investigation
Victims speak out about Tyson Vacher, the Perth man accused of being a fake psychologist

“I might continue counselling,” a smirking Tyson Vacher told reporters outside Fremantle court in late June. “I’m qualified, as the judge said — there are no qualifications to be a counsellor.” “Patients” of Vacher, who had just been charged with three counts of fraud masquerading as a psychologist, watched the footage with alarm. They were horrified that a man who falsely claimed to have a decade of clinical experience and who they had sought the help of for their trauma, anxiety and depression, could still take on clients as a counsellor. Within weeks, 56 people — “patients” and their supporters — had come together. Each had their own story about how they were impacted by Mr Vacher, but every single one was driven by the same intention — to stop this from happening again. The contingent, led by three women, leapt into action, creating a petition to push for a gaping hole in Western Australia’s health regulation that needed fixing. In the meantime, Vacher was charged with 11 further counts relating to his time allegedly pretending to be a psychologist. Now, The Sunday Times can reveal the Government is drafting legislation to protect patients from unregistered practitioners like Vacher. WA will be one of the final States to adopt a national healthcare code of conduct that could prevent unethical counsellors from practising. “HE WAS GOING TO SAVE ME” Alice (not her real name) is one of the 56. She claims she met Vacher while they were both patients at a private mental health clinic in Perth earlier this year and is worried that even after being charged and fined, he can still offer services as a counsellor. “I am very worried with what he will do with his position of power over vulnerable girls, speaking from pure experience,” she said. Alice claims she ended contact with Vacher after he discharged himself from the clinic, but a few months later he got in contact with her when she was on the verge of homelessness. “I thought he was my hero and he was going to save me,” she said. Initially, Alice says he presented as a “friendly and trustworthy counsellor”. “He explained to me that the mental health system had failed me and at this point only he can help me,” she said. “I believed him and I had a lot to talk about, but for some reason he wanted to know all the details of my sexual assault and rape stories even when I was clearly uncomfortable with it. “He told me I have to tell him ‘in order to heal’ even though those stories weren’t even my issue, it was something completely different.” Alice says it was not a professional counsellor/patient relationship “at all”. “He did not make me pay, though,” she says. “I have a feeling he was experimenting on me.” When she eventually cut off all professional and personal contact with Vacher for the last time, she claims he turned up at her house while she wasn’t home and demanded to her housemate and neighbour that she get in touch with her or he would call the police. “He named himself as my doctor,” she said. “We are dealing with more than just a fraudster here.” During the Fremantle Magistrate’s Court hearing in June where Vacher pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud, his lawyer David Manera detailed his client’s mental disorders. Vacher admitted gaining benefit by fraud, falsely indicating he was an authorised or qualified health practitioner and forging a law degree from the University of Southern Queensland to enrol into another degree. The court was told Vacher had been in hospital this year and had been diagnosed with a mixed personality disorder, involving “narcissistic traits”. Magistrate Nicholas Lemmon said “the trust is really what stands out”. “What makes this quite a serious example of fraud is the clear breach of trust involved,” he told the court. “It therefore makes an unusual example of fraud, but an unusually serious example of fraud, in my view.” Mr Manera then detailed his client’s mental disorders, for which he had been in hospital earlier this year. “He’s diagnosed with what (the psychiatrist) describes as a mixed personality disorder with significant emotionally unstable bipolar and some narcissistic personality traits,” Mr Manera said. “He did it for a dual purpose. Principally as a source of income, but also because he believed he could help people.” But the police prosecutor did not fail to see the irony. “Indeed, it’s particularly ironic that the consultant forensic psychiatrist recommends the psychological therapy for the accused,” he said. “It’s also patently obvious the risk that he represented to anyone whom he pretended to offer psychological services to.” Prior to his June arrest the WA Department of Consumer Protection warned that Vacher was “masquerading as a psychologist” and posed “a risk to the public”. Similarly, in 2017, Vacher’s previous lawyer Robert Chasland used his client’s “mental illness” as a defence in court. “The biggest mitigating factor in this matter is Mr Vacher is diagnosed with the debilitating mental illness of bipolar disorder type I,” Mr Chasland said. “This is further complicated by him suffering ADHD, depression and anxiety. Vacher faces two other sets of separate charges. Last year he was charged with possession of cannabis with intent to sell or supply and possession of stolen or unlawfully obtained property, but has yet to enter his plea. Last month he told the court he would fight a string of traffic charges from June, when police allege he recklessly rode an unlicensed motorcycle to evade officers on Stirling Highway in North Fremantle. The $2500 June fraud fine wasn’t the first time Vacher has had to fork out after a legal fight. In September 2017 he was prosecuted by Consumer Protection and fined $4000 by Perth Magistrate’s Court and ordered to pay $489 in compensation, as well as $3000 in court costs, for accepting payments to supply waiters for four functions who never turned up. From being labelled as a “teenpreneur” in Year 11 to catering scams in 2017, to the recent fraud, over the past several years Vacher has become synonymous with publicity-seeking stunts. A DECADE IN THE MAKING In the four years to July 2019, there have been 25 complaints against counsellors and 80 complaints against psychologists or psychotherapists to the State's Health and Disability Services Complaints offices. Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence Minister Simone McGurk says the incoming legislation would “bring psychologists and counsellors into the national code”. “If someone purports to operate as a psychologist or a counsellor and they didn’t have appropriate qualifications then they could be prosecuted,” Ms McGurk said. “The way that Tyson Vacher has conducted himself shows that when you’re talking about people who are getting psychological services or counselling services, they are particularly vulnerable ... that is why they are seeking out those services and that support.” In 2007, NSW became the first State to address what was seen as a gap in regulation and strengthen public protection of health consumers who use the services of unregistered practitioners. The same regulations were at the time under consideration in SA, but by June 2013 all health ministers agreed in principle to proceed with a single national code of conduct for regulation in each State and Territory. After lengthy consultations and development, the Council of Australian Governments released a report in April 2015 which suggested control measures in the form of negative licensing over practitioners. The measures did not bar people from practising, but allowed action to be taken against an unregistered worker who failed to comply with the standards of conduct. It’s designed to stop a small pocket of people who are a serious risk to the public because they are incompetent, impaired, or engage in exploitative, predatory or illegal conduct, from practising within a health setting. Under the code regulation an independent investigator or tribunal would look into complaints of national code breaches and have the power to issue prohibition orders or public warnings about health care workers who failed to abide by the standards. Any person who breached a prohibition order would be prosecuted through the court. But nearly a decade since the national process of regulatory assessment commenced, Tasmania, Northern Territory and Western Australia are yet to adopt the regulations. If re-elected next year Ms McGurk says the Government could expedite the reform. “We are committed to making sure that we put legislation through and people can have the comfort of knowing that the national code would be adhered to in WA,” she said. “(The legislation would allow) regulatory bodies to tackle this sort of fraud and it isn’t up to the individual victim.” RED FLAGS First came the shock, then came the anger for Michael, who was another “former client” at Vacher’s “psychology practice”. “Am I ever going to trust somebody again?” the 31-year-old asked. “Probably not.” He found out via the media that Vacher had been masquerading as a psychologist despite not having the relevant qualifications or experience. “I had a bit of trouble trusting people and thats what I’d gone there to do,” Michael says.’“That rattled me when I found out that he was (not a psychologist), that the whole thing was a sham. He (allegedly) stole my money.” Then came the police. “I felt a lot of embarrassment and shame because the detectives came to my house while I was doing a little bit of work and my housemate messaged me,” he says. Finally, when he saw media reports of women who had sought Vacher’s treatment for childhood sexual assault, came the revulsion. “I felt disgusted telling anything to this guy,” he said. On Friday, May 15, Michael had his first appointment at “John Vacher Psychology”. “He sold himself very well,” he remembers. Wearing a “very expensive suit”, Vacher invited him to sit down on a leather couch and sat across from him holding a notepad. Above him on the wall were framed qualifications. “I didn’t look closely at them,” Michael says now. “I probably should have.” On his website Vacher, 23, falsely claimed he had a PhD and that he was a psychotherapist with a decade of experience working as a mental health practitioner. Michael sought Vacher’s expertise to help him overcome his anxiety about surfing again after an encounter with a shark, but then the pandemic hit and their appointments became more about his anxiety. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth session when Michael arrived for his appointment and he says Vacher answered the door in “shitty jeans and a black T-shirt” with bags under his eyes. Michael asked to use the bathroom and when he walked upstairs discovered a bed, clothes all over the ground and that it looked like someone was living in the building. “I just thought I’m taking advice from this guy, you know what I mean?” he said. “It was a red flag for me.” “TRAGICALLY FAILING THEM” “Throughout my childhood I found myself constantly drawn to those who were deeply suffering,” Vacher’s now deleted website read. “I saw the effects poor mental health had on individuals, and that the mental health system that was tasked with helping them was, in fact, tragically failing them.” Natasha Miller, who has known Vacher since she was 14, stumbled across his website earlier this year and found this ironic. She was alarmed Vacher had advertised himself as a psychologist who had a “special interest in borderline personality disorder, eating disorders and self harm disorder”. “As soon as the Facebook group was made and it was all of his (alleged) victims everyone was saying ‘we need to do something about this’ and ‘we can’t let this happen again because it is going to happen again,” she said. “Then when Tyson said that he might continue practising as a counsellor that just straight away we were like we need to start getting this rolling and getting this happening.” Vacher’s ex-girlfriend Zemina Pasic remembers the moment she found out he could still practice as a counsellor. “(I thought) no way this is happening ... he cannot be around those types of people, he preys on those types of people,” she said. The 20-year-old said her 2018 relationship with Vacher was “toxic” to the point where she questioned her sanity. It has had a lasting impact on the her sense of self-worth. “I’m struggling in like so many ways mentally from (Tyson),” she said “I now have an eating disorder ... I can’t put on weight, I can’t look at myself and think I’m beautiful.” In October that year Vacher posted a meme on his Facebook page about how a mental health clinic is the best place to find girls to date. “I was onto this years ago,” he captioned the post. Vacher denied the claims of his former partner. “I’m probably not going to win ‘boyfriend of the year’ anytime soon, but I’m certainly not abusive,” he told The Sunday Times. VOICES HEARD Sarah — who did not want to be identified — attended the Perth Modern School with Vacher and started a Facebook group to co-ordinate complaints about him being a psychologist. “Then all these people came forward about their experiences,” the 25-year-old said. “It kind of just escalated and that is how we found out about the lack of the national code of conduct.” When the women realised there wasn’t anything they could do to stop him from being a counsellor, they decided to campaign for a reform to the code. It became a place to direct energy for justice that they felt would not be achieved through a lengthy criminal process. “At least it is something that we could change and at least there would be regulations and hopefully he wouldn’t be allowed to work as a counsellor anymore and anyone else that’s like him would be stopped as well,” she says. Carissa Wright works in mental health and was concerned when Vacher was sharing an online webinar offering “essential techniques” for people to use in their relationships with people with borderline personality disorder. “The content for the event was quite stigmatising and discriminating and people had signed up for it, so I shared it and suggested for people not to (attend) just for safety reasons,” Ms Wright said. She was added to the Facebook group and became one of the 56. The chief executive of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, Maria Brett, welcomed the WA Government’s decision. “Western Australians should have the protections provided by the legislation as soon as possible so that they can access mental health services with confidence,” she said.

investigationVictims speak out about Tyson Vacher, the Perth man accused of being a fake psychologist

investigation
Victims speak out about Tyson Vacher, the Perth man accused of being a fake psychologist