The Family Friend No One Suspected

Her life changed forever when her five-year-old daughter, Rose, bravely spoke up about a trusted family friend sexually assaulting her. That moment led Michelle to discover that both of her daughters had endured abuse for years, and it marked the start of the family’s journey toward justice and healing. In this episode, Michelle shares how she and her daughters, Pippa and Rose, navigated their challenges together, supported by their older sister Maggie and their father. Now adults, Pippa and Rose are using their voices to drive positive change in the way child victims are treated within the legal system. Their journey is a powerful testament to resilience, courage, and the unbreakable strength of family in overcoming adversity. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via 1800 RESPECT. If the content in this episode has brought up anything for you, please contact Lineline on 13 11 14. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations https://www.instagram.com/truecrimeconversations/?hl=en Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or send us a voice note. https://help.mamamia.com.au/en-US/send-a-podcast-voice-note-467960 CREDITS Guest: Michelle Milthorpe https://www.instagram.com/michellemilthorpe4farrer/?hl=en https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0533976/Host: Gemma Bath https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmabath/?originalSubdomain=au Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahli-blackman-205a891b7/?originalSubdomain=au Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Audio Engineer: Jacob Round Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode contains discussions of child sexual abuse. Please take care while listening.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  It's a typical Sunday morning in October 2013 at the Millthorpe family home in Aubrey, New South Wales. Michelle is roused awake by her five-year-old daughter, Rose, who desperately wants to tell her something. That something will change the family's lives forever. In that moment, Rose discloses a shocking incident of sexual assault she says happened at the hands of a family friend. As her mum struggles to get her head around what her little girl has just told her, Rose asks another question. Mum, can I watch TV now? Of course. Left alone, Michelle is in a state of shock. She can't speak. She vomits while trying to tell her husband. Rose wouldn't say it if it wasn't true.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  She sits down on her eight-year-old daughter, Pippa's, bed and gently asks about Rose's disclosure. Michelle can feel the bile returning. It's been happening to both girls for years. For Michelle, she will remember today as the worst of her life. But for her girls, it's the day things got a little bit better. It's the day the abuse finally stopped.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  I'm Gemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. The man was charged and the case went to trial. He was only convicted of the charges related to Pippa, not her little sister, Rose. Michelle thought the fight for justice would re-empower her children. Instead, it re-traumatized them. As a mum and a teacher, Michelle was left devastated and angered by how her girls were treated by the New South Wales legal system. Now 21 and 17, Pippa and Rose have been fighting alongside their mum for changes to the way child victims are treated by the courts.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  Michelle joins us now to talk about it all. Michelle, thank you for joining us on True Crime Conversations. Tell me about what your family's life looked like prior to Disclosure Day.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Brent, my husband, and I moved to Aubrey with an eight-week-old baby in 2003. And we were just in that real hustle and bustle of, you know, busy having kids. Well, you know what it's like.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Trenches.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  We've got little people.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  I do.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Definitely in the trenches. So Pip came along in 2005 and then Rose in 2008. And look, we had done lots of different things. Brent had been overworking Western Australia for a time as well. So away for, you know, three or four weeks at a time. And, you know, just doing those things that you do to live the Australian dream. I suppose back in that time, I was teaching as well. And then we owned a small business and, you know, there was lots of different things that was going on. And we played sport and our kids were involved in that. We were just really what you would possibly call just that regular, boring, young couple with kids. Yeah.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  And I guess, pre-everything happening, you would say that your kids were happy, healthy, thriving kids.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, yeah, we had some challenges with their health and things like that, but nothing outside of ordinary. And, yeah, they were amazing little people. And, yeah, it was just a very idyllic time.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  And then came Sunday, October 27th, 2013, which was Disclosure Day, as you call it. Tell me about what happened that day.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  It had been a weird sort of lead up to that time because both Pippa and Rose were not enjoying sleeping on their own. So Brent was often with one and I was with another. And Rose woke me up early that morning and said, Mum, and I was, Mum.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  I know the sound well.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  The three-syllable mum. Can I tell you something? And then she just dropped a bomb. And, you know, she said, I don't like it when such and such leaks my vagina.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  And I was kind of only half awake and I said, I beg your pardon, what did you say? And she said it again. And I sort of sat in that moment and realised that I sort of had one or two ways to go. And you know, I'm a mandatory reporter. I've done a lot of training around this type of thing as a teacher. And so I just sort of said, oh, that's not, that's not good. You know, what else does he do that you don't like, you know? So we sort of started this conversation and, and then she finished and said, can I watch two two now? Which was the ABC Kids channel. Like she hadn't just dropped a bomb on our world. And, you know, I got up and actually vomited. I felt someone, I just couldn't believe that she had said that. And, you know, she was five, she'd just turned five.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Um, we'd had her pirate princess party a couple of weeks earlier, like, you know, all of these things. And anyway, and she did say to me at the time, Pupa said that she doesn't think he's allowed to do that. And so it kind of, um, you know, made me realise that, you know, there was other things going on. So I woke Bren up and he thought someone had died because I actually couldn't get the words out. I didn't know how to speak to him about it.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  I can imagine.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Um, and then I went into Pip and, you know, had a conversation with her and she actually couldn't speak. She couldn't speak. Um, because I just said to her that Rosa told me something that, um, that somebody had been, you know, doing something to her that she didn't like. And, you know, was there anything that she needed to tell me? And she just started crying. Yep. She put the pillow over her head first and then she started crying. And so she wrote down things that were happening.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  It's such a mum thing to, on the outside, calm, collected, talking to you. Oh, thank you. What's next? But then inside, I can only imagine that you were.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  I just felt sick. I did. And, you know, the, the day, like, I could probably step through most of the day. There's little bits in the afternoon where even when I was being questioned in court about it, I was just like, I don't know. You know, and that was, I was getting criticised for not remembering, you know, where I was sitting in the lounge room. But I, I literally felt like the wheels had just fallen off by that point.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  I feel like that's a pretty normal response to trauma, to not remember something.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  This man, he was a family friend, wasn't he? Can you tell us about how he was involved in your family?

• 6:54Speaker 01

  So because we'd moved down to Aubrey, we had moved away from our, our friends and our family. So we sort of had made friends with people who could help us out. So um his wife helped us out sometimes looking after the kids. And, you know, she became like family. She was very, she was very mum like.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Uh to me. And I actually think that was the hardest thing that, you know, part of the hardest thing was that this was sort of happening on her watch. And yeah, so sometimes the kids would go over there, sometimes they would stay there. And we just obviously had no idea what was going on. But yeah, it was so they filled a bit, a bit of a void where our family were and.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  So they were almost like de facto grandparents.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  They were, yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  And is that how your kids treated them as well?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep. They even went into grandparents' day at school. Yeah. But, you know, for us, when our kids went there, she was looking after them, not him like it. So it was sort of like you just put up with it because of that.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  How long had the abuse been happening?

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Um, when one of the girls were asked that question, they said, every time I went there.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  And they'd known him.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Their whole life. Yeah, yeah.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  So as long as they can remember.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, and you know, that was the thing that was really difficult with the whole police stuff. Because, you know, you go there initially and, and say, this is what I've been told. This is what I've, you know, the kids have written down in Pippa's case. And um this is, this is the stuff and you do that initial statement. For me, over the next couple of years, it was more and more and more.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  As in they were disclosing.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Disclosing more and more. And it's like, well, how often do you put them through going and making a statement?

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Because it was cruel to do that, um when you want them to be healing. And then as they've got older and their understanding of what happened. Um. You spoke to me.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  You're all right. It's a lot.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  It's, um, oh gosh, if, if we knew then what we know now. Yep.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  You're gonna make me cry.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Sorry. Yeah.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  It also sounds like as mum, the girls were telling you, they were telling you everything. That's a lot for a mum to hold.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  I think, you know, what is it, a problem shared is a problem halved. Um, so that was sort of the way it happened and, and I'm glad that that could be my role, you know.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  I mean, how beautiful that they felt comfortable enough to share those details with you.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and look, you know, that sort of, you talk about the grooming process too. It was having to unwind a very long process of, of grooming, you know. Um, if you, if you tell them, your dad's gonna think you're disgusting. If you tell them, you're not ever gonna be able to see his wife again. If you tell them, you know, people are gonna think poorly of you. Or, you know, this is our little secret, people will be jealous of that. You know, like all of those things, it was having to unwind all of that very careful, considered grooming process. And that's something I don't think that we talk about often enough.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Like even as a family, like for, for Brent and I, we were groomed by him as well.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  Your whole family was.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so as I said, in retrospect, um, hindsight's a bitch. It really is, it slaps you in the face. Um, but yeah.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  Why do you think Rose chose that Sunday if it had been happening for so long?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  My understanding was that it was getting.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Worse, so their offending was worse um and more invasive. So she was, it was, she was being hurt. And she had come home a couple of weeks earlier. And there was some, you know, again, hindsight, I was like, oh, okay, you know, that's.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Let's go there, let's talk about the hindsight. What were the signs that, when you look back?

• 11:28Speaker 01

  When we look back, so there were things like the kids loving going there and then not wanting to anymore. And they all sort of went through that stage of not wanting to, to be there anymore. Um, there was some selective mutism with adults, um particularly when they went to school. Uh, ur- urine retract infections, repeat urine retract infections. Um.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  I know, you know, Brent sort of remembers a time when he went to pick Rose up. And she was hiding under a table down the back. And, you know, he said at the time, he thought it was just like hide and seek, but it wasn't. You know, so Rose, and you know, this has sort of been reported on too. Rose actually asked me to make her a superhero cape. And so I made her a super rose cape. So she came home from their house that day and she took it off and threw it on the ground and stamped on it. And I was like, what are you doing? Cause you know, we'd spent a lot of time making this cape and she said it didn't work. And I said, what do you mean? What was your superpower? And she said, I wanted to be invisible, but he still found me.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  You know, and at the time, I just didn't think anything of it.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Cause in isolation, all of these things.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  And this is isolation over a number of years. Um, because people have said to me, oh, you must regret this or you must regret that. I can't, cause if I went down that rabbit hole, I don't think I'd be able to get out. I honestly don't, you know, you can't, I can't look back, I can't change the things that happened. But we can use it to have conversations with mums and, and dads and say, you know, these are some of the things that were flags for us. And have conversations with your children, cause these are some of the things that were flagged, so. Um, that's the best we can do.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  Well, I was thinking for your five year old to use the language vagina and the all the terms. Had you taught your girls about all of that stuff and all the consent and?

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yep, I had. And this is the thing. So this wasn't an unfamiliar path for me. You know, second generation child abuse survivors live in my family. And I thought that I had prepared them very well for that. And, you know, I was lucky that Rose used the words that she did. Cause it gave me no doubt that she was talking about those particular body parts. But, you know, it's, it's, again, it goes to show the nature of that grooming and how well it can be done um to make people feel like it's okay. Yeah.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Is there any advice to parents who are hoarding those conversations with their kids? Like right now, I've got very young kids and I'm even starting those consent conversations now with my son. You know, this is your body. Is there a way you wish you did it? Or is it just that grooming overtakes it no matter what in this instance?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  I don't wanna say that it overtakes it because I don't wanna give people this hopelessness around it. Because that's not fair to anybody. But it's always, I think, being open to those, any conversations, even if they're, you know, little ones. Like when you pick them up and you don't, cause I'm a teacher. I always worry about people who get their kids in the car and say, how was your day? No, how was your day really? You know, trying to see if there was any bad things. I think it's really just being very honest with them about nobody is allowed to touch you where you don't wanna be touched. You are allowed to always tell me if something makes you uncomfortable. Talk about what those uncomfortable feelings are, you know, the feelings in the tummy and, you know, those things.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  But also to say to them, you know, sometimes people might say that I'm not, you're not allowed to tell me something, but you can always tell me anything. I think that's the really important thing.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  So it's broadening those consent conversations to include grooming?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is. Sad, but I think that's, that's the real force out there is that people, as I said, I thought my kids were well prepared. I thought that they knew that no one could do those things to them because of the conversations we'd had. What I didn't expect was that someone so trusted would make them feel like they couldn't talk to me about it. Yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Gemma Bath. I'm speaking with Michelle Milthorpe, politician and advocate for victims of child sexual abuse. Up next, Michelle tells us what happened when she confronted her daughter's abuser.

• 16:21Speaker 02

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• 16:56Speaker 00

  So, once you had this information from the girls, what was your next move?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  I rang his wife and asked her to come to our house because, as I said, she was like family to us. And she, she came around and I told her what the girls had told me. And she wasn't shocked.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Really?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  So, instead of saying, no, like if someone came and saw me about that, I'd be like, no, that, no.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  You'd get defensive, wouldn't you?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Very much so. And it was just like, oh my God, what have you done? What have you done? And immediately I was like, oh, I just, I was like, this is, this, I, it, it wasn't a reaction that I was expecting. So, that happened. I'd actually packed up a lot of things that had been given to me.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  By her and gave them back. It sounds so weird. You know, people are like, why did you do that?

• 17:55Speaker 00

  Some sorts.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, well, you know, it felt like she died to us that day. And, you know, from her continued support of him, that's kind of what happened. Um. So that happened. He actually, she actually went and got him and he came around as well. Bren had taken the girls to the park. Um. She went and got him and, and he came around and was blustering and walked in the door and then realised that

• 18:19Speaker 01

  it was serious. And my conversation with him was, tell me, like, tell me why, why they would say that. And then I actually reframed it and said, no, tell me how. Like, how could they have said that? Because

• 18:37Speaker 01

  they don't know about that. Like, they're little girls. They don't know any of this. And he couldn't answer that question. Um. So he left. Uh. I rang the school principal, the girls' school principal, and I think that that was my way of putting this protection up between me and having to make the call to the police.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Right, okay.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  I, I.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Because the school has to.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  They have to.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  And I didn't want to make that phone call. And anyway, so she came around and she called the police. And then they came, and this is the thing. So this is where you stop knowing things, you know. So the police came around. I expected that they would talk to the girls.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  And they're like, oh, no, the girls, we can't, we can't have a conversation with them. They need to stay away. And we're like, all righto. So, okay. So then Bren and I were in our front room of our house and I was pacing, like I was just walking up and down. And I was just saying, I, I just, I still remember saying, I'd, like, I just don't know how this could happen. It's not like, we don't sit around watching porn. Like, I don't know. I don't know how this happened. I, I just don't know how they could know about this. And I looked over and this massive policeman sitting in this chair with like tears.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  No.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  And I was like, and I looked at him and he goes, because it happened. They know, cause it happened, you know, and then they said, oh, the joint investigative response team were going to be the next team to be in contact with us. And we were just like, oh, okay. And then the end of Monday came and we hadn't had any calls. And I was like, oh, this is really weird. And then Tuesday, so I rang on Tuesday, I rang the police station and said, look, you know, this happened on the weekend, just wondering what's happening. And they're like, oh, we'll put you through to the child abuse squad. Got put through the child abuse squad. Oh, look, you know, um, we've had to look at who's doing your case because you actually know

• 20:40Speaker 01

  a couple of the police officers here and we don't want it to be tainted, yada, yada. And like, we knew they were police officers. We didn't know what they did. So that sort of put a put on. And then I rang back, I was like, well, what are we meant to do in the meantime? Because I've got, like, my kids are here.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it just told me something huge and no one cares.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it feels to them, oh, well, you're, you know, they're safe. It's like, y- yep, they are, but I need to know, I need to tell them what the timeframe is. Anyway, uh, the part of the joint is um, having someone from the child, uh, from sexual assault service as part of that.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  And also of DCJ, um, or DOCS as they were back then. So the person from the sexual assault service came around to our house and just sort of went through that process with us. But it was again, it was because I was quite dogged in, well, what, what happens next? And I did have particularly was sitting at home. She's very principled and she was like, well, they obviously don't care. They do not care. If they cared, they would have talked to us by now. So she was sort of in that mindset. And again, she'd been told that people wouldn't believe her and all that sort of thing. So it was not sitting well with her. And it took eight days, eight days. Yep. So I actually took the kids to school the day after.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  And it was always this thing that I looked back on and was like, that's so mean. Like, why did you take them to school? But I think.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  My reasoning was that we needed to keep things normal.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  And structure helps.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think I needed a minute too, to just lose it.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  Without little ears.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  I did that.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  The girls probably don't even remember that, do they? As a bad thing.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  Exactly. So stop beating yourself up. You did what you had to do.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Um, someone said to me, a councillor said to me a little, a little while later, she said, you, you need to stop beating yourself up. She said, because the reality is that on that day, their life got better. It was yours that, that changed. So.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  And imagine the opposite. You kept them at home. You had your mental breakdown in front of them.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. It would have been ugly.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  You know, like, you needed space.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. Yeah, anyway, so it was all, um,

• 23:21Speaker 01

  it was a bit of a just hurry up and wait, which sort of, if I had to name the next two and a half years of our life, that's sort of what it felt like. And look, that two and a half years is your, you know, the kids don't have an opportunity to move on.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  You know, they don't have an opportunity to just leave that bit behind and get onto the healing. It's all sort of about waiting and just pausing in this space. Like Rose started school the, the year after, so two thousand and fourteen, and she did not learn how to read until she finished court.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  So let's go to when the girls were finally interviewed. What was that like? Were you allowed in with them?

• 24:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  That's bizarre to me because.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Shouldn't a guardian be allowed with them?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  No, so we weren't with them. We were obviously just down the hall, but it was the detective and the D C J.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Social worker, so they were together in the interview room. And Pip was really angry by the time we got there because she felt that, you know, no one was listening and no one cared. And why did we tell this? Because now we don't get to see this lady anymore. And, you know, all of those things.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  And so I actually said within her earshot because the police officer just said quietly to us, I just need to let you know that nine times out of ten, we can't do anything because we don't get enough evidence from the children. Like, they just don't. It's not because we don't believe them. It's because we know that we don't want to take them through the process.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Which that would be a really hard place to be in as a police officer. Like, I can't imagine the vicarious trauma that happens through that as well. Uh, anyway, Ida said to him, well, you haven't met Pippa Milsob yet. She's amazing. She has such a great eye for detail. She'll be able to tell you whatever, whatever's happened to her so that she can protect other children, you know.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  You said Rose became kind of a protector. What about Pippa?

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Pip withdrew.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. She was a bit older, so.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So she, um, she really withdrew into herself, um, for a long time. And she is a very deep thinker, a very deep feeling person. She still is. She's, um, fabulous, as they all are. But, yeah, she, it was really hard. And I think too, she had this real sadness and, um, she really missed. She really missed the, particularly the, the lady in this. And yeah, so there was a lot there for her to, to process. Rose, I don't know if it was being a bit younger, or if it was just,

• 26:20Speaker 01

  you know, she considered her role to be all right. I'm okay, you know, I'm all right. And then obviously we had Mags, our eldest daughter as well, who. Was very much part of all of this and and there is the big sister watching it all unfold. And um you know, also she had to talk to the police as well as a witness to things. And yeah, it was just a it was a tricky time trying to balance it all out. And we just did the best that we could.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  And during this time, this two and a half years, he was on bail.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  And you live in a reasonably small place.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:01Speaker 00

  That must have been intimidating.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  It was. And you know, there was this, you know, we wanted to, you know, get the girls co- confident enough to go. And you know, if we were in the shopping centre, oh, you can go and get some donuts from Donut King. Or you know, you can go to Big W and look in the toy section while I'm over here in the homeware section. But you have to have the conversations. Just remember, if you see him, you have to do this and that, you know. So things that other kids didn't have to do. So it was being vigilant without being scared. And so that's, we had to minimise his power.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Did you see him?

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Um, no, we didn't. Uh, Brent saw him a couple of times and he smiled and laughed at him. Yeah. And I didn't see him again until we started in court in in Aubrey. Cause we started there first, um, before it was adjourned and moved to Sydney. So I hadn't seen him until then and the girls saw him there too. Um, he was not far away. He was probably about seven metres away from where we were sitting. Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  Which is another problem we need to talk about with the court system and children is that. The case goes to trial and the girls, after two and a half years of living with this trauma and worrying about this trial, end up in a courtroom with the person that they say abused them, sitting right there.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, yeah, all their evidence and things were given via, like, in another room. But where you wait to give that evidence is in the same corridor as the offender. So that was something that was really tricky and some people may have heard this story before, but my brother came and he spent some time with us during, well, my whole family were there, like, we were very, very well supported by our family and friends. But my brother was there and he had lived with us for a period of time and been one of those people that had dropped the kids off there when we needed to. And, you know, there's this little bit of guilt that everyone carries for doing that,

• 29:17Speaker 01

  even though we shouldn't. Anyway, he was there and he could see that the girls were feeling uncomfortable. And so he sort of looked out the door and he's like, oh, is that him? I said, yeah, that's him. And he's gone, jeez, he's got old. I said, yeah, he has, hasn't he? He goes, I think he's got a bit fat, too. And the girls started giggling and I said, yeah. And he goes, he's just an old fat motherfucker. Anyway, I don't care what anyone thinks. That was his name from then on. He was just the motherfucker. And it minimized his power and it gave our girls this element of power back because they were little girls that had never said words like that before.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  I was gonna say motherfucker to a, how old were they? Seven and eleven would have been, oh my goodness.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  It was a bit of a power thing, so.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Well done to your brother because trying to break that ice and give them their power back, like, what a legend.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  So you mentioned that it started in Aubrey and then the decision was made to go to Sydney.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Tell me about that move to Sydney because you had to come for a number of weeks.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were here for four and a half weeks. And, you know, just to backpedal a bit too. You know, you live in a regional community, you go to court, people are on jury duty. There were two people that we knew who were on jury duty that that day. And one of them was meant to be replacing me at work because I was, yeah, like it was just this really strange, you know, circumstance. Um, yeah, so look, it was probably a bonus that it got moved up here because it was fresh. No one knew anybody involved. And look, initially they said it would be 10 days. So we're like, yeah, we can do 10 days. That's okay.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Um, and then as it turned out, it was just this long drawn out horrendous process and, you know, four and a half weeks and we did not go home because, um, Peep at that point was a suicidal 11 year old.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Um, and

• 31:27Speaker 01

  we knew that if we had gone home, it would have been really hard to get back here again.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  But I know my daughter well enough to know that if we had have gone home and she didn't see it through,

• 31:40Speaker 01

  she would have found it really hard to live through that.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  To move on.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So as cruel as it felt at the time and probably even just looking back, we didn't go home. We stayed here and, you know, I, I have, I had family living here. So that sort of made it easy to go and see them and, and do things with them on the weekend, you know, do the manly ferry and have the dolphins swimming beside us on the ferry and all those beautiful things.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  So in terms of what was required of the girls in the trial.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  What does that look like?

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we were so unprepared, so unprepared. I, um, and that, I think, you know, that's, the idea of that is that you're not contaminated, you know, you haven't been contaminated. So we came up here and they have like a trial before the trial.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  A pre-trial.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Yes, the pre-trial. It's got a fancy name, Guadiel or something like that.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  We'll call it the pre-trial.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  The pre-trial, right? So.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  We came up and they explained what the pre-trial was. And, and again, you know, thi- this was people that the kids didn't know.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  So they only met um our, uh barrister, we call him our barrister. The Crown Barrister, just three days before, they'd never met him. So we came up and, and they said, look, you know, we're doing the pre-trial because they're trying to split the cases, which is actually a tactic that people have used in these types of things for a long time. So instead of a jury knowing that there's more than one victim.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  So they were trying to split the cases and they were also trying to eliminate the context for how I came to know about it, which was Rose's, you know, declaration of what happened that morning. And they didn't want that to be part of it.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  Why?

• 33:32Speaker 01

  So, because when she spoke to the police, she, when she did her statement, she didn't, she wasn't as explicit to them as she had been to me in, in what had happened.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  But why would they think that you removing that part of the story would be allowed, like?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Because they'd always got away with that. They'd always been allowed to do that. So context evidence, you know, has been allowed to be taken out.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Well, they didn't get away with it.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  We were allowed to do it. So, um but that was, so it's a trial, a pre-trial is a trial. So the girls had to sit and listen to their evidence and then they had to be asked questions by the judge. And that was a couple of days for each of them. I had to, I was, you know, gave my evidence and was cross-examined and I can honestly say I was unprepared. I did not, I was not ready for that. I didn't know what I had to do.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  In what way? Did you find the cross-examination?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Um it wasn't necessarily cross-examine- examination, it was sort of the level of.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Trickery.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Involved in it was actually, I was sort of looking at the judge, waiting for him to say something. It was like, well, I've already answered that question.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  And in that way, did they try and like pick apart your story as you're saying it?

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  And you're like, this happened two and a half years ago. I'm doing the best I can.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, well, yeah, and it was a bit like that, but you know, as, and as we just kept maintaining throughout the whole thing. Just tell the truth.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Like, if you're telling the truth, you don't have to think about it. Like, it's, it's just that, it's a recall. Whereas if you're trying to fabricate something, you get it wrong.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  So if you just keep telling the truth.

• 35:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Um, it eventually wins out, right? So, yeah, the pre-trial was weird to do that. And then that sort of lasted about, I think that was almost seven days. It was a really long time. And then the trial proper started. And so Rose was the first one to be called. And so she had to listen to her evidence again. So watching her five-year-old self speak to a police officer, um, she had to do that again. And then she, they started the cross-examination process with her. And then jury member fell asleep.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  You're joking.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  No. And they had to, um, abandon the trial. And they had to empanel a new jury.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  And she had to do it again.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  She had to do it again. So Rose actually did it three times.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, she did it three times.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  And to be clear, when the girls are doing it, are they standing in a full courtroom with the judge and everyone? No.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  So what happens is, um, at the back, they go out the back and up in the elevator. And there's a, like a telecon, not, probably not dissimilar to this, but nowhere near as nice. It's very clinical. Um, so they went up and so we had to drop them off and just leave them there.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  A seven and eleven-year-old.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. With, um, my sister was there for the first couple of weeks. And then a friend came up because my sister had little tiny kids at the time.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  As in the sister could go with them out the back?

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, she could be out there. She couldn't go into the room with them, but she could be out the back.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  It's just wild to me that a seven-year-old isn't allowed a chaperone.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  Oh, that they know.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  Like, that's wild.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they sit in there and they watch their evidence. So they watch themselves.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  So that they can remember.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  They can remember it. And then they get cross-examined by, so they just see the barrister and the judge in the courtroom, they're the only people that they can see, so they didn't see him from there.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Um, we saw him on the street, but they didn't see him during that period, but they also didn't see us.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  So you weren't allowed to watch any of this, were you?

• 37:28Speaker 01

  No, because we were both witnesses. So do you know, to this day, I've actually never, I have never seen their evidence. I don't know what they told the police. And Brent and I have never seen each other's.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  Really?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, because even though I went first and could have been in the courtroom when he gave his evidence, he actually asked me not to be, yeah.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  How did the girls, because I'm assuming you haven't seen the cross-examination either?

• 37:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  How did they describe it?

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Rose thought it was mean. She, like, I remember her just saying, they're being so mean, that man is so mean. I had this impression of the justice system that is so naive. I just look down and think, wow, you're an idiot. Like, I was so naive. The protection was all around the offender and his rights. And it was not at all about, these are children, you cannot speak to children like that. It was, and even any witness, any vulnerable witness, I just think, yeah. So it was absolutely shocking to me that that happened.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  So Rose saw it as mean, Pippa shut down. She shut down, she could only, she answered every question that she had to, but he appealed his conviction.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  And when they went back through, so there were four judges that went back through and did the appeal, they actually, they commented that she answered every question that was asked of her. She just didn't answer it the multiple times that they asked it.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  So she just remained silent when he kept asking it?

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Good on her.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, she was just, she was almost catatonic, like, she just sat there with tears rolling down her face. And, you know, she said to me, like, the judge told me to stop crying.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  They're children.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  You're asking them about the most horrible thing that they've ever experienced.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So it was just, um, it was so unheard of. And look, I, I look now and just go, the biggest mistake they did was treat my children like that. Because by the time it was my turn to go in, I was pretty fired up. And they'd given me too much time to learn my statement. So I could actually write it off by heart by the time I went back in. Because I was not gonna get caught off guard.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  And it was just, it was actually, it was just gross.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  And I just looked at, and I know that everyone has a job to do, but there's a way that you choose to do a job. And I was really disappointed in the lack of humanity. But, you know, at that point, everyone's innocent until proven guilty. You know, it was just, yeah, it was just disgusting. The innocence of my kids was not considered in that, though. Things happened that I couldn't believe.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  And it was one of those things. So I was actually journaling on the daily because people were supporting us. So I would just like write a bit of an update. And sometimes they were just so far fetched. I was like, no one's gonna believe this. Like, it's just ridiculous.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  Well, I've heard you describe what happened to your girls in that court process. It's emotional abuse.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Yep, it was. And so we had a, a period of time, it was a Friday. And this was the, into the third of, the third week, Friday and the third week. Pip was not doing well and she was, um, she actually had tonsillitis as well. So she was physically unwell. This was all happening. We were told that morning, they say, this is another thing that just happens. We were told that morning that it might not be going ahead that day because one of the jury members was sick. So Pip had gone down to Darling Harbour to, um, have a little run around Darling Harbour with some, um, some of our friends. And then we got the phone call to say, oh, they got the wrong room.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  It wasn't your jury. She has to be here in 10 minutes. So they literally had to run from Darling Harbour up to the courthouse and she had to go in. So she'd already sort of thought, oh, you know, I don't have to do this today.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, she was in a better headspace.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  In a better headspace. And then she had to go back in after all of this. And anyway, so the questioning started. Apparently she wasn't answering questions. She was just sort of sitting there and, and not wanting to, you know, speak and did a couple of questions, but not all of them. And the barrister came out and the Crown Barrister came out and talked to us. And he said, look, you know, they're talking about wanting to dismiss the case because she's not answering the questions.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Three weeks in.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Anyway, so I went, okay, all right. And so I just started writing down some key things. And I just went through all the things that had happened in the lead up to that period of time. And I just said, well, if, if that's the case, see all this stuff. I said, I'm happy to go trial by media. It's all fine. Like, I'm, I'm actually okay with that. Uh, I had actually reached out to some people here and said, this is happening. And I never thought this would happen because I just, I could not believe that this was what we were living.

• 43:01Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Because no one talked about it. Yeah. Anyway, so that was, you know, just another thing that happened that made it difficult. So that was, yeah, the end of the third week and I just wrote it down and said, these are all the barriers that have been put in front of my 11 year old up to this period of time. And, you know, if you're wanting to drop the case, like, I'm happy to kick off. Like, I'm happy to get angry about this because we're not here and got to this point for nothing. So, uh, we went away for the weekend. We went down to my uncle's. They lived at Tharool and had a lovely weekend down there. Came back and everything changed on the Monday. So the types of questions were better.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  The barrister a- a- objected to some things and it was, you know.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  So your mama bear behaviour worked.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Well, look, I don't know if it was that or whether, you know, they just decided to get things moving along.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Um, and then, yeah, so I got to go in, Brent got to go in, you know, kind of finished up reasonably quickly in that last week. But yeah, I, I, I was not prepared for it at all.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  Well, they were treated like little grownups.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  They were, and most adults would find that a really, really difficult situation to be in.

• 44:18Speaker 00

  I don't know how I'd handle a cross-examination like that.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  No, well, I, I was doing it wrong, apparently.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  I do, I did say to the judge at one point, I haven't done this before, like, year ten mock trial does not count.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  Did he give evidence?

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Yes, and so did she.

• 44:38Speaker 00

  Were you there for it?

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Yep, she gave evidence and I sat in there and listened. And I watched her lie and she looked at me while she did it.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  And I just got up and left. I couldn't listen to it. And then he gave evidence and he actually proved to everyone the type of man that he was when he gave his evidence. He was smug and he was, made rude comments about his wife.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  In the.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yep. And, yeah, it was just, and again, I listened to some of it. And then I got up and left.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  He was convicted for the crimes against Pippa.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  But not Rose.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  Do you remember finding that out?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Um, sorry, it didn't matter if he was found guilty or not. Because I knew my girls were telling the truth. When he was found guilty of most of the cha, I think nearly all the charges against Pippa.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Um, and not Rose. We decided that we wouldn't tell Rose about that at the time, because it wouldn't have meant anything to her either. She was seven and a half.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  She was young.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, she wasn't going to understand that. So, you know, it was just, you know, for them, it was, we're really proud that you told the truth. And because you did that, you've kept other people safe. The night that we found out, or the afternoon that we found out, I chose not to be here in Sydney for that. I stayed at home. Brent had flown up. The day earlier, but no decision had been made at that point. He was at home. He was actually picking the kids up from school when we found out. So um my cousin and my uncle were in the courtroom.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  And they came out and told me what had happened and.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  And I just, I don't think I really felt anything, like I didn't. Um then we had lots of people, friends come around and. Like who had been so supportive and everything and came around and someone brought a bottle of champagne and like all this sort of thing and. And then the police officer came around too, like he sort of had become a friend over that time, you know. And I actually got up and left because I just, and it wasn't because they were of anything they were doing. I just, I couldn't celebrate what I already knew as truth.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Um and I don't think anyone was celebrating, it was sort of a relief. But it was just this very weird thing where, you know.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  You ca- you can't celebrate that.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  You also are celebrating, like it feels kind of like you're celebrating a system that you've just watched traumatise your kids.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  So it's like, yeah, we got the result we wanted, but we went through hell to get it.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  We did, you know, and he was granted bail again, like after that, he was, you know, he was allowed out until sentencing.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  Why? Did the judge say?

• 48:04Speaker 01

  So the judge said that he wasn't considered a risk to the community.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  Right, but you've mentioned that they had other children in their lives.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that was a bit hard to swallow. It's like, okay, well, how bad do you have to be?

• 48:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  How bad do you have to be? So you're allowed to do these things to children and you're not a risk. So it wasn't a risk to the judge. Anyway, so he was allowed out and then we had to do like the victim impact sta- statements and things like that. So I actually, so with the girls, with Pippa, wrote the victim impact statement. And then we wrote one for Rose as well, so that she didn't feel like she was being left out. And then we kind of meshed it a bit together because it was an impact on our whole family. And that actually wasn't considered at the time. I really only wanted Pips. Um victim impact statement.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  And I was a bit, we're all, like, we're all victims in this. Like, it was, it was a weird thing to do and. And to be completely honest, when we did the victim impact statement. Because we had seen Pip go from this vivacious, charismatic, happy, eerie.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Had lots of friends, you know, this beautiful little girl to.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  A shell. You know, and um she, she was so desperately sad.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  And so when I wrote it, I was so honest about that. And I actually went back and used like, cause this lady had written some lovely things about the types of girls. That we had. And I used her descriptions of our kids to say, this is what they were like. And this is what we have right now. But this isn't the end for them. And they will go on to be strong and happy and live really good lives. Despite any of this. So, yeah, so we did the, I had to read the victim impact statement out in court.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  And then, um, and he was still out at that point and. And his wife got up and did a victim impact statement as if, um, like how it would be bad for her for him to go to jail.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  And I had to leave for that one too. That's actually the first time that I really had a blow up. Like, I actually lost it outside the courtroom. I was sitting outside and this poor lady, she was um. Salvation Army lady. She came out to try and be nice to me. I just wasn't having it. And I was just like, and I actually ended up saying, if you want to do something, you can pray for her soul. She just lied. She just lied.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  You've got to laugh or you'll cry.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  I was so angry. It was, you know, out of everything that I could have been angry at, the poor salvation army lady, who was just this gorgeous, beautiful, supportive person who was, you know, impartial, like she copped it. Yeah, so that was really hard. And again, he got bail. And so he went home again and then it wasn't. And so we finished court in May. It wasn't till September that he finally went to jail.

• 51:41Speaker 00

  Do you have any thoughts towards the sentence? Or like you said, is that part, does that part not matter to you?

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Oh, look, you know, three years and nine months. And he was out in two and a half years.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  It just doesn't, everything the girls went through.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 00

  It just doesn't feel like a lot, does it?

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't. But then at the same time, I look now and go, what do they do? Who do they talk to? You know, I think, you know, there's a bit of a life sentence there because they're very ostracised in the community, from what I can tell. As I said, I've never seen them. I've never seen them out in the community. So I can imagine that's quite isolating and, you know,

• 52:21Speaker 01

  that's what happens when you are not a nice person.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  If you had your time again, would you go to trial again?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  That's a really hard question to answer because we've done the work.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  To change the way, if it was done in the same way.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  If I knew then what I knew back in twenty sixteen, probably no.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know how I could encourage anyone to go through that, but there was something else. I had a very good friend of mine who has been a victim of of this type of crime. And she's one of the most special, strongest people I know, and she's never taken her offender to court. And it weighs heavily on her.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  And she said to me one day that if you think that they can do it, do it.

• 53:23Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  You know.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  That's interesting.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, so that was kind of always in the back of my head too. Yeah.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  What was a, so I want to get to your advocacy, but I'm really interested to know, once everything was done. What did those weeks and months look like? Did your girls start to come alive again, or did it really take a long time?

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Rose came out of the courtroom after she had finished her final cross-examination. And went, all right, I'm finished. Can I go get my new high tops now? Because she had her eye on these high top basketball boots that she wanted to, and we were like, oh, well. Once you finish, we'll go, you know, we can go shopping and do that. So that was, that was the first thing that she said. It was like, yep, done. Close the book on that, I'm out, you know? And she went back to school and her teachers, she had two teachers at the time, and they're like, oh my god, she's just like this. Breath of fresh air, she's just walked back in like nothing's happened, you know, it was four and a half weeks after the school term had started.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  You know, and she just sort of slotted back in and was king of the kids and, and living her best life. And then we had our little, um, you know, and Maggie, like Maggie had sat there for four and a half weeks too, you know. Waiting to give her evidence and, you know, she was a really crucial piece of the puzzle. She was able to. You know, put people where they were at times that they said they were and all of those things. Her evidence was very compelling. Um, which is what the, you know, the barrister has told us since. But she had to be in that space too, and she was in year seven, you know, she was in high school and it was hard and, you know, she just. You know, she had to go back into that and and try and navigate that space as well.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Uh, and she was incredible. And our little Pip, she struggled, she struggled. She was in year five and she found it really hard just to find any joy in anything. And, you know, that was.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Um, she did a lot of work, uh, she did a lot of work. And, um, yeah, and she very openly talks about this because I think she should be totally celebrated for.

• 55:49Speaker 00

  I think all your girls should be celebrated. They are bloody superheroes.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  They are, and, um, you know, she, yeah, she did the work to get back in. I still remember her one day saying to me, we were sitting out the front of the basketball stadium. And she didn't want to go in, and she's like, I don't want to play, I don't want to be there. I don't want to be here anymore, Mum, I just don't want to be here anymore. And, um, I said, oh, Pip, you know, like, the world would just be such a sad place for me if you weren't in it. Like, I just can't even imagine what that would look like. And you've got so many things to look forward to. And so what, what do I have to look forward to? I said, well, one day you're gonna have a job that you're gonna love. And, cause she always loved helping people. Yeah, you know, I said, you know, you'll have a job and you'll, you'll love working. You like being helpful and doing those things.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  And, you know, one day you might get married or, you know, you might not, or you might have children or you might not. And she said, I am never having children.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  And I said, why? Like, I, you know, and she goes, why would I have a baby? So that they can have this sort of thing happen to them. And I was really thrown, like, I was like, holy moly, like, you know, I'd never considered that, you know? And I said to her, you know, what's, um, you know, like, that, just because it happened to you doesn't mean it's gonna happen to them. And she said, well, it happened to you and it happened to me. And, you know, cause I had shared with the girls that sometimes bad things happen, but you can still have this amazing life. And that I was an example of that. And yeah, it was, that was shocking to hear that from, you know, a little person.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  But look, you know, as I said, she's worked really hard, they've all worked really hard and it has been up and down. And and Rose has been really open about, you know, the last few years for her have been really challenging, particularly as the older girls have, you know, moved out or, you know, gone on to different things in their life. You know, she's sort of had that opportunity where she's been able to see things differently from, from an older point of view and understand what happened and try and get ahead around that, which has been really tricky. But, you know, they all just, they they put in the work to try and contribute and be good humans and live their best life. You know, they're, they're good because we don't want to bog ourselves in that.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  We've talked about how amazing they are, but what an amazing mum you are. Like, everything you've, you've, you've helped them get to that point. You've supported them every step of the way, you've held their vulnerabilities and every single

• 58:28Speaker 00

  moment they've had, down to your daughter feeling open to say something like, I don't want to have babies. And you supporting her through that, like, they couldn't have done that without you.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  No, but, you know, I, I'm very well supported too. You know, like, I've got Brent, who's incredible, and I've got a really supportive family. And, you know, like, when you do things like this, you have friends either step in or step out.

• 58:54Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  And I absolutely get it because it's,

• 59:02Speaker 01

  it's hard, like, it's hard. And, you know, like, there were people that, some of my friends had little children or were having babies, and I couldn't talk to them about this.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  You know, you're already, as you know, as you know, when you have kids, you're, you're already a bit vulnerable anyway. Like, you feel like you're half crazy half the time. So it was really important for me not to burden people.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  But yeah, look, I was so well supported. I felt like I had support. My work were amazing and I I kept at it and I did, I loved the work that I did and I loved working with young people, which is what I was doing at the time. And I, you know, so I think in that keeping things normal, you just, you just have to keep moving.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  You know, and there's people who've been a little bit critical, um, because we do share the story in that, you know, they sort of say, oh, because you talk about it, you're anchoring yourself in it. But I do disagree with that because the reality is that this is always going to be part of who we are.

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. But I, I do think that if there's any good to come from this story, it is the fire that it put in all of your bellies.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 00

  To help make change for the kids that would come after you. Where did all of that start?

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  So it actually started when we were in court. So Glenn, who was our detective, who has become, he's like family to us, you know, he

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  had been in the child abuse squad for a de- like over a decade at that point. And he was telling me about this witness intermediary program that they were running in Sydney and Newcastle. So it was a program where a person who was trained, so they would either be like psychologist or speech therapist or um even teachers and and people like that who who know kids were trained to help the child give the best evidence. So they would be part of the initial process. So when a child goes in and gives their initial statement and then they would then be part of the, you know, giving that initial evidence.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Interjecting if, you know, questions were too difficult, if it was outside the scope of that child's understanding.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Really making it so that the child could participate equitably in the process.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  They're also a constant person.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  A constant person.

• 1:01:37Speaker 00

  That the child can get to know.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  That's it. So they were there, it's court appointed. So they were there for that. Oh, within six months, the child would then be cross-examined by someone who was court appointed as well. And that would be filmed and that was then their evidence for court. So they never had to go to court.

• 1:01:55Speaker 00

  So everything's pre-recorded?

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Everything's pre-recorded. So that was, um, so they were doing that in Sydney and Newcastle. And that program started in two thousand and fifteen. So we weren't eligible because we were already in that process.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  And it was reviewed in twenty eighteen and they said it was, um, best practice. You know, the rights of the child were being, um, you know, a- adhered to. It wasn't jeopardising the rights of the offender to a fair trial. Everyone was happy about it. Defence prosecution, everyone was really happy about how it was looking. And so they extended the program again for another three years in Sydney and Newcastle.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Anyway, so I had sort of been following along and, and seeing what was happening. So the day that we got, that Brent actually came up during the, the trial, like when we were waiting for the verdict.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  I started reading about it and then, and then I thought, I'm just gonna write a letter to our local member. So we hadn't even had a verdict at that point, just to say, look, this is what's happened. And I can't believe that this has happened to my children and there's a better way. So why aren't we doing the better way? So I did that. And, uh, you know, as I said, that was before we had the verdict. And I heard back from the local member that I needed to getting in touch with the attorney general. So then I started writing to the attorney general. And I got this really nice response telling me that, oh, you know, um, we have this program where the evidence is pre-recorded and then the children are in a separate room and they're

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  cross-examined by the, so everything that we had been through that I said was not working, that was what they were giving me as someone from the country, this is what we do for you guys.

• 1:03:39Speaker 00

  And you're like, well, you didn't do it for us.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, well, it sucks. Like, that, that system that you reckon is really good for those kids in regional areas sucks.

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  And you know that because you've got a different program running in Sydney and Newcastle that is working and is less traumatizing. So, yeah.

• 1:03:56Speaker 00

  This has been your little side project.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'd been doing this little side project for, for six years. And then Rose came to me and said, she was like, oh, mum, I wanna do some fundraising. And I was like, oh, okay, who do you wanna fundraise for? And she talked about Brave Hearts, which is the, you know, empower, protect, educate.

• 1:04:13Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Um, child abuse that was set up in Queensland by Hedy Johnson back in the day.

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  So we had used a lot of their resources when we were talking through things and trying to, you know, advocate for the kids and whatever. So she wanted to raise money for them. And I was like, okay, so what do you wanna do? I wanna ride my bike around Australia. Yeah.

• 1:04:34Speaker 00

  That's a long one.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, that's probably not gonna happen, Rose. Like, I know you don't like school, but, but that's not a thing. Anyway, so she said, yeah, well, I wanna raise money for them. And she said, what about if I ride from Sydney to Coffs Harbour? Because our detective had moved to Coffs, Coffs Harbour. I was like, still a long ride, Rose. Like, we've, we need to nut this out. And I said to, and Pip was on the journey then by that point too, oh, that'd be really good. Yeah, we should do that. And I said, okay, well, if we do something like this, what's something else that you think people need to know about what's, you know, what you experienced? And they were like, both of them, pretty much at the same time said, court is shit.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  And I was like, okay, tell me more about that. And then they sort of talked about, you know, how horrible it was and being in there for days. And, you know, how they couldn't have anyone in there with them. And, you know, so all the things that were basically just talked about.

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  They named that as the things that were challenges. And so then I told them about this other thing and I said, you know, do you think something like that could work? And they're like, oh yeah, that would have made it easier. And the other thing is it wasn't about being easier, it was about that participation, participating equitably. That, that's the biggest thing that I want people to understand is this isn't about making it easier. It's about giving them what they needed at that time, that moment in time.

• 1:05:59Speaker 00

  It's protecting the

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  childlike

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it.

• 1:06:02Speaker 00

  nature of them amongst it all.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  And recognizing that they're not adults.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  They're not adults.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Anyway, they were, they were quite enthusiastic about the whole thing. And I said, all right, well, let's see what we can do. And so we said, let's make a petition. So I wrote a petition and then I thought, oh, well, I may as well go and see our local member again, who happened to be someone known to me. So we went and saw him, Justin Clancy, and, and went through. And, and he had known us for some time and had no knowledge of, of what had happened, you know, as a family. So he was very understanding and, and understandably distressed, you know, by the whole thing. So we wrote the, the petition and he presented the petition to Parliament.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  But then we realized that the girls actually couldn't talk about what happened to them.

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  Because their names were suppressed by the court.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Because of their ages.

• 1:06:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we had to talk about that and I didn't know how to get around that. Anyway, so I reached out to the Let Us Speak campaign.

• 1:07:09Speaker 00

  Which is run by Nina Fennell.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  For listeners, Nina Fennell is an incredible advocate for sexual assault victims, children in that space. She is a victim survivor herself. And the Let Her Speak campaign was exactly this. It was, she was the one behind Grace Tame, who helped Grace be able to tell her story, which I'm assuming is how you found her.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  So you reached out to Nina?

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  So I reached out to Nina. And I, I actually sent an email to probably. Fifteen different organisations trying to get somebody to just tell me, like, how much trouble are we gonna get in?

• 1:07:48Speaker 00

  If we say our names?

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  You know, and so I reached out to Nina and it was Mark Lawyers at the time, because Michael Bradley had also been involved in that, in that case. And they got back to me within fifteen minutes, both of them.

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, we've since reflected on that. And Nina was like, well, you didn't just come to me with a story, you came to me with a solution.

• 1:08:13Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  So that was sort of the point of difference. Like, we, it was like, yeah, this happened, but here's a way that to make it easier for other people. So we did that and we, so she kind of was doing stuff in the background and we had to get Rose's name cleared by the court. So Pitt was old enough.

• 1:08:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  At seventeen.

• 1:08:34Speaker 00

  So once she hit seven.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Seventeen, she could speak.

• 1:08:38Speaker 00

  Right, but it was.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  But because Rose was underage, she couldn't speak about Rose. So it was all very complicated and convoluted. And Rose actually summed it up really well. She said, Mum, I had a man telling me that I wasn't allowed to talk about this for a really long time. And then I went to court and I had men standing in front of me telling me that I had to talk about this for days. And now they're telling me that I can't talk about this again. And she's like, it's my story.

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  And the law, like, to be clear, is there to protect child victims. But if the child victim is saying, I would like to speak about it.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:19Speaker 00

  It's bizarre that you then have to go to court and pay a lot of money.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:09:24Speaker 00

  To try and get that removed, which is what you guys did.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Speaker 00

  Well, what Nina and her company did.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  What they did for us, yeah. And look, um, and it was, it was a good process because they.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  At all times, they wanted to make sure that this was, you know, Rose's decision.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Um, and Pip's decision. And there were lots of jumping off points, you know, where if they went, oh no, this is too, too much, I can't do it. You know, there were all of those protections in place for them to, to bow out or to opt out if they didn't want to. So, you know, it was, it was, that was a process in itself. Unfortunately, they didn't have to go to court.

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  Good.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  For that to happen, because I think that physical having to go there would have been really tricky. So we had this petition with the New South Wales Parliament for, uh, probably three months leading up to the bike ride. And it, it wasn't gaining signatures in the way that it felt like it was.

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  Because how many signatures do you need to make a difference?

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  So for, for it to be spoken about in parliament, you need twenty thousand e-signatures. Yeah.

• 1:10:38Speaker 00

  So the idea was we go public with our story in the media.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Speaker 00

  Then we get more signatures, then we can push this legislation through.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we tried to do it without the media first.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  But it wasn't gaining traction in the way that it could, because again, it wasn't personal, right?

• 1:10:53Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  It was just, you know, this obscure thing without faces. So we did the bike ride. We started at the Downing Centre and we, yeah, the girls rode over to the Harbour Bridge and all that sort of thing. And yeah, and then we went and they did all the trials. And it was actually at the end of it that we found out that we got the news that they could use their names.

• 1:11:18Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  So they finished that and then we, we went home and we came back and did, um, you know, all the media and things for the, uh, the Justice Shouldn't Hurt.

• 1:11:29Speaker 00

  Which was Nina's campaign after Let Her Speak.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that was the campaign that the girls were the face of, um, and our family were the face of that one.

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  It is one thing to say, let's talk to the media. And that's another thing to then have that story out there.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:11:46Speaker 00

  How did, how was it for your family? How did the girls handle that attention?

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Well, we always do SWOT analysis of things.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  So we had a bit of, you know, what's the strength of this? You know, and obviously the, the benefits were that, you know, changes could potentially made for other children so that they didn't have to experience what the girls did. You know, the weaknesses and the threats were really around what would be said and done to them. Because, you know, they had kept it relatively private. There weren't that many people, even in their friendship circles, that knew about what had happened. Um, our family and our good friends were obviously aware of it, but not everybody. Uh, that, you know, clearly not everyone we know knew what had happened. So that was a threat for us, that that would happen.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  But yeah, as I said, the strengths and opportunities were that there would be a different way of doing things for kids moving forward. And, you know, they were really proud to be able to be part of that. So, you know, when this story broke, uh, they only received positive feedback. And, you know, even a couple of parents of, of the kids

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  were, you know, came to me and were like, it all makes sense now. You know, like everything sort of fell into place for people around us. The story broke in the November. By the end of December, I think there was 69,000 signatures.

• 1:13:16Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, and people were saying, it's a no brainer. This is a no brainer. Why aren't we doing this?

• 1:13:24Speaker 00

  And then the premier announced?

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  The premier announced.

• 1:13:26Speaker 00

  In 2023?

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Yes, $64.3 million to expand the program so that all children in New South Wales had a chance to participate equitably in the legal process.

• 1:13:37Speaker 00

  What a win.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Yes. So it was a huge win and we went to Parliament House and stood in front of the nation's media and, and, you know, made a statement and Rose stood in front of them, no, no paper, no, no nothing. And charmed everyone and said, I want to see this go national. Um, we're still waiting for that to happen.

• 1:14:01Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, where are we at now? Cause that was a few years ago.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:04Speaker 00

  It's twenty twenty six now.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's three years ago. So I have checked in, I checked in with, um, Michael Daly at the Danilo Quinn Yook Master, um, to, to make sure that it was still, you know, a priority that this was gonna happen. We attended the opening of the Court for Children, um, which is down on Liverpool Street, across from World Square. There's actually, one of the oldest courthouses in Australia is there. And they've converted that so that it's a court that children go to when they're, um, giving this sort of evidence.

• 1:14:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  I just wanna know that it continues and that the government continue to fund the program.

• 1:14:43Speaker 00

  So right now, is it not all over Australia? It's still in only select places.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  New South Wales.

• 1:14:48Speaker 00

  Just New South Wales.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  So of course, cause you know, the legal systems are different.

• 1:14:52Speaker 00

  All across New South Wales, but.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:54Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Every child can do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it, look, it is, it's, it's a huge change. And, you know, people are like, oh, it's not, it hasn't done anything for your kids. So, well, yeah, actually it has, like, you know, they've got that satisfaction in knowing that other children don't have to go through what they did.

• 1:15:13Speaker 00

  Well, you haven't put your fighting hat down. You've entered politics.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  I have.

• 1:15:19Speaker 00

  What's prompted that? You're running as an independent in your local area?

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  I am. So, look, I think, you know, if, if we had have had this conversation, even three years ago, if someone said, oh, you're gonna be running as an independent candidate for the State of Farah, I would have said, you're kidding yourself. There is no way that I would do that. Like, um, being a politician has never been on my dance card. But it's sort of being a representative of people is. By telling story and, and getting people to not just understand an issue, but to feel the impact of, of those things.

• 1:15:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  So that they are inspired to make change or support the making of change. I think that's, that's why I'm doing what I'm doing now.

• 1:16:06Speaker 00

  Well, luck with your story. Most people don't go through the system. So how would they ever know that there's these issues unless we talk about it?

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:16:13Speaker 00

  How are your girls going now? You've got

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17Speaker 00

  A seventeen year old and your others are in their twenties?

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Maggie's turning twenty-three this year. She's left the nest, so she's currently living in Melbourne, living her best poor life, as she tells me. Look, she's just an amazing person. She's beautiful, she's so supportive and she's caring and kind and knows how to laugh at herself, which is very handy for her. She's great. Pip is studying paramedicine and nursing. So she's doing that, she's sort of between Melbourne and home. She's doing a bit of both and she turns twenty-one in April, which is exciting for her. And yeah, Rose is in year twelve.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  She plays AFL and she, yeah, she's doing vet fitness and things like that at school. She's hoping to go into the police force one day.

• 1:17:14Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  That's sort of her big plan. But look, they're all great. They have their days, as we all do. And you know, they've, they work through this and they recognise that, you know, some days are harder than others, but most days are really good. So that's sort of where we're at. And Bren and I are just getting old.

• 1:17:36Speaker 00

  How proud are you as their mum?

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I think they're fabulous. Don't you worry, they've also been teenage girls. They have really tested the boundaries from time to time. But look, I'm super proud of them and I'm proud that, that this isn't their whole story. This is just a little part of it. I'm proud that they stood up and, and made the change that they did. I'm proud that they can get up and stand in front of, you know, adults and the media and the premier and say,

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  We're okay, but we needed to make this change so that other kids can be too.

• 1:18:16Speaker 00

  Thank you to Michelle for sharing her family's story with us. If you want to see visuals from this episode, head over to our Instagram page at True Crime Conversations. And for in-depth case explainers, follow us on TikTok under the same name. True Crime Conversations is hosted by me, Gemma Bath. Our senior producer is Tali Blackman. The group executive producer is Alaria Brophy. And there's been audio design by Jacob Round. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.

• 1:18:47Speaker 03

  If anything mentioned in this episode has raised concerns for you or if you need support, you can contact a lifeline on 131114 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55180.

• 1:18:59Speaker 04

  True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast was recorded on.