Restorative justice needs to be for victims too

The facilitator stipulated that when we met it would be as equals. I agreed with our fundamental equality as human beings and Australian citizens, but I disputed that we had equally valid points of view in this meeting.

The next shock was being informed that the meeting could not be about "making the offender feel bad". I didn't want him to keep feeling bad, but it seemed pivotal to the outcome that he understand fully the harm caused. .If he was at all redeemable, he would feel remorse.

Relations deteriorated and I was informed by email I was unsuitable "because I didn't subscribe to the principles of equality and not doing harm". This devastated my fragile post traumatic self-esteem "Primum non nocere" or "first, do no harm" is a core principle in medicine and here I was charged with non-adherence.

It has taken me a long time to recover. I felt lured into a project that was purported to be victim led, but proved absolutely offender centric in terms of whose safety was paramount and for whom benefit was really intended. Later I read some of the background proposals written by project personnel. Driving crime was deliberately chosen because victims would have to acknowledge direct harm was not intended.

I still believe that in carefully selected cases, restorative justice can be beneficial to victims, offenders and wider society. However, we have far to go in developing process that is safe and effective with genuine concern for the victim's wellbeing.

Re-victimization is a serious risk and I experienced it in one form without even meeting the offender. It cannot proceed without separate highly qualified multidisciplinary mental health professional teams for both parties. The conference facilitator could confer with these teams but should not have prior interaction with either party.

Restorative justice is largely experimental in this country, so formal ethical governance as legally mandated for medical research is needed.

"Victim survivor" is the politically correct term for those impacted by crime. Truly perceiving ourselves and being regarded as such by others is the only way forward.