‘Healing’: Brenda Lin co-founds The Survivor Hub after losing family in mass murder
Brenda Lin’s uncle and abuser murdered her family in a brutal crime that left Australia reeling. Today, she’s determined to help others.
In 2009, Brenda Lin was on an overseas school trip when her uncle Robert Xie brutally murdered her dad Min (Norman) Lin, mum Yun Li (Lily) Lin, younger brothers Henry, 12, and Terry, 9, and aunty Yin Yun (Irene) Bin while they slept in their North Epping family home.
The incident received widespread media coverage, and in a catastrophic error, police initially placed the grief stricken 15-year-old Brenda with the same uncle responsible for the mass murder.
Distressingly, Xie had already begun grooming and sexually abusing Ms Lin prior to the murders. He was then given unfettered access to her.
It would take years for the murder case against Xie to be built. At trial, Ms Lin found the courage to disclose the totality of what was occurring.
Finally, in 2017, Xie was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole.
Ms Lin’s experience, along with her incredible strength and resilience, also led to her establishing The Survivor Hub, an Australian peer-led network established to support survivors through the criminal justice process and their wider recovery.
It was this group that a distraught Madeline Lane found support in after her own devastating experience with the justice system.
In April 2020, Ms Lane, 27, was raped in a Mosman apartment by Boyd Kramer, a man she met on Tinder.
Kramer was found guilty, but given no jail time after a judge took pity on the former national water polo player.
“Rape is a crime which carries up to 14 years jail in NSW,” Ms Lane said.
“The prosecution told me they expected he would get around five years jail.”
Instead, Kramer received a mere 300 hours of community service.
Distraught, Ms Lane turned online for help.
“I knew people who had been sexually assaulted, but I didn’t know one other person who had reported it or been through legal proceedings,” she said.
“So I felt so alone in the aftermath of the court case, and at a loss of how to overcome it.”
Distraught, she searched online for help, and discovered The Survivor Hub.
What is The Survivor Hub?
Founded in 2021 by four sexual assault survivors, The Survivor Hub is a not-for-profit initiative which aims to provide safe and inclusive meeting spaces where survivors can connect, be informed, ask questions and learn.
Through monthly in-person meet ups and a private Facebook group, victim-survivors over the age of 16 of all backgrounds come together to share and heal.
Last year alone, the organisers received more than 870 registrations to attend a MeetUp, and the Facebook group supported more than 700 online members.
“As survivors we realised that going through the legal system could be very isolating and confusing,” said Ms Lin.
“We wanted to create a community – made by survivors for survivors – to support members through the ups and downs of their healing journeys,” Ms Lin said.
“Our MeetUps show survivors that they can and will get through it, because their peers have too.”
Ms Lin’s experience as a survivor is remarkable. Not only did she manage to stay in school, graduate and then complete a degree in criminology at the University of Sydney, but she is now well on her way to finishing her PhD, also in criminology.
She is humble about this achievement, saying: “I don’t think I am anything special … a lot of people in society who have achieved things, did so under difficult circumstances”.
It was also at The University of Sydney that Ms Lin met fellow survivor Anna Coutts-Trotter, a social work student who suffered extensive abuse by a previous partner.
Like Ms Lin, Ms Coutts-Trotter had experienced the trauma of a trial, along with the incredible pressure that comes with growing up in the public gaze (Anna is the daughter of Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and public servant Michael Coutts-Trotter).
Ms Coutts-Trotter’s former partner was ultimately convicted of one charge of physical assault, but found not guilty in relation to other charges. He was given a non-custodial sentence.
Ms Lin and Ms Coutts-Trotter quickly bonded and together, along with two other survivors (who remain silent co-founders), the four women established The Survivor Hub, hoping to provide the real world peer support they wished had existed when they each went through their respective trials.
“We realised the power of connecting with other survivors, sitting with them and sharing lived experiences and how important that was for healing,” Ms Lin said.
The first survivor MeetUp was hosted in November 2021 in Balmain and since then, demand has soared, with face-to-face MeetUps now held in more than a dozen locations including Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Ballarat, Balmain, Broken Hill, Gosford, Newcastle, Wollongong, Camperdown (The University of Sydney) and Randwick (The University of UNSW).
Discussion topics range from how to make a police report or prepare a Victim Impact Statement, through to intimacy and dating in the aftermath of assault, feelings about perpetrators, counselling pathways and tips for disclosing to loved ones.
The team also run online MeetUps, including groups which specifically cater to survivors in the Veteran and Defence Community.
“For us it’s incredibly important to be able to have something good come out of something so tough and horrible,” Ms Lin said.
Madeline Lane joins The Survivor Hub
When Ms Lane attended her first in-person MeetUp, she felt nervous but excited.
“I almost backed out. I had already attended one online group, which I found really supportive,” she said.
“But it is a lot easier online because you can disconnect or leave.”
In the past, Ms Lane had also contacted 1800 RESPECT in the hours following the rape. But when a full transcript of that conversation was shared with her rapist and his legal team – and then read out in court – Ms Lane’s faith in the confidentiality of the service was rattled.
She had also accessed face-to-face counselling at a specialist sexual assault service. That had proved “extremely beneficial” in the short term, especially in understanding her own trauma responses to the rape.
But now, Ms Lane wanted to connect with people who could relate more directly to the experience of going through the criminal justice system.
“Unless you’ve been assaulted and reported it you really can’t understand it …. Court trials aren’t like you see on TV,” she said.
“I was feeling defeated after my trial. We’d had the sentencing hearing in June 2022, and I’d learned that my perpetrator wouldn’t be serving any jail time even though he was guilty of rape, the second most heinous crime in the eyes of the Australian legal system.
“I had done everything right. I had done everything I was told to do to seek justice and [the courts] had failed me, he was never held responsible for his crime and what he did. “Community service is not an adequate outcome for a rapist. So at that time, I was just heartbroken and angry, really angry.”
Three months after sentencing, in September 2022, Ms Lane attended her first MeetUp hosted at the University of Sydney Camperdown campus.
“It was a really big step because it meant showing up as a survivor. But it just felt nice to be there and have people understand,” she said.
For the first time, her feelings of isolation began to thaw and she found others who could empathise and connect with her experience. To her surprise, she also found she could help guide others and answer their questions.
“A lot of people were very early on in their healing journey. They were people who hadn’t reported it yet, and I could answer their questions,” she said.
“I found it really cathartic being able to be there for others when I didn’t have anyone there for me, it’s extremely therapeutic knowing that they’re not alone.
“It felt like a positive outcome to what I had been through, being able to use the worst thing that had happened to me for good.”
Ms Lane found the MeetUps so helpful that she eventually decided to become a group facilitator.
After shadowing another facilitator, she reached that goal in January 2023 and now, alongside multiple volunteers, Ms Lane helps to run one of the in-person groups in Sydney.
“The one thing I said so many times during the police process and the lead-up to the trial was I never had anyone to go to, to ask questions,” she said.
“I never knew what to expect, because no one I knew had been through it before me so I never knew what was going to happen.
“It’s a very full circle moment for me and I am glad I am able to use my experience to help others.”
News.com.au stands with The Survivor Hub
Now, as Ms Lane goes public as part of news.com.au’s Take The Stand campaign, she says she has dual objectives: to change the justice system and make it less traumatic for those who come after her, and to raise funds for the organisation she already volunteers so many hours to.
All MeetUps are free to attend, because volunteer facilitators like Ms Lane generously donate their time unpaid to the program.
“This allows The Survivor Hub to keep costs low, but overheads must still be covered,” co-founder Ms Coutts-Trotter said.
This includes the cost of room hire, tissues, light snacks and accessibility aids. A qualified counsellor or social worker also attends to help maintain safety and this can also run at a cost.
“This month we opened MeetUps in two new locations and yet more locations are planned for the future,” Ms Coutts-Trotter said, adding that the demand is ever increasing.
Ms Lane said she hopes sharing her story will help The Survivor Hub expand its impact.
“I just want more survivors to be able to get the support I never had, in a timely and trauma informed way,” she said.
To donate to The Survivor Hub, click here
Nina Funnell is Walkley Award winning journalist and the creator of the Take the Stand campaign run in exclusive partnership with news.com.au. Contact: ninafunnell@gmail.com
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