in 1991 the fgc was adapted by an australian police officer, terry o’connell, as a community policing strategy to divert young people from court, into a restorative process often called a restorative conference. it has been called other names, such as a community accountability conference and victim-offender conference. in 1994 marg thorsborne, an australian educator, was the first to use a restorative conference in a school.