Dawn Gilbert, Paul Baker, and Howard Brown are foundation members of VOCAL Inc NSW (1989 -2007) and all have been awarded Life Membership of the organisation for many years of tireless, innovative, and caring work. Robyn Cotterell-Jones joined the organisation in 1994, and is the Executive Director of VOCAL.

Dawn Gilbert
These days, Dawn is involved in raising a family – one utterly changed because of the murder of her daughter. She says ‘It gets harder, not easier, as time goes by.’

Paul Baker
Paul, was a serving Police Officer, and held positions as a Chief Inspector of the NSW Police Service, Vice-President of the VOCAL Inc Committee, and also a past Chairman/ President of VOCAL. Paul passed away on the 17th of July 2007 and is terribly missed.

Howard Brown
Howard is Vice President of the VOCAL Inc Committee, and also a past Chairman and President. Howard was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2004 for his service to the community via VOCAL. He tirelessly represents VOCAL on many Government committees and Boards – such as the Victims Advisory Board, Sentencing Council, Court Security, and provides support and practical guidance to victims of crime in Sydney and all over the state. He regularly assists other agencies when they need help on a complex case - any crime, any stage.

Howard's University education was in law, but his life experience as a secondary victim in a homicide matter showed him the gaps in morality, ethics, and practice of the Criminal law process. It showed him how ignorant he had been about what is was like to be a victim of crime, and how limited services and resources were for people like him. It also told him of how poorly he was being trained to practice law.

Howard assists victims of crime, including those who are often primarily assisted by crime specific groups, to prepare for the less common and more complex issues like Mental Health hearings, Parole Submissions etc.

He often speaks as a guest at various functions, like Traffic Offender programs in Sydney and is extremely well received, and he freely assists in training staff and volunteers in other agencies. Howard is an inspirational speaker - any issue to do with victims of crime - any crime, any stage. He also tells great jokes.

Howard is located in Sydney, (the rest of us are in Newcastle), working mainly alone, to assist victims of crime. He has done this day after day, week after week, year after year, for 17 years.

When asked why he does this work, and acts boldly - swimming against the entrenched tide of legal domination - as spokesperson and representative for VOCAL Inc, he says, 'Because I can. I wish someone had been there for me, to tell me the truth, to give me dignity and respect and a fair go when I needed it!  If people who can, don't, then the bad guys win!' And the bad guys are winning!'

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Robyn Cotterell-Jones
Robyn Cotterell-Jones came to the organisation in 1994 utterly disgusted at the Criminal Legal System's handling of her case. A former senior public servant with experience of law and service, then a business owner, she was seriously harmed in a violent, extended, unprovoked attack. Her life was changed in every conceivable way by that vicious, disabling crime.

It happened on the anniversary of her dear friend's horrific rape and murder. Her friend, Carolyn O'Brien had been repeatedly raped then slaughtered by a security guard while at work, on Father's Day, 7th September, 1986.  Robyn felt an immediate and ongoing sense of responsibility for Carolyn’s having been in that place, on that day – the awful ‘knowing’ that completely unimagined outcomes can follow the changes we put in place, even years before.  Of course she had nothing at all to do with the acts of horrendous violence suffered by Carolyn, but her guilt and ‘if only’ haunted her for years. 

The murder trial ended with the judge saying the killer should never be released.  He would never harm another woman, her family, her friends. Small comfort, yet comforting.

The legal system - with legal changes that mean nothing is ever for certain or forever - meant he came up for parole, in 2004. He's not out yet, he had to do a sex offender's course first (18 years in jail and still no satisfactory completion?). Robyn, and a former co-worker and friend of Carolyn’s Damien Sloane, (now President of the VOCAL Inc Committee), supported by Howard Brown of VOCAL, attended a Restorative Justice conference in May 2007 at the jail where the offender is imprisoned.  21 years so far.   And they were just her friends – not family. 

Robyn says that after the extreme violence against her, naturally she cooperated with 'The System' because she believed that was what a decent, law abiding citizen does! Isn't it? Don't you co-operate with the police if you're in trouble, bashed and broken, in fear for your life?  Especially when police warn you of the danger ahead?

She wryly observes that she encountered a very complex, unlinked, uncoordinated process which was nothing at all like what she thought 'justice' was all about. Life afterwards was complex.  Changed in every way.

Analysing from the perspective of a victim, she describes the expression ‘The Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth' - the Oath one takes in courts - as a great abuse of power.  She discovered it was really nothing more than a legal device used to prevent the truth being told. Australian criminal courts are not about exposing the truth, or about what really happened, about relevant history or what victims suffer.  She also thought ‘someone’ might have prepared her.

After Robyn's case was finalised, she innocently tried to get sensible answers from important people – naively still never even suspecting that her case was not just a 'one off' glitch with lessons to be learned by the people in power so the next innocent victim would saved from the expensive, unfair ordeal she'd had.

She soon discovered the concept of justice and a fair go for victims of crime did not exist and was not very important at all. No one was responsible - no one cared enough to listen.

She recalls a phone call from the then Minister for Women's Office, some eighteen months after she had submitted a detailed report of the process she had undergone, the idiocy and suggestions for positive remedies. There had been no response at all.  The caller identified herself and her important position in the bureaucracy, and Robyn replied with some irony – Oh, 'Gee, you must sit a long way down the bottom of that black hole!’ The woman said, with great compassion, 'I've just read your case and it’s just awful!'   and then explained that she couldn't actually 'do anything', she just wanted Robyn to know that people had read her case and thought it was disgusting how she was treated!

Former positive public servant Robyn shakes her head in disbelief - no apology, no strategy, no action, no changes, no timely interventions, and more than fifteen years later women who are badly injured but survive Domestic Violence are still being treated just as badly as she was.

That helps maintain her passion for the work.

Robyn joined VOCAL, worked for years as a volunteer, and eventually took over from Dawn Gilbert as 'the voice on the phone' the person who heard from victims at all hours of the day and night, who talked their language and gave them support and care. Robyn's advocacy skills, the product of her earlier life experience caring for victims of war in a government agency and her own experience, are an important asset to VOCAL.

Robyn is now the Executive Director of The Victim Support Unit at VOCAL, still works many hours of unpaid work, as does the rest of the team at VOCAL.

In 2005 Robyn was awarded the Lifeline – Newcastle Permanent Steel Magnolia Award ‘for a woman of courage who has overcome serious challenges and helps others to do the same’, and in  2007 she  was nominated for the prestigious Law and Justice Foundation’s  ‘Justice Award’.