Most Downloaded - It Doesn’t Belong to You - Russell Manser

Across the last 18 seasons of the Clink, We have had some really raw conversations. This is one of most listened to episodes with Russell Manser.

In this powerful “Best Of” moment, Russell Manser opens up about the turning point that changed his life — refusing to be defined by his past, reclaiming his story, and finally handing back the shame that was never his to carry.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appoche production, he said, but made I know you're a
bit crook. He said, you're not feeling too well and
there's dirty old syringe.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
So you were hanging out.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, I was hanging out. It wasn't in a good way,
you know, coming with a habit. Yeah, And i'd come
out and he said to me, he said, mate, I'll
give you a shot. And I fucking leaned up against
the window and I said, no matter how fucking low
I felt about myself, how bad I overfelt against about myself,
I could never take anything from you. You've got nothing

(00:44):
to offer me in this life. I said, you are
a piece of shit, scum, fucking dog you are. You're
just a piece of shit. You're a scum. You're a
fucking dog. I don't fucking trust you. I don't like you.
And I said, now, fuck off that come to me.
And then the cell door came open and I could
see him in his little posse of people, bloody and
they're talking to me. I can you give a fuck?
And I just said, mate, you're going to stick up
for that fucking grub. I said, oh, for you, Oh,

(01:05):
I said, you know. But then there was a young
blake there and he had all these books out, you know,
and he study and I said, what are you doing, man?
He said, I'm doing psych degriefs. Remember you used to
tell me about studying. That's the way out of here.
And he had to took your advice, he said, maybe
she'd take some of your own, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
So this is coming back around in the full sir.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, yeah, and this young fella. And by the end
of that day there was a few things I was
liking about myself and the fact that, you know, I
had morals, you know, I weren't going to take no
matter how bad fucking things were, I weren't gonna I
weren't going to you know, accept anythink from a person
like that, you know. And I had a bit of

(01:42):
a goal. I thought, you know, well, if I'm going
to do this, I'm going to do it right, you know.
And so what.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Year was this, two thousand and six was it?

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Oh? No, No, would have been a bit later than that.
I think it was twenty and fourteen, twenty and fifteen.
I spoke the Royal Commission for the first time. In
twenty fifteen. Yeah, I just decided, I said, you was
going to one more crack at this life, and you
know if I don't get it right now, because I
just thought, you know, pinched on a bank and I
knew the New South Wales coppers wanted me for a
few others and I've been involved in a few close

(02:08):
Calls's that's why I ended up in Queensland.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
So you were looking at a big whack again. You
half your life gone.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
I would have been getting out when I was close
to sixty. And what happened was, I'll sit down and
I was watching the seven thirty report on ABC and
it come up about the Royal Commission, and you know,
I just I pumped out a little ladder and I
jumped on the phone next day and I got my friend.
I said, can you give me the address to this Royal Commission.
I want to write them my ladder. I just want
to test the water a little bit with this and
see how I found in. And they are well. In

(02:35):
two weeks of me posting the letter, I get called
for a legal visit and here's the Royal Commission. They said,
we're here to hear your story. And I told him
a little bit of pete about it and then banged
straight after it become a Drayal, my counselor, and these people,
and I'm just going, wow, you know what I mean.
And these people wanted to hear my story. They didn't
want they they weren't telling me to shut up. They
wanted to hear it. They were genuine they wanted to hear.
And so about two weeks later it was official. We

(02:58):
got my we recorded my my story of abuse. It
was the first time I told it in its entirety,
you know.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Idea solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the
evidence I shall given this Royal commission'll be the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I started traumaccounting on a regular basis, and I started
off weekly and went to Fortnightland and went to monthly.
And I had this amazing trauma councilor you know who,
you know. I think it's about seven or eight years later.
I'm still in contact with today, only now and then.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
That's rare. That's rare to have that that one count Cone.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, she was an amazing woman. I'll tell you what.
I wouldn't even know what she looks like. I've only
ever spoke to her on the phone.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
So you've never been in the same room.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Never been in the same room. But she she you know,
she helped change my life. You know what I mean.
I'm blessed. I'm blessed that had happened. And you know,
I went to court, I got sentenced, and I've got
a pretty good result for Rod and that bank five
with the two with no back date. So I was
going to have to do three years. And and then
I went up to Merriborough Prison in Queensland. I guess

(04:03):
you know, I started to be you know, I don't know,
an advocate for the Royal Commission. I was started on
you Blake stories because I started to be able to
see things in people. I realized the more I told
my own story of abuse, the better I was getting.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yep, it's actually healing.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
It become cathartic for me and you. It would be
five or six places. I said, this is what's happened
to me. I'm talking to Royal Commission at the moment,
and I'm getting traumaccounts and things are starting to change
for me. You know, my whole outlook on life starting
to change because I'm starting to realize all these things
I had about myself. I shouldn't. I don't own them.
They belong to perpetrate. As great as tool is the
silence and shame of the survivor themselves.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
You know, I think to us us have you and
I had touched on this subject before, and you used
a certain term which I've used since our conversation, and
it was you were carrying a backpack. Yeah, look, carrying
a backpack of somebody else's wrongs.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, shame, shame and embarrassment and.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
That hate too. I think you know, we kept all
that hope pack off and yeah, and handed back to
its rifle.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
The word sorry.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, it took that when I took, you know, And
that's what I talk about today. I talk about you know,
I carried all this stuff that didn't belong to me, mate,
and that just didn't know I was so I had
so much hate on myself. I had so much shame
and guilt, Like you know what I mean. There's a
lot of things attached to, you know, abuse survivors that
that you know what I mean, there's some really horrible

(05:26):
things that you left with, But when you tell your
story for the first time, it's quite liberating. That was
for me. It didn't feel comfortable. But the more and
more I told it, like you know, I tell it
on a daily basis today and about ten times a day.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
I also am a survivor of sexual abuse, and with
your guidance, I've been able to find peace within my
own journey too.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
So I totally can relate.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
And I'm sure that there's many people out there that
are listening to this. You know, you're talking to two
blokes that you know have living a pretty hardened life.
But yet both of us have been absolutely just pulled
to pieces and distraught and traumatized in our earlier years,
you know, which obviously put us on a path of
destruction for some.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Don't be ashamed of it, doesn't belong to you.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Fucking speak up about it because these low life dogs,
they don't deserve to be protected.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
No, they don't. And and and for a long time
they're protected in the courts and things that look there's
things are changing slowly, but surely things are changing. And
that's what we're trying to be part of of that change.
And you know, and when I tell my story the
Royal Commission, you know, they give me some Me talking
to Royal Commission, had it like there was a lot

(06:38):
of screws in high places that didn't like me doing that,
you know, and they tried to silence me to a degree,
but any end, my voice got too loud and I
started to have people around me that were going to
support me and back me up with it. In particularly lawyers.
You know, they're going to say, this blake can tell
his story. And when the Royal Commission ask you, would

(07:00):
you like these perpetrators charge? Might the perpetrator in my case?
I dare say it would have been dead at the time.
It could have what's called a postumist investigation. Said why not?
So you can just go on chisel and fucking pedophile
into their gravestone. I think you know what I mean.
What happened was one of the blokes that worked in
sentence management in Marrabara Correctional Center said to me, be

(07:20):
careful of who you're talking to. I said, why is that?
He said, because they're not on your fucking side. You know,
this is a woman from a sex crime squad. He said,
she's not on your side. And I don't know from
information check and here's these this woman from the sex
crime squad attached the Royal Commission talking to the screws
may being wanted for our robberies in Sydney, and I said,

(07:40):
and they came out to see me. I said, am
I talking to you? You're talking to me about what
to You're not interested in my case of abuse, You're
more interested in the bank robberies. And I said, they
were more interested in the trophy of the bank robber
than they were of my abuse.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
The traumatized young man.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, that's and it just made a few complaints them
claik complaints weren't investigated. And I learned from a bent
solicitor in prison how to do what's called a judicial review,
so I had them listed in a Supreme court I
think it was on the tenth of October twenty sixteen,
to take them on in a judicial review. This same
screw comes down to me. He give me the mail

(08:15):
in the first place, and he's laughing his head off.
He says, mate, we've been told to get you out
of this state at all costs before that judicial review
goes on, because want you out a jurisdiction. So you've
got to discontinue just because he said, yeah, because a
lot of people are going to be in trouble if
you go ahead with that and you were.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
There vulnerable to someone knocking you or you know, someone
could have paid whatever it might be, and could have
had it set up that you'd committed suicide.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
It become very dangerous to me. And then so what
they did, he said, and mate, we've been told to
get you on a plane out of here. Mind a plan,
get back to New South Wales. So I'm in New
South Wales and I say to him. I go before
classification at Dublin and I said, it's no use me
talking to They said, we want to give you a
C two, want to send you on themsecurious, It's no use.

(08:59):
I said, I'm wanted for all these robberies, all these robberies,
and I'd come up there was a warrant and they said, mate,
this no warrant for you. They said there's no warrant
for it, there's nothing there. And they said they give
me a C two. Down in June, I had about
six weeks ago parole approved. I was going to a
glue house which is whereham and I said, no, there's
police interest in you. So they're going to So they

(09:19):
took me back to the maximum security part on medium
security part. Two weeks ago, they came in and charged
me with six bank robberies.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
So what happened to this whole You weren't wanted bullshit,
but yet you knew you were.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
It's good delay. It's a dirty trick that the cop
has used today, and they will just hang on to
a few charges until you're about to get released. I
went through the compensation process and I was awarded a
summer money which I'm allowed to talk about the figure. Yeah,
but I was also given an apology ladder. My release
date was in like seventeenth of February twenty seventeen. The

(09:48):
cop has made an application for a detention order and
they got it, so I was kept in jail. And
then I watched the thing on Four Corners about Dylan
Volla up in the Northern Territory event and strapped in
and I said to my a woman who's a solicitor
at the time, who become my really good friend, who's
now my partner, and she's now a barrister. I said
to her, I said, I want that bloke represent who's

(10:10):
representing Dylan Vola. I said, don't want him represent His
name's Peter O'Brien's got Peter O'Brian solicitors in Sydney. I said,
because Dylan Vola is the one. I'm the I'm the
case of. This is the one we bait. It we
prepared earlier. You know what I mean Like that? You
know what I mean. I said, because that kid will
turn out like me. All out abuse he's suffering will
turn him into a person like me twenty three years later.
It's an all this jail