adults’ prison despite being a minor. It was there he was subjected to horrific sexual abuse and offered far heavier drugs that he had used before.
By the time he was released, Manser was addicted to heroin.
He started robbing banks and had stolen from five banks in the early 1990s, including the Commonwealth Bank in Lane Cove where he snatched $90,000.
By the age of 23, the career criminal had been sentenced to 15 years behind bars, with a non-parole period of seven-and-a-half years.
When he got out, he started a business, got married and had two boys.
However the short-lived period of peace was disrupted by memories of his abuse, which were becoming harder to ignore.
His marriage eventually broke down and Manser numbed the pain with drugs and alcohol.
He returned to robbing banks and was thrown in jail again.
While behind bars again, he risked his neck to contribute to a Royal Commission into sexual abuse, with many other inmates beginning to think he was tattling to the police whenever he used the prison phones.
After 23 years in prison, Manser decided he wouldn’t rob another bank or steal a car again.
He has also since started a podcast ‘The Stick Up’ discussing true crime, prison, abuse, and survivorship.
DailyMail
