00:00My joy has gone, disappeared like the pastel tones out of a watercolour.
00:10Maybe one day, I'll remember what it meant to be happy.
00:16Sarah Eccles-Smith uses poetry to express her feelings.
00:22After she was sexually abused by her massage therapist in 2020.
00:27It was a prize she won at the gym that changed her life forever.
00:31It was a choice of a massage voucher with him or a meat tray through a local butcher.
00:37In hindsight, I probably should have taken the meat tray.
00:41Miss Eccles-Smith says the massage therapist, Jason Hagen, worked from a room in his house
00:46where he indecently assaulted her after several visits.
00:50It left her with anxiety, depression and some unhealthy coping mechanisms.
00:56You know, relationships, you know, break-up or friendships dissipate because you've put
01:00up walls and blocked people out.
01:09Miss Eccles-Smith sought solace in cooking, but she says it was hard to reconcile why
01:13Hagen wasn't charged for more than a year after her complaint.
01:18Police told the ABC the criteria for an arrest hadn't been met.
01:23Police instead reported him to industry representative body Massage and Myotherapy Australia, which
01:29suspended his healthcare provider number.
01:32But it wasn't reported to the Health and Community Services Complaints Commission at the time,
01:37the group that can ban him from practising.
01:39Those decisions meant Hagen wasn't stopped and the abuse continued.
01:43Since questioning by the ABC, South Australian police have launched an inquiry and say they
01:49acknowledge the harm caused to a number of victims in this case.
01:54One of those victims was Sally Lumsden.
01:58She was abused just over a year after Miss Eccles-Smith went to police.
02:03If no one else had ever come forward, I don't know that I ever would, I would have just
02:06packed it away at the back of my brain and tried to forget about it.
02:10She says she feared the worst case scenario during the abuse.
02:14In all, nine women came forward and Hagen was jailed for six years in October.
02:25The massage industry is self-regulated in Australia and some states can ban practitioners.
02:31There were dozens of bans in place for massage therapists last year, but not all the reasons
02:36are listed and they could still work in the Northern Territory or Tasmania if banned in
02:41another state.
02:42If it was regulated the same way a doctor was and it was publicised more predominantly,
02:47the other women wouldn't have been assaulted.
02:50Federal Health Minister Mark Butler says an independent review will consider the process
02:54of regulating other professions, such as massage therapy.
03:00For survivors, it's hoped a better regulated massage industry will help stamp out other
03:05predators.
