Part 1: Nina Funnell Has A New Fight. This One Will Shock You
4/29/202637 min
Find Part 2 of this conversation with Nina Funnell here.
Nina Funnell survived a violent assault as a young woman, fighting off her attacker and escaping to call the police. Although he was never found, the experience became a turning point.
Within weeks, she chose to speak publicly, challenging stigma, victim-blaming, and the silence surrounding violence against women. Since then, Nina has become a leading advocate and journalist, driving national conversations and legal reform.
Through campaigns like Let Her Speak and Justice Shouldn’t Hurt, she has helped change laws, amplify survivor voices, and secure millions in funding for victim support services.
Today, she joins us to discuss her work supporting victim-survivors and their families, and the fight for a more just system.
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CREDITS
Guest: Nina Funnell
Host: Gemma Bath
Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman
Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy
Video Editor: Julian Rosario
Audio Engineer: Jacob Round
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsGemma Bath· Host0:00
Before you listen today, this episode contains stories of child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and suicide. [suspenseful music] Nina Funnell is lying in the dirt. It's 2007, and she'd been walking home from a university celebration to her parents' house in Sydney's Lower North Shore when she was attacked by a stranger. At first, her reaction to being punched, threatened, pulled into a nearby park, and sexually assaulted was to freeze, but right now she's ready to fight. The man's grasp is still on her throat. She can't breathe. She can't move. "I don't want to die, not like this," she thinks. Then, she's fighting him, thrashing, kicking, punching, anything to get his body off hers. It works. He retreats, and she runs. [gentle music] I'm Gemma Bath, and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. Nina Funnell didn't get justice in her own story. They never found the guy who sexually assaulted and attacked her, but her experience lit a fire in her belly, and she has used her career as a journalist to help other victim survivors of assault. She has changed