Nina Funnell
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Okay.
So interestingly, that actually also started in that year of university reporting.
Did it?
Yeah.
So back in 2016, 17, when I was doing all of that work, I got a phone call from the student women's offices at the University of Tasmania to tell me that there was a convicted sex offender living on campus in one of the residential colleges.
I think it was John Flynn Residential College.
Um, and he was an elderly convicted child sex offender and his name's Nicholas Bester and he was living in co-ed facilities and he was making a number of the students on campus feel very, very uncomfortable and they didn't understand why he was living alongside 17 and 18 year old girls in, and I mean, they had shared bathroom facilities as well.
And he was, I think a 68 year old man at the time.
Anyway, I said, yeah, I'll do that story as part of the 52.
And then I said, but I just want to check, how do his original victims, because he'd been to jail, I said, do you know who that is?
Do you know how they feel about this?
Do you know if they feel comfortable with the story coming out?
And they said, yes, her name's Grace Tame.
She lives in L.A.,
And I said, okay, well, I'd like to check in with her first about how she feels about me reporting on him leaving at college.
And also if she'd like to say anything.
And I made contact with Grace, who he had abused as a 15-year-old schoolgirl when he was her maths teacher at St.
Michael's Collegiate Girl School in Hobart.
And Grace said that, yes, absolutely, she was happy for the story to go ahead.
And actually her mum, Penny, was a mature age student