“I was brainwashed into feeling bad for him and was told men deal with stress differently … and ‘you need to understand that'.”

She said she had been running through Mt Eden when Russell pulled up next to her. She became frightened when she realised his trousers were down.

She saw a friend’s dad nearby and asked him to approach Spencer while she memorised the car’s number plate and rang police.

She was later horrified to receive an apology letter from Russell, addressed to her by name and delivered to her home.

The woman says she was also visited by multiple private investigators hired by Russell.

Detective senior sergeant Geoff Baber said all correspondence to the complainant was through official channels using the Police Prosecution Service. 

  “The records show the letter from the offender went through this and there is no indication at all that this process was not followed.”

Baber said Russell being granted diversion was a “fairly standard” outcome given the circumstances and there was no indication the complainant was pressured into supporting it.

Police did not give out any of the complainant’s private details but Baber noted a private investigator worked on behalf of Russell's lawyer.

Baber said such matters were “always” taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.

“The public can be reassured that their safety is of paramount consideration.”

Speaking for the first time publicly since his name suppression was lifted, Russell said his first offence was a “single, spontaneous offence that was incredibly stupid”.

He offended while under “multiple stressors”, he said.

However, the diversion “affected the way the police investigated those [subsequent] offences and how those charges were dealt with,” he said. 

 "A miscarriage of justice has taken place.

“There is no way I would ever have behaved so thoughtlessly again.

“Having to sit in court and be accused of something I did not do was distressing. Being found guilty of something I hadn’t done was devastating.”

Russell’s lawyer at trial, Ron Mansfield, claimed the case was one of mistaken identity, exacerbated by the second complainant speaking to the mother of the first shortly after Russell's offending.

Russell has pursued multiple appeals and all legal options available to him to try to prove his innocence, including using private investigators to further probe what information about his identity the first complainant might have given to the second.

“I wanted to establish whether these interactions had led to me being wrongly identified and blamed.”

Through his new lawyer David Jones QC, Russell said he would continue to try to overturn his convictions and intends to submit his case to the newly formed Criminal Cases Review Commission, which he described as his “last hope”.