Psychologist Nigel Denning. Photo: Josh Robenstone

Many women at a Melbourne ashram at the centre of a sex scandal joined the group seeking healing after surviving rape and sexual assaults elsewhere, advocates say.

Fairfax Mediareported on Monday that Mornington Peninsula's sexual offences and child abuse investigation team were investigating the Shiva School of Meditation and Yoga at Mount Eliza after a number of victims reported alleged abuse there.

It can be revealed that many of the alleged victims were particularly vulnerable, having turned to the ashram and its spiritual teachings to help them with their own personal problems.

Swami Shankarananda, American-born Russell Michael Kruckman, had 'secret sexual relations' with residents of the school.

The school's former treasurer, Dan Conquest, had lived at the ashram for about 11 years when he left last year, days after hearing about Swami Shankarananda's "tantric practices" with members through a friend.

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He was shocked because he believed the Swami was celibate and eventually left because he did not want to "passively condone" what he believed to be sexual abuse at the ashram.

He said that the Shiva School has threatened to sue at least one whistleblower for defamation if they continued to discuss sex abuse allegations, and a number of people have left the Shiva School since it was revealed the centre's former director, Swami Shankarananda, American-born Russell Michael Kruckman, had had "secret sexual relations" with residents last year.

Nigel Denning, a counselling psychologist and owner of an East Melbourne private psychology practice, started going to the Mt Eliza ashram about a decade ago and regularly attended its meditation classes.

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Alleged victims of Shiva School of Meditation and Yoga were previously sexually assaulted

New Zealander Philip Blackwood has been jailed for more than two years with hard labour, after being found guilty of insulting religion in Myanmar by using an image of the Buddha to promote the bar he managed.

Blackwood, 32, formerly of Wellington, and his two Myanmar co-accused were given the same verdicts and sentences when they appeared in a Yangon court today.

The V Gastro bar used an image of the Buddha wearing headphones in an online poster to promote a cheap drinks night.

The poster, which appeared last year on the Facebook page of the newly opened Yangon bar, sparked outrage on social media in the predominantly Buddhist country.

Bar general manager Blackwood, bar owner Tun Thurein, 40, and manager Htut Ko Ko Lwin, 26, were arrested and charged with breaching the Religion Act.

Agence France-Presse reports that the three men were sentenced to two years for insulting religion through written word or pictures and a further six months for breaching a local order including when a protest erupted outside the bar over the image in December.

Both terms carry hard labour.

Blackwood's lawyer Mya Thway had earlier told the court his client had not intended to insult religion and was simply promoting a cheap drinks night.

But AFP reports that Judge Ye Lwin said on Tuesday that although Blackwood posted an apology, he had "intentionally plotted to insult religious belief" when he uploaded the mocked-up image on Facebook.

The trial was seen as a sign of growing religious intolerance in Myanmar, with a growing Buddhist nationalist movement spearheaded by extremist monks, and often targeting Muslim communities.

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Kiwi found guilty of insulting Buddhism

NEIL RATLEY, SIOBHAN DOWNES AND AP

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff.co.nz

Friend Nathan Green believes the jailing of Wellington man Phil Blackwood in Myanmar is over the top.

A Wellington man sentenced to two and a half years of hard labour in Myanmar faces a very tough life shackled to other prisoners, according to a fellow Kiwi who has witnessed the work gangs.

Philip Blackwood learned his grim fate on Tuesday in a Yangon court after he and two Burmese colleagues were found guilty of offending Buddhism by posting an online advertisement of a psychedelic Buddha wearing headphones to promote their VGastro bar.

The harsh penalty has attracted wide criticism and prompted shock among his friends, who fear how he will cope.

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Kiwi bar manager Philip Blackwood has been detained in Burma.

"I have seen prisoners on the move shackled to each other with manacles on their ankles and chains that bind them from one man to the next. It reminds me of the hard labour slave trade in the 18th and 19th century. It is inhumane,"' said one of his Kiwi friends, who requested anonymity.

Earlier, humanitarian organisation Amnesty International condemned Blackwood's sentence.

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NZer found guilty of offending Buddhism with bar image