Support for terror victims: the club no one wants to join

They’re strangers joined by a common thread – they’ve all been victims of terrorist attacks. Now they’ve banded together, determined to ensure extremist violence doesn’t win.

Victims of Terrorism Australia members Mark Wallace, Matt Lamberth, Julie Wallace, Louisa Hope and Luul Ibrahim. Picture: Jane Dempster

A Melbourne counter-terrorism cop who fought for his life against an Islamic State suspect as he was knifed in the face, shoulder and chest.

A Sydney woman whose morning coffee turned into a 16-hour ordeal in the Lindt Cafe siege, forced to watched the cafe manager executed in front of her.

A Brisbane mother and father whose 21-year-old daughter was the youngest victim in the London Bridge and Borough Market terror attack in the UK.

A young Perth woman who learnt her three-year-old brother was among the 51 people killed in the Christchurch mosque attack.

All are members of a club no one wants to belong to – victims of terror.

But now they and others have come together to form Victims of Terrorism Australia, a group dedicated to providing a voice and peer support for the growing number of those affected by politically and religiously motivated acts of violence.

It’s the brainchild of retired NSW counter-terrorism police officer Caroline O’Hare, whose four decades in the force convinced her much more needed to be done for survivors and their loved ones.

“We want to provide them with peer support, to have some interaction with others who’ve been through similar incidents, because they’re the only people who actually really understand what they’ve gone through,” Ms O’Hare said.

Former NSW counter-terrorism police officer Caroline O'Hare. Picture: Jane Dempster

“You’re not targeted because of who you are; you’re targeted because of what you represent, and you represent the state. It’s very disempowering for victims and survivors when a person who doesn’t know anything about them tries to kill them with a bomb. It’s hard to come to terms with.”

There is a wide gap between different states in the assistance victims receive, and the new group will advocate for victims who can’t do so for themselves.

Others instrumental in setting up the group are counter-terrorism expert Dr David Gawel and Community Resilience associate director Malcolm Haddon, from Multicultural NSW. The NSW Police Association has provided seed money.

The group wants authorities to take a more victim-centric approach to terrorism, Ms O’Hare said, to ensure we don’t do any more harm to victims. “Sometimes it can take an extraordinary amount of time just to find out whether a loved one is alive or dead. For the families it’s unbelievably devastating.”

Seven years ago Mark and Julie Wallace faced that hell of being left in limbo.

They had waved goodbye to daughter Sara Zelenak as she set off for London in March 2017. They never saw her alive again

Sara Zelenak was killed in the London Bridge terror attack. Picture: Facebook

Mucaad Ibrahim, 3, was killed in the Christchurch mosque terror attack in 2019.

On one of her first nights off work in June that year, Zelenak was caught in a terror attack.

Three terrorists drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge, got out and began stabbing people at random in crowded Borough Market. Zelenak was bending to help another victim when she was killed.

The Wallaces were alarmed when they couldn’t contact her and so distraught after three days of no clear information they boarded a plane to London.

“We were about to touch down, and our son got through to me on WhatsApp on the plane,” Ms Wallace said. “I’ll never forget, he said ‘Mum, the DNA results prove Sara is dead’. So we were the last people in the world to find out that she was murdered.”

The couple set up the Sarz Sanctuary – named for their daughter’s nickname – a retreat to help victims deal with trauma.

One early member of the new group is serving AFP officer Matthew Lamberth.

In 2014, then 43, Mr Lamberth was a member of the Joint Counter Terrorism Team when he and a Victoria Police officer went to meet Abdul Numan Haider, who had been identified by ASIO as a person of interest. The two met Haider in the Endeavour Hills police station carpark. When they told the 18-year-old they were going to search him, he pulled a knife from his jacket pocket.

“He stabbed my partner twice in his arm, and when he went to ground, Numan turned and stabbed me five times – twice in the face, twice in the shoulder, once in the centre of my chest,” Mr Lamberth recalled. “I’ve gone to ground to create some distance but I couldn’t get my gun out. He was leaning over to stab me some more and as I was struggling with him, my partner regained his feet and shot him … and killed him.”

Mr Lamberth was awarded a bravery medal for his actions. Ten years on, he still doesn’t have full use of his shoulder after repeated surgeries but the physical injuries were “fairly easy to deal with”.

“It was more the mental health stuff later on, yeah,” he said, trailing off, still struggling with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

Luul Ibrahim lives in Perth but most of her family are in Christchurch. On March 15, 2019, her three-year-old brother, Mucaad, was killed in the Christchurch mosque attacks.

“Standing in the middle of a hallway, gathering for the family victims, waiting for bodies to return to their families, I realised that the government was not trained to deal with something like this,” she said.

Ms Ibrahim, “proud to be an Australian, New Zealander, Somali, African, Muslim woman”, became an advocate for survivors and victims of violent extremism that eventually led her to Victims of Terrorism Australia.

Louisa Hope was caught up in the Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney in December 2014 when Islamic State sympathiser Man Haron Monis terrorised hostages with a shotgun before executing cafe boss Tori Johnson. Another hostage, Katrina Dawson, was killed as police stormed the building.

Ms Hope has devoted much of her energy to setting up a foundation for nurses. She said she was so busy she didn’t have much time to dwell on the personal impact.

“This group is a very good idea. It’s very positive,” she said. “And unfortunately, this issue is not going to go away.”

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