An "extreme terror tour" of serial murderer Ivan Milat's killing ground, the Belanglo State Forest, has angered the family of a murder victim and victim support groups who are disgusted and upset about old wounds being opened.
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Sandra Auchterlonie - the grandmother of David Auchterlonie who at 17 was lured into Belanglo State Forest on November 20, 2010 and tortured and killed with a double-sided axe - said it was "disgusting".
Matthew Milat, the great nephew of serial backpacker murderer Ivan Milat, was jailed for Auchterlonie's murder, which he committed just weeks before his 18th birthday.
The new Goulburn Ghost Tour is billed as an extreme terror tour that starts at 10pm in the Belanglo State Forest for a cost of $150 per person. The online promotion says: "Come with us to Belanglo where Ivan Milat buried the bodies of his victims".
Mrs Auchterlonie said she was "bewildered" that anyone would exercise such "poor taste" by running a ghost tour in the forest.
"It is a money-making tour at our expense," she said.
"I can't stop people from running these ghost tours, but I think it's disgusting. They are taking advantage of our grief."
Mrs Auchterlonie said her family was only just "getting some normality back in our lives".
"We are hurting and this is just opening up old wounds again," she said. "We are just trying to become normal people again.
"It would be same for the families of all the backpackers who were murdered there."
The chief executive officer of the Victims of Crime Assistance League NSW, Robyn Cotterell-Jones, said the Belanglo tour would impact on families of murder victims more widely.
"It will be greeted with revulsion and disgust with people who would like a bit more respect for their own suffering," she said.
"While human beings seem fascinated by the macabre and frightening, for the families of victims, the impact of the death of their loved ones is never ended. For them, to hear people are using places of such horror for their amusement and profit is obviously going to cause scars to be ripped open again.
Howard Brown, the vice-president of the same group, said some people who may have been killed in the forest are still classified as missing.
"For the families, these are very sacred areas," he said.
"For people to make profit out of others people's misery is completely inappropriate and in my point of view ghoulish."
The head of the backpacker taskforce Clive Small said he could understand the concerns of the victims of crime group and public curiosity in the site.
"I think it really depends on how the tour is conducted," he said. "I can understand the public interest in the matter and in a sense the public curiosity that still exists.
"But it has to be dealt with sensitively to take into account the families of the victims and other murder victims who would be reminded of their pain."
The manager of the Goulburn Ghost Tour, Louise Edwards, said the new tour was run with sensitivity. She said each of the Milat victims are named along with the dates they went missing.
"Lots of people know about Ivan Milat, but not about the people he murdered," Ms Edwards said. "We wanted to remind people that the victims are real people. They are not just victims of Ivan Milat. They are more than that.
"We don't want people to forget about them."
Ms Edwards said she had considered introducing the new tour for a number of years.
"We know that some people are not going to be happy with that tour, because everyone has an opinion on terrible tragedy. But we are not there to promote a terrible tragedy.
"We thought about it for a long time before we did it. We wanted to make sure it was sensitive. We really don't want to upset anyone. That wasn't our intention."
A spokeswoman for the Forestry Corporation of NSW said it was not aware of the tours and has not issued a permit for them.
"As soon as the tours were brought to our attention today, Forestry Corporation attempted to contact the organisers to find out about the activity and advise them of the requirement to apply for a permit," the spokeswoman said.
