Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life. The average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world. Today,
Speaker 1: I spoke to Nicole Meyer. It was a very difficult
Speaker 1: conversation they have. You may not recognize Nicole's name, but
Speaker 1: it's likely you've heard of the case. She was closely
Speaker 1: linked to. Nicole and the two younger sisters, Elie Sapper
Speaker 1: and Dassy Elrich, made allegations about being sexually assaulted by
Speaker 1: their school principal, malch Leifa whilst at the ultra Orthodox
Speaker 1: Jewish school called a Das Israel School. Just days after
Speaker 1: the allegation came to light, Malchallifa fled back to Israel
Speaker 1: with her family. That led to a thirteen year legal
Speaker 1: battle to get Malcha Leifer extradited back to Australia to
Speaker 1: face twenty nine charges relating to the sexual abuse of
Speaker 1: Nicole and the sisters. There was a seven week trial
Speaker 1: in August twenty twenty three where Malcal Leifer was convicted
Speaker 1: of eighteen counts relating to the sexual abuse of Nicole's
Speaker 1: two sisters, but was clear of the charges relating to herself.
Speaker 1: We talked about the impact that this horrendous situation had
Speaker 1: on Nicole. It was a deeply personal and troubling story,
Speaker 1: but one I think is important to talk about. Before
Speaker 1: we listened to this conversation, I need to reiterate that
Speaker 1: Malchal Leifer was found not guilty of charges relating to
Speaker 1: our guests Nicole Meyer. So in the eyes of the law,
Speaker 1: these offenses were not proven. We need to acknowledge and
Speaker 1: accept that. But if we're going to put our trust
Speaker 1: in the court's decisions, let's also accept Malcolifho was found
Speaker 1: guilty of eighteen counts of sexually abusing the Coles sisters
Speaker 1: and was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. Nicole Meyer, welcome
Speaker 1: to our Catch Killers. Thank you well, look, thank you
Speaker 1: for coming in and talking about what's occurred to yourself
Speaker 1: and your sisters. It must be difficult to talk about,
Speaker 1: but I think it's important that people like yourself talk
Speaker 1: about what happened.
Speaker 2: It has been difficult initially, but now I find it
Speaker 2: actually healing and I hope validating and supporting for any
Speaker 2: other survivor that actually tunes in and listens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had we've had previous victims and in my
Speaker 1: time in the police, victims of sexual assault or survivors
Speaker 1: of sexual assault that some people refer to it as.
Speaker 1: I think there is strength in people speaking out because
Speaker 1: quite often there's victim blame, the victims blame themselves for
Speaker 1: whatever bizarre reason that, oh, this has happened to me.
Speaker 1: But the more people that speak about that, I think
Speaker 1: it makes people more comfortable that you are a victim
Speaker 1: and it's nothing to do with the person that's been assaulted.
Speaker 1: That's a person that's created that.
Speaker 2: Environment, absolutely, and I think it also removes the shame.
Speaker 2: There is so much shame when it comes to being
Speaker 2: abused and not being able to say your story or
Speaker 2: feeling too ashamed is a difficult one. So being able
Speaker 2: to speak out give strength to others as well that
Speaker 2: they don't have to stay quiet and don't have to
Speaker 2: feel that shame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk me through the shame. Why the shame? Where
Speaker 1: do you think that comes from?
Speaker 2: I think many victims survivors sometimes feel that the abuses
Speaker 2: their fault or why they didn't say no, or why
Speaker 2: they couldn't stop it, or why they didn't walk away.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of shame associated with our self
Speaker 2: blame and our self criticism and even myself. I reflect
Speaker 2: back and I think where was my head in those years?
Speaker 2: But when someone has such control over you, like Marc
Speaker 2: life I did over me, there was no options of no,
Speaker 2: and that was just one fact of why I couldn't
Speaker 2: say no. So the shame is associated with could I
Speaker 2: have done something different to stop it? Or why was
Speaker 2: I chosen to be a victim? Or did I somehow
Speaker 2: ask for it? Not really, but did I do something
Speaker 2: that made that person think I was an easy target?
Speaker 1: That's the insidious nature of a crime where the perpetrator
Speaker 1: is grooming people too isn't it absolutely creating that doubt,
Speaker 1: and that's where the nature of the crime and it
Speaker 1: continues on that guilt that's attached to the victims because
Speaker 1: of the way they've been groomed.
Speaker 2: Yes, grooming is just the very beginning of the whole
Speaker 2: abuse cycle. Unfortunately, and particularly with Markolaeifer. She was a woman,
Speaker 2: and she was nurturing, and she was kind and she
Speaker 2: was caring. So it wasn't just her coming in and
Speaker 2: taking advantage. It was a slow build up of crossing
Speaker 2: boundaries that I didn't even know were there until the
Speaker 2: abuse started, and it all was disguised under care, love
Speaker 2: and nurturing, which I was severely lucky from home, so
Speaker 2: I was appreciative of that care, attention, love that she
Speaker 2: was so freely giving to myself and others.
Speaker 1: It adds to the confusion, doesn't it. It adds to
Speaker 1: the confusion of what's occurred to you. The matter itself
Speaker 1: attracted the such an intense interest from the community, the
Speaker 1: public and also the media. Did you feel that that
Speaker 1: pressure of your life has almost become very public?
Speaker 2: I think when I slipped into becoming a public figure,
Speaker 2: I remember that moment quite well because I felt anonymous.
Speaker 2: I was still working in the school where I was abused.
Speaker 2: I went and gave a police statement, and a week
Speaker 2: later I took a week off, and a week later
Speaker 2: I went back and continued teaching as if I didn't
Speaker 2: do it, teaching in the very same building I was
Speaker 2: abused in. So I was very private, so I thought
Speaker 2: so when I became more public and I stepped out
Speaker 2: with my story, all of a sudden people knew. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, I think I grew stronger and
Speaker 2: stronger as it became bigger, and I realized I'm fighting
Speaker 2: for a story that's not just mine, but on behalf
Speaker 2: of so many survivors and being a voice for so
Speaker 2: many that it didn't matter anymore. And also the media
Speaker 2: really helped us along the way, so we felt encouraged
Speaker 2: by their support as well. We created some really good
Speaker 2: relationships with some of them.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, that's a good way to navigate yourself through
Speaker 1: a very difficult situation. I'm thinking the attention that the
Speaker 1: media in the public, or the fascination that the people
Speaker 1: had in the actual case, was the perpetrator was a female,
Speaker 1: because that's not the perception that we hear sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: sexual assault. It's quite often linked to the man being
Speaker 1: the perpetrator. In your case, it was a female. Do
Speaker 1: you think that made a difference.
Speaker 2: I think he opened the minds of so many that
Speaker 2: may have not realized that a woman can be a
Speaker 2: perpetrator in that way to that, and I think since
Speaker 2: then I've become aware of quite a few female perpetrators,
Speaker 2: but it felt like Malcholifel was one of the first,
Speaker 2: and maybe because it was so publicized because of the extradition,
Speaker 2: but it just I think he opened the minds of
Speaker 2: many Australians and really around the world around female perpetrators
Speaker 2: being right up there.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about your upbringing.
Speaker 2: I was born first child in Australia. My parents immigrated
Speaker 2: before I was born, from England, and I was born
Speaker 2: after eight years of my parents not having any children,
Speaker 2: so I was almost like the oldest of the second
Speaker 2: lot of children to two older siblings. Four siblings two
Speaker 2: years consecutively each below me. We had a very strictly
Speaker 2: controlled upbringing. There's a version of, like I guess, being
Speaker 2: strict and insulated because of the religion, but then there
Speaker 2: was also the abuse on top of that. So unfortunately
Speaker 2: my parents were primarily my mother, very abusive to an
Speaker 2: extent that is extremely severe, and that is probably what
Speaker 2: is most difficult to talk about because I feel that
Speaker 2: many don't have the capacity to understand the severity of
Speaker 2: the abuse that we grew up with. And there's been
Speaker 2: times where sharing something has been met with this belief
Speaker 2: and that couldn't be possible. While no one could, no
Speaker 2: mother could be like that. But that was our experience
Speaker 2: growing up, and it was very hidden. No one knew
Speaker 2: we turned up to school looking well dressed, and even
Speaker 2: if it wasn't in trend, so to speak, but we
Speaker 2: had the clothing. We had food, at least some of
Speaker 2: the time. There were many times we didn't have food
Speaker 2: for either punishment or just there wasn't and people could
Speaker 2: not see that we had bruises, or we stayed home
Speaker 2: from school or left home school early to go home
Speaker 2: and clean. It wasn't obvious, It wasn't extremely obvious to
Speaker 2: someone who wouldn't know to look out for signs of
Speaker 2: what a child from an abuse home could look like.
Speaker 1: It's a horrible situation that find yourself in, like a
Speaker 1: childhood that should be support, nourishing, and to have that
Speaker 1: I know when we spoke the other day, you said
Speaker 1: it was difficult to talk about. There's a couple of
Speaker 1: things that I picked up in the judge's sentencing comments
Speaker 1: when he talked about the upbringing of yourself and your
Speaker 1: two sisters. Comments are about the treatment that you find.
Speaker 1: For me to read those out, okay. This is from
Speaker 1: a Judge Gamble at the County Court of Victoria in
Speaker 1: the reasons for sentencing and the complainants, and this is
Speaker 1: from the Sensing report. The complainants were raised in an
Speaker 1: ultra Orthodox Jewish family. They had other siblings, including older
Speaker 1: sisters and younger brothers the complaints. The complaints were subjected
Speaker 1: to a very difficult upbringing due to a cruel and
Speaker 1: unpredictable way their mother behaved towards them. Each was mistreated
Speaker 1: and witnessed the mistreatment of their siblings. Their mother neglected
Speaker 1: and abused her children regularly, both physically and emotionally. She
Speaker 1: also threatened them. The physical abuse included slaps, kicks, pinching,
Speaker 1: as well as the use of objects, including straps. This
Speaker 1: caused bruising in other marks. The complaints were expected to
Speaker 1: do the housework and mistreat that if it was not
Speaker 1: done perfectly and to their mother's liking. On occasions, she
Speaker 1: would lock one or more of the children in the
Speaker 1: dark cupboard, sometimes for lengthy periods. On other occasions, she
Speaker 1: would tell one of the children that they were discarded
Speaker 1: and no longer part of the family, and then get
Speaker 1: her husband to drive that child to a park and
Speaker 1: leave them there alone for a significant period. Food was
Speaker 1: often withheld as a form of punishment and control for
Speaker 1: each complaint, feeling hungry as an enduring childhood memory. On
Speaker 1: any view, it was a miserable home life for the
Speaker 1: complainants who were starved of love and affection and left
Speaker 1: in a perpetual state of fear and confusion. It's pretty heavy. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that must have been part of the evidence that came
Speaker 1: out that came out in the trial.
Speaker 2: It did because it explained some context as to why
Speaker 2: we were, I guess desperate for some love and attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And in my experience as a police officer
Speaker 1: and from people that sat in the seat you're sitting
Speaker 1: in now, it's apparent to me that perpetrators look for
Speaker 1: people like yourself and your sisters that were in a
Speaker 1: difficult environment, and that makes them easier to groom. Would
Speaker 1: you agree with that perception.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think there's also a part of that could
Speaker 2: be obedient and listening to adults, which I think any
Speaker 2: child will go through, regardless of their upbringing, that you
Speaker 2: always listen to adults. So there's that. But definitely, Markolfers
Speaker 2: saw and very quickly understood that our home life was
Speaker 2: far from perfect and realized that if she gave us food, love, care, yeah,
Speaker 2: then she had us.
Speaker 1: So the school, Can you tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about the school and the community, because a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't understand the ultra orthodox way that you were
Speaker 1: brought up or the environment that you grew up, and
Speaker 1: can you explain that a bit to us.
Speaker 2: I'll try and explain that shortly. I would say it's
Speaker 2: an insular community with not much influence from the external world.
Speaker 2: What each home does will be according to the level
Speaker 2: that they agree on. So there'll be some families that
Speaker 2: will go to the public library. There'll be a lot
Speaker 2: of families that don't. For example, when I grew up,
Speaker 2: we were so strictly brought up we couldn't even have
Speaker 2: a cold catalog allowed into our home, so that's how
Speaker 2: insulated we were. There'll be families that won't have any
Speaker 2: idea of the sport or what's going on in the
Speaker 2: external world surrounding them, and there'll be others that do.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's mostly a very insulated community with
Speaker 2: our own kosher shops and butcher and even hairdressers and
Speaker 2: services naiol salons, any of that kind of stuff you need.
Speaker 2: Does not mean you cannot get services elsewhere, but you
Speaker 2: would support the people in your community first if you can.
Speaker 2: Boys and girls are kept strictly segregated, and the modesty
Speaker 2: is a huge component of all of it. And in
Speaker 2: saying that, then the girls will be dressed very modestly
Speaker 2: from the age of three and up, and there is
Speaker 2: no male interaction other than your family members at all
Speaker 2: until you are in the dating or getting ready to
Speaker 2: be engaged from birth pretty much.
Speaker 1: So in that insular environment that you're living in, that's
Speaker 1: the community, but also the school, so it wasn't sort
Speaker 1: of you're living in an environment at home, but going
Speaker 1: to school and getting a more worldly view or a
Speaker 1: wider view of what goes on. The school adopted that
Speaker 1: approach too, so you and your sisters were very insulated
Speaker 1: from what was going on.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it was my whole life was by home, my school,
Speaker 2: my synagogue, or interrelated or connected all the same people
Speaker 2: and nothing beyond that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that played in and again I picked up some
Speaker 1: comments from the judges sensing report that played into your
Speaker 1: naivety in regards to sexual matters as well, because of
Speaker 1: the insular world that you were living in.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there was no sex education in our schools whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So that would I would imagine when the offenses started occurring,
Speaker 1: that would have caused confusion because you wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: much understanding what was going on.
Speaker 2: I had absolutely no idea what was Markolova's intentions or
Speaker 2: what was happening. That's even before the dissociation stepped in.
Speaker 2: Even just her putting her hand on my thigh or
Speaker 2: my back, I would have not known that was a
Speaker 2: red flag and that was her testing the boundaries to
Speaker 2: see what my response would be. Yeah, I just frozen,
Speaker 2: didn't say anything, didn't do anything, didn't understand anything.
Speaker 1: It's so understandable when you describe in the environment in
Speaker 1: which you grew up and how nagive you were, it
Speaker 1: must have been so confusing for Yeah, the judge made
Speaker 1: a comment and I'll refer to that because it was
Speaker 1: a seven week trial and obviously delved very deeply into
Speaker 1: all the issues relating to the offenses. Due to the ultra
Speaker 1: orthodox upbringings, that complaints remained ignorant in sexual matters until
Speaker 1: shortly before they got married. They received no form of
Speaker 1: sexual education, either at home or at school. They had
Speaker 1: no understanding of human anatomy, puberty, or sexual relations, and
Speaker 1: didn't even know the words ascribed for intimate parts of
Speaker 1: the body. And from a very early age they were
Speaker 1: taught the girls and women must dress very modestly and
Speaker 1: not reveal or discuss their bodies. The complainants ignorance in
Speaker 1: sexual matters continued well into their late teenage years until
Speaker 1: shortly before they got married. So why these offenses were
Speaker 1: occurring against yourself and your sisters? You were ignorant to
Speaker 1: what was going on? Absolutely, did you talk amongst yourselves?
Speaker 1: Did No?
Speaker 2: There was one incident where there was a school camp
Speaker 2: and my sister slept in the same room she visited
Speaker 2: just for one night. I was there as a young teacher,
Speaker 2: and she Michaelafe thought she was sleeping and she abused
Speaker 2: me in the bed that I was sharing with her
Speaker 2: while my sister was on the single bed, and that's
Speaker 2: how my sister found out I was being abused. The
Speaker 2: next morning, I gave her a look, just a look,
Speaker 2: nothing else, and I went to find her something she
Speaker 2: needed because she didn't bring all her stuff with her,
Speaker 2: so I went to ask some other people for some stuff.
Speaker 2: And I didn't want her to be left alone with
Speaker 2: Markllifer and Machaelifa kicked me out the room and then
Speaker 2: went into the bathroom where she was showering.
Speaker 1: Right, how did you feel as the older sister.
Speaker 2: At that moment, which is a very visual memory for me,
Speaker 2: I felt awful because I did not want even if
Speaker 2: I had no words, I just did not want Michael Life.
Speaker 2: I learned with my sister, and that was my understanding
Speaker 2: that Michael Life was abusing her, okay, and that was it.
Speaker 1: Horrible, horrible situation. This went on for a number of years.
Speaker 2: So when Marchalife entered my life, I was fifteen and
Speaker 2: a half years old in year ten. What the courts
Speaker 2: did not get to hear was that she continued to
Speaker 2: abuse me post me getting married and being pregnant and
Speaker 2: first child. And that is something that I'm not ashamed
Speaker 2: anymore to share because even though I know that the
Speaker 2: prosecution and potentially the defense made that decision based on
Speaker 2: what the general understanding of abuse is, it felt at
Speaker 2: the time extremely invalidating to me because the abuse didn't
Speaker 2: stop when I was engaged. It continued. And what stopped
Speaker 2: me from allowing her to abuse me the way that
Speaker 2: she was to the extent that she was was her
Speaker 2: lying herself down on me when I was pregnant, and
Speaker 2: my naivety even then was thinking that her in my
Speaker 2: mind fat, which was not a nice word to use,
Speaker 2: so her large body was going to squash my baby.
Speaker 2: And that is what instinctively did not allow me to
Speaker 2: be in the same room with her again, to be
Speaker 2: able to be in that position, not that the abuse stopped,
Speaker 2: but that she was not able to lie full length
Speaker 2: on top of me like that again. And that is
Speaker 2: a very significant moment because I still didn't have words,
Speaker 2: I still was extremely naive, but the protection of my
Speaker 2: child is what allowed me to make sure that there
Speaker 2: was some protection from the full amount of the abuse.
Speaker 2: Then when she left in two thousand and eight, it
Speaker 2: was simply because my sister was incredibly brave overseas, living
Speaker 2: in Israel alone and disclosed to a social worker there.
Speaker 2: That social worker could not believe that it was Markalalifa
Speaker 2: because she knew she used to live in Australia herself
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Right then she knew her.
Speaker 2: She knew Markalifa personally, very personally. She called me to
Speaker 2: confirm and I said yes, because I am too. And
Speaker 2: that was And there's a bit of not quite remembering
Speaker 2: properly whether Dussy my sister called me first and said,
Speaker 2: you know, I'mah's going to call you or not. Both
Speaker 2: of us don't remember the same exact what happened then,
Speaker 2: but it was a shock. I went to school and
Speaker 2: it felt like someone died. She had packed up and
Speaker 2: gone in the middle of the night. But it didn't
Speaker 2: happen straight away. It happened a couple days later, and
Speaker 2: there was such a you could feel the tension in
Speaker 2: the school. Markalifa was still there. They were trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what to do. She was principal of the school.
Speaker 2: And I don't remember who, and I wish I did
Speaker 2: someone or somebody's prepared me that she might come to
Speaker 2: my classroom and ask me what's going on. And that
Speaker 2: is the last memory I have of her. She pulled
Speaker 2: me out of class. It was the only time I've
Speaker 2: ever seen her look scared, and she asked me, what's
Speaker 2: going on. I stammered out some kind of reply that
Speaker 2: I couldn't and I don't know, And that night she left.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to talk about how it came about
Speaker 1: and how quickly and readily she left the country with
Speaker 1: her with her family. So just breaking it down, your sister,
Speaker 1: and let's put it in the timeframe. When were the
Speaker 1: offenses occurring over what period of time?
Speaker 2: So she arrived two thousand and one all the way
Speaker 2: to two thousand and eight, and I was there the
Speaker 2: entire time that.
Speaker 1: She was, and what sort of age we're talking about
Speaker 1: when the offenses started happening.
Speaker 2: So the grooming started for last fifteen and a half, right,
Speaker 2: so year ten and I was the first class that
Speaker 2: she groomed, and then any class below me all the
Speaker 2: way until she left.
Speaker 1: Your sister's told the counselor over overseas made contact with you,
Speaker 1: and then I would imagine mandatory reporting. She's reported. What
Speaker 1: were the circumstances in which it came to life's attention
Speaker 1: that there's been complaints made against her? How was that
Speaker 1: dealt with.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what happened at that time. I just
Speaker 2: know that it was within days one, two, three days
Speaker 2: and she was gone. It was not long after my
Speaker 2: sister disclosed that she left the country. The exact intricacies.
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone's ever going to be fully
Speaker 2: honest about what happened in that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of just breaking down, like the timeline that I've
Speaker 1: looked for, the documentation that's available that your sister made
Speaker 1: the disclosure to a counselor in late February two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. School board stood lifeer down on the fifth
Speaker 1: of March two thousand and eight, and at one twenty
Speaker 1: am the very next morning, and her family called a
Speaker 1: flight to Israel. Yes, okay, when you found out that
Speaker 1: Life had left the country with her family shortly after
Speaker 1: it's been brought to the attention of the school, how
Speaker 1: did you feel.
Speaker 2: I wasn't ut a shock because being a victim of
Speaker 2: hers but still being abused till the day she left,
Speaker 2: there was no closure this is happening, and mentally preparing, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to see this person. So she was
Speaker 2: there one day, she was not there the next. From
Speaker 2: an external perspective. It's almost like I was in a
Speaker 2: de realization kind of perspective. I'm watching hordes of teachers
Speaker 2: and students go to the main lunch room or gathering
Speaker 2: room and everyone's in a state of grief, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: this happened because of me. This happened because of my sister.
Speaker 2: This is something I had a part of, but no
Speaker 2: one knows that, so I didn't know where to place myself.
Speaker 2: It was the oddest feeling. And no one has ever
Speaker 2: actually asked me that question. You are the first person
Speaker 2: that has. And it was just there was shock, there
Speaker 2: was shame, There was I wonder if anyone's going to
Speaker 2: find out that it's me. My sisters weren't in the school.
Speaker 2: They were like I was the only out of the
Speaker 2: three of us still working in the school, and what
Speaker 2: does that mean for my life?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What have I set in motion?
Speaker 1: It's a lot of pressure to carry because I would
Speaker 1: imagine the rumors and people would be speculating on what's
Speaker 1: happened here, and you've got the yeah, you understand what's happened.
Speaker 1: It must have been very difficult.
Speaker 2: It was incredibly difficult. And the person who stepped up
Speaker 2: to be interim principle actually took me to a therapist
Speaker 2: one session and she I was so numb and associated
Speaker 2: and disconnected. She took out cars and said, tell me
Speaker 2: your feelings from these Teddy Bear cars. I said, I
Speaker 2: don't do Teddy Bear cards. And that was the end
Speaker 2: of the session and I never went to therapy again
Speaker 2: until years later. But it was like, no feelings, no cars,
Speaker 2: I'm in shock. Like back then, I wish I could
Speaker 2: say to her, you're dealing with a victim who's just
Speaker 2: had her life turned upside down, who has no idea
Speaker 2: what's just happened, doesn't even understand the impact of the abuse,
Speaker 2: and asking her to describe her feelings not happening okay.
Speaker 1: On teddy Bear cards. I like that police investigation was
Speaker 1: not commenced until mid twenty eleven when your sister came
Speaker 1: forward with and statements were taken around June twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to understand this sister's report that
Speaker 1: counselor has reached out to you. Obviously a formal report
Speaker 1: has been that all the school has been notified, there's
Speaker 1: been it's obviously been discussed, and then life has left
Speaker 1: the school and went to Israel. It's not till a
Speaker 1: couple of years after that it's reported to the police,
Speaker 1: and who reported it to the police.
Speaker 2: So I just went back to normal work, having kids,
Speaker 2: my sister living overseas, and other sister getting married, living
Speaker 2: so it's just it was just this complete disconnect. It
Speaker 2: was a shock. I remember being in the school and
Speaker 2: everyone in an utter shock, and a and principles stepping
Speaker 2: up and everyone in shock, like it was a huge
Speaker 2: shock and displacement in the school. But then it just settled.
Speaker 2: School had to keep going on, kids still had to
Speaker 2: be taught, life still had to keep happening. And then
Speaker 2: my sister, my youngest sister, they were youngest of us three,
Speaker 2: gave a police statement. She was the first one. I
Speaker 2: hadn't even entertained the idea of giving a police statement
Speaker 2: when she did.
Speaker 1: Did you know that was an option for you? Did
Speaker 1: that was and I'm looking at the world in which
Speaker 1: you grew up, Did you say that as something that
Speaker 1: you could have reached out to the place I.
Speaker 2: Always had a burning desire for justice to happen. When
Speaker 2: that exactly started, I don't know, But no, I don't
Speaker 2: know if I would have ever initiated going forward if
Speaker 2: my sister hadn't first simply because shame, feared association, and
Speaker 2: just not even knowing that is something I could do.
Speaker 2: It was not even it was never given to me.
Speaker 2: Like I've had people ask me directly, well, if they
Speaker 2: knew that you were a victim right before she left,
Speaker 2: why didn't you say anything? I said, No one came
Speaker 2: to me and said, can we go to the police.
Speaker 2: I'll support you, Let's tell them what happened. So that weekend,
Speaker 2: no one gave me that option. I didn't even know
Speaker 2: that was available.
Speaker 1: Okay, I understand what you're saying now sitting down talking
Speaker 1: to you, But I also understand why people would be saying, well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you go to the police. But that's why
Speaker 1: I think the judges made such a point of talking
Speaker 1: about your upbringing and the environment in which you grew
Speaker 1: up with. But yeah, that to me makes the offense, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any more sinister. It's an evil offense
Speaker 1: to start with. But clearly she was praying on exactly
Speaker 1: the things that were holding you back from going to
Speaker 1: the police. Is your ignorance, yes, and not understanding. Okay,
Speaker 1: So your sisters decided to go to the police. Did
Speaker 1: the police reach out to you or did you go
Speaker 1: to the police?
Speaker 2: Could be they did. I don't think they did. Ellie
Speaker 2: went first, Dust a couple months later, and finally, on
Speaker 2: the day I found out I was young pregnant with
Speaker 2: my youngest, I went to the police station and gave
Speaker 2: my report. Yes, it was so traumatizing, and I think
Speaker 2: any survivor victims vive, but that listens to this will understand.
Speaker 2: I actually have no memory of giving my police statement.
Speaker 2: I don't know who took it. I don't know what
Speaker 2: I said. Obviously I've got the papers, but I don't
Speaker 2: have any physical or visual memory at all of doing that.
Speaker 2: That's how hard it was for me to step out
Speaker 2: of my entire insulated, closed private life and do something
Speaker 2: so extreme, even though it felt right to do. And
Speaker 2: that was the first time in my life, even post
Speaker 2: all my babies. I took a week off work for
Speaker 2: mental health needs and I didn't even know I needed.
Speaker 2: I just knew I couldn't go back to work for
Speaker 2: a week and I did somehow to figure out what
Speaker 2: I had done. Yeah, even when I was doing the
Speaker 2: committal hearing before trial, the defense lawyer was saying did
Speaker 2: you sign that statement? And I was like, well, my
Speaker 2: signature was there, so I did. But I actually have
Speaker 2: no memory of doing that, because that's how traumatizing giving
Speaker 2: my first statement was.
Speaker 1: And that's not unusual for traumatized people, not at all
Speaker 1: in situations like that. It's difficult to understand unless you've
Speaker 1: been in that situation, but it's not unusual. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we've got now a police investigation. Your sisters have come forward,
Speaker 1: the three of you. Did you think there would be
Speaker 1: How did you think you were going to get justice?
Speaker 1: Given the fact she's gone back to Israel? Did they
Speaker 1: explain the complexities of extraditions and all that type of thing.
Speaker 2: I smile Riley now because I was so trusting and
Speaker 2: so innocent, and when I heard the words, sure, we'll
Speaker 2: send a state mister Canberra, get the paperwork done, go
Speaker 2: to Israel and get her, I was like, great, story over.
Speaker 2: I had absolutely no idea, and I can still remember
Speaker 2: the relief I felt. How simple that all was. How
Speaker 2: long can it take it to get paper stamped in
Speaker 2: camera and then just pick her up? It was like
Speaker 2: one plus one And it did not happen like that
Speaker 2: at all. It was the most. It I don't know
Speaker 2: the word. It pulled me down so much in my
Speaker 2: entire life was surrounding around dates, around who's the next
Speaker 2: police contact that we can keep in contact with, because
Speaker 2: it changed a couple of times over the years. Who's
Speaker 2: ignoring us or giving us any update? What's happening, what's
Speaker 2: happening in Israel? Why is there complete silence? It was
Speaker 2: three years of utter waiting and silence and hopelessness, and
Speaker 2: it's never going to happen. But we didn't understand why
Speaker 2: because we didn't have enough information happening, what was going.
Speaker 1: On, the complexities of trying to organize this. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about the extradition and how long it took, but before
Speaker 1: we do, can we just break down. Can you explain
Speaker 1: to people that what actually happened to you we've talked
Speaker 1: about in a general sense, but the grooming started and
Speaker 1: that life would take you the locations where you're on
Speaker 1: your own, you'd go to a place on a Sunday
Speaker 1: for extra tutoring or schooling. Can you explain the pattern
Speaker 1: that she created that allowed her to commit those offenses
Speaker 1: against you and what it actually involved.
Speaker 2: Recently, through my healing journey, I've actually thought I could
Speaker 2: write a book on the seven years that I with
Speaker 2: Marko Loefer because it is so extensive, and the coercive
Speaker 2: control and the impact and the control she had in
Speaker 2: every single area of my life is extremely difficult to
Speaker 2: understand unless it's really fully understood. So she entered my
Speaker 2: life when I was in year ten. She started immediately
Speaker 2: that year already crossing boundaries like no teacher ever put
Speaker 2: their hands on the students shoulders to push them down
Speaker 2: the corridor. No teacher ever touched a student full stop.
Speaker 2: It just wasn't in our school female and we didn't
Speaker 2: have male teachers. It just wasn't. So she already with everyone,
Speaker 2: showed that she was that kind of touchy, feely person, caring, smiling, chaotic,
Speaker 2: but she was just everywhere and anywhere, interested in everyone,
Speaker 2: very quickly made favorites, and those favorites shifted and changed
Speaker 2: over time, and everyone knew who her favorites were. Pulled
Speaker 2: kids out of class to ask them to do errands
Speaker 2: or to get little jobs, or help them with the
Speaker 2: news letter or all that kind of stuff. Then we
Speaker 2: moved to them back to the main building with the
Speaker 2: rest of the school, and she was still the teacher,
Speaker 2: and she would have this little office between our classroom
Speaker 2: and she would just like be on the phone and
Speaker 2: just like keep an eye out. You just somehow knew
Speaker 2: that her eyes were always everywhere, and if she wanted you,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter where you were in the school, she
Speaker 2: would send someone to find you and bring you to her.
Speaker 2: So you were never quite free of her. And then
Speaker 2: she became principal of the actual school, so that was
Speaker 2: a whole messy fiasco where she literally kicked off the
Speaker 2: other principle and proved that she was better to do
Speaker 2: that job. And once she became principal of the school,
Speaker 2: there was no stopping her. I went through year twelve,
Speaker 2: and that's when there was serious abuse happening already, and
Speaker 2: she was just everyone's favorite. Like she groomed a community.
Speaker 2: She groomed the teachers, she groomed all the students. It
Speaker 2: was missus life for this and missus life for that.
Speaker 2: There will always be a couple that said, oh no,
Speaker 2: they thought she wasn't so great, and I can understand that,
Speaker 2: But for everyone else, I would say she groomed majority
Speaker 2: of the community with her actions and behaviors where she
Speaker 2: was her visibility was always there with all the functions
Speaker 2: and events that were happening. And I was definitely one
Speaker 2: of her favorites and should pull me out of class,
Speaker 2: she would lock her door, she would pull down the blinds,
Speaker 2: and then she would abuse for an hour and then
Speaker 2: send back the class. She would be red faced. I'd
Speaker 2: be red faced, and no one blinked because you wouldn't
Speaker 2: even for a second think that's what she's doing. So
Speaker 2: and it wasn't just me, it was allegedly many other
Speaker 2: students as well. And it's kind of you got to
Speaker 2: know which students she took privately, because you just notice
Speaker 2: if you're one, you notice who else is being pulled in.
Speaker 2: And then I went to first year teaching. She was very,
Speaker 2: very proud. She has six girls going from year twelve
Speaker 2: right into the school the next year. This is the
Speaker 2: product of why she's become head of the school. It
Speaker 2: was a huge moment for her. We took over the
Speaker 2: school three four, five, six, seven eight. We were like
Speaker 2: amazing powerhouses of teachers. We had teacher training. We taught
Speaker 2: the Jewish studies, so we weren't qualified to these general studies.
Speaker 2: They had the qualified teachers for that, but we did
Speaker 2: a really good job. I mean I loved teaching. I
Speaker 2: was passionate, and I loved every minute of it. I
Speaker 2: had this life that I loved of teaching, and I
Speaker 2: respected her knowledge and everything. And this is what was
Speaker 2: brought up to me in court. Here you are writing
Speaker 2: Marc Life, I thank you letters for helping you, and
Speaker 2: at the same time you're saying you're being abused. And
Speaker 2: I was like, that was two different lives. The abuse
Speaker 2: was a whole life of its own that was happening,
Speaker 2: completely disconnected from that. I was giving my everything to
Speaker 2: my job, and then even disconnected to that the abuse
Speaker 2: that was going on at home. It was like I
Speaker 2: was my whole life was my teaching, and she completely
Speaker 2: invaded every part of that. And the big shame of
Speaker 2: the whole case is that no one, all the witnesses
Speaker 2: in the school, no one came forward and said I
Speaker 2: saw this or I saw that, even retrospectively. And that's
Speaker 2: what is very deeply hurtful and upsetting, because there were
Speaker 2: witnesses that didn't know they were witnesses at the time,
Speaker 2: but over the years had so many opportunities to come
Speaker 2: forward and say, yes, we saw this, and I saw
Speaker 2: Nicole being pulled out of class by macaul Life as
Speaker 2: soon as the bell rang when her class finished, And
Speaker 2: that did happen. And I saw this person in camp
Speaker 2: in a room with her alone. I saw that person.
Speaker 2: There were witnesses that did see things, even if they
Speaker 2: didn't quite know what they were seeing at the time.
Speaker 2: And then I taught year one of teaching, absolutely loved it.
Speaker 2: Year two, in the second year of teaching, I actually
Speaker 2: got engaged. And that I will say this because I
Speaker 2: want to explain the level of her control. I got
Speaker 2: engaged to the son of the person she kicked off
Speaker 2: the principle right. She broke that engagement.
Speaker 1: She was the cause.
Speaker 2: Yes, she managed to convince my mother that he's not
Speaker 2: appropriate for X y Z. She even pulled in another
Speaker 2: prestigious woman who happened to be visiting from overseas and
Speaker 2: helping with the school at that time, got her to
Speaker 2: sit down and talk to me. I was given a
Speaker 2: phone and told call the boy and tell them you're
Speaker 2: not getting married in five weeks.
Speaker 1: It's horrible control.
Speaker 2: That is the level. And I was given a whole
Speaker 2: paper of all the sins he did, poor thing that
Speaker 2: he didn't do. There were no sins, and I had
Speaker 2: to read that to him and that was it.
Speaker 1: I'm speculating here, but a motive for that, whether it's
Speaker 1: jealousy or whether she's concerned that someone that she's made
Speaker 1: an enemy to and things might pass between you and
Speaker 1: him and it might lead to her being discovered. Correct,
Speaker 1: So she's moving all these things around just to cover
Speaker 1: up her actions. And just take you back to a
Speaker 1: couple of things you said there where people had seen
Speaker 1: things or yeah, you both go of students taken out
Speaker 1: of out of class, and then an office and comes
Speaker 1: out red face, and the principal's red faced. These are
Speaker 1: red flags, aren't they? These should be warning signs. And
Speaker 1: I think the days are gone where people can just say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't sure, so I didn't report that.
Speaker 1: What do you say to those people that have seen that,
Speaker 1: that suspect something that's going on that didn't speak out.
Speaker 2: I will say to anyone there isn't any educational position
Speaker 2: or anywhere. Really, if you sent something, go and talk
Speaker 2: to someone about it. Don't hold it to yourself, because
Speaker 2: the damage that you can be causing by your silence
Speaker 2: is more harmful than you can imagine red flags are
Speaker 2: they're nonverbal. They do happen, and we see with abuse
Speaker 2: cases coming out like the childcare centers, how many people
Speaker 2: have said, oh, they saw this or they wrote this,
Speaker 2: said this. We do as humans, we do notice things.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we don't, but when we do act on it.
Speaker 2: Talk to someone, talk to your superior, talk to a friend,
Speaker 2: and ask advice and then decide together what's the best
Speaker 2: course of action. But don't don't just keep it to yourself,
Speaker 2: because that is what is most damaging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the role that she created and the way that
Speaker 1: you've described her, she sunds like a larger than life character.
Speaker 1: And I'm just it's annoying me for of it because
Speaker 1: I can imagine the type of person you're talking about,
Speaker 1: the chaotic, and she's always touchy, handy, handy on kids.
Speaker 1: But that's just her. That's the way they cover their actions,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yes, And she ran the school so chaotically, but somehow
Speaker 2: it worked. She would literally be giving me material right
Speaker 2: before lesson that she asked me to substitute five minutes
Speaker 2: before and then race into class and teach, and then
Speaker 2: she'd be working out timetables middle of the night and call
Speaker 2: me and ask her to help with that, or writing
Speaker 2: news letters, or ask me to help with policy and
Speaker 2: the legal stuff that she had to fill out or
Speaker 2: the admin stuff, and I would help her with that.
Speaker 2: So I was really her, I would say, her assistant
Speaker 2: in a way, with the amount of work and help
Speaker 2: that I did for her in every possible way. But
Speaker 2: that was also her involvement in my life in every
Speaker 2: possible way.
Speaker 1: You use the word coersive, and there's legislation that's come
Speaker 1: into a lot of states around the country with relationships,
Speaker 1: where people are in relationships and the need for that
Speaker 1: coercive control and the police to have those powers. What
Speaker 1: you're describing there sort of ticks of boxes. It's coercive control.
Speaker 1: It's not in a domestic relationship, but it's coercive control
Speaker 1: in the environment you were working. Would you agree with
Speaker 1: that absolutely?
Speaker 2: Because there was no decision and no movement that I
Speaker 2: made without her saying it was okay or without knowing
Speaker 2: she would have an opinion about it. After and even
Speaker 2: when I got married, there was a time she couldn't
Speaker 2: get hold of me on my phone. She stalked me
Speaker 2: to find where I was where she thought I was.
Speaker 2: Now I happened to be somewhere private that I didn't
Speaker 2: want her to know where I was that moment, and
Speaker 2: she came careening around the corner with someone that drove
Speaker 2: another victim of hers. And as I walked out that
Speaker 2: building she saw where I was, she was satisfied have
Speaker 2: not had my phone not available to be telling her
Speaker 2: where I was.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have any conversations with her about, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm uncomfortable with this or was that just sort of
Speaker 1: it was an area you just couldn't go.
Speaker 2: Absolutely none, It was no. There was no possibility to
Speaker 2: say no one time in the whole seven years that
Speaker 2: I knew her. I had a little bit of backbone.
Speaker 2: I wanted to go and work somewhere else other than
Speaker 2: the squl was working in to earn more money, to
Speaker 2: have an opportunity to work in a different Jewish school.
Speaker 2: She shut that down so fast, and then to punish me,
Speaker 2: she took away a secretarial job that I did have
Speaker 2: in the school was working in and gave it to
Speaker 2: some new person that had come in from overseas as
Speaker 2: well to curry favor because her father was on the board.
Speaker 2: So it was all, you know, complex in that way,
Speaker 2: and I just knew I won't even try and cross
Speaker 2: her because that was the financial impact of if I did.
Speaker 1: How did she have the standing within the school? Like
Speaker 1: she came over what you did? You say? She came
Speaker 1: without one to teach and then she was there until
Speaker 1: two thousand and light and rose to be the principal
Speaker 1: of the school. What was her backstory before she came
Speaker 1: across to the school.
Speaker 2: She was teaching before she came to Australia. She had
Speaker 2: a lot of knowledge. She probably had some degrees and
Speaker 2: stuff that she did when she finished school. And she
Speaker 2: was very religious. So she looked the part, yeah, but
Speaker 2: she definitely wasn't the part at all. So she looked
Speaker 2: like someone that had good values, good attributes, and was
Speaker 2: a respectful person of the faith and the religion and
Speaker 2: would inspire, would inspire the students under her care to
Speaker 2: be more connected to God and religion through there, through
Speaker 2: her actions and the things that she's doing with them.
Speaker 2: The learning programs and they were all all those programs
Speaker 2: were amazing. It's just it was all covering up as
Speaker 2: well a lot of what she was trying to get
Speaker 2: away with underneath, because deeply underneath she was evil. She
Speaker 2: was not what she was portraying to the community and
Speaker 2: the school. So she earned the respect by her actions
Speaker 2: and her knowledge and her wisdom in the Jewish religion
Speaker 2: and all the textual stuff that she knew that in
Speaker 2: everything else.
Speaker 1: Hypocrisy of it too, Yes, saying that this is the
Speaker 1: values on following them being completely opposite. Is there any
Speaker 1: suggestion that I'm speculating here, but any suggestion that there
Speaker 1: was any rumors about her or any knowledge of this
Speaker 1: type of behavior before she came to Australia.
Speaker 2: Only after stuff came out here. Yes, some of her
Speaker 2: former alleged victims overseas did contact a reporter, but the
Speaker 2: statue of limitations were over, so it wasn't something they
Speaker 2: were willing to come forward because it was of course,
Speaker 2: it's an uproot upheopal to their lives, and if they
Speaker 2: can't do anything with information, they don't just want to
Speaker 2: give their story. Yeah, but they did affirm that that
Speaker 2: was the case.
Speaker 1: Okay, your sisters, the offenses that occurred against your sisters
Speaker 1: and the type of grooming, can you talk about your
Speaker 1: comfortable just talking about what they went through as well.
Speaker 2: So I'm not entirely sure because even though we are
Speaker 2: allowed to read each other statement now and we have
Speaker 2: seen the charges that came out. That's pretty much all
Speaker 2: that I know. We actually haven't sat down together because
Speaker 2: there was so much going on through the trial, which
Speaker 2: was nine weeks, including deliberation, we haven't had time to
Speaker 2: sit together and actually deep brief and that's something that
Speaker 2: we might be able to have the strength or the
Speaker 2: energy to do one day. But I do know that
Speaker 2: whatever abuse happened to me happened to them and allegedly
Speaker 2: to many others.
Speaker 1: I would imagine, and this would have made it difficult
Speaker 1: that when the matters were reported to the police, you
Speaker 1: would have been instructed not to talk to each other
Speaker 1: about the offenses in protect the potential contamination the evidence.
Speaker 1: From an emotional point of view about talking about the evidence,
Speaker 1: you must have been aware that your sisters had made
Speaker 1: complaints as well. How difficult was again being isolated from
Speaker 1: being able to speak people close to your sisters that
Speaker 1: have been through similar experiences.
Speaker 2: I think the shame was so great at that time,
Speaker 2: and the disconnect from the actual abuse. It was like
Speaker 2: dundusted gave the statement, Okay, I needed to come back.
Speaker 2: It wasn't. We grew closer and closer over the years,
Speaker 2: but Lofa wasn't the center of that. Our campaigning made
Speaker 2: us absolutely impossibly close because we were so closely working
Speaker 2: together to bring her back. But we knew, like you said,
Speaker 2: and we all knew from very early on, that the
Speaker 2: topic of the abuse and any ax or anything like
Speaker 2: that could never be discussed. So literally was only what
Speaker 2: we witnessed of each other during those years. So my
Speaker 2: younger sister witnessed my second sister being taken to a
Speaker 2: different room, and like I said, the camp situation and
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: The process for the extradition. How when you've made the
Speaker 1: report to the police. I know the people when they
Speaker 1: report to the police quite often they think, well that's
Speaker 1: the first step and I'm going to get justice. You
Speaker 1: touched on it a little bit earlier on. You had
Speaker 1: no idea how long the process would take. Tell us
Speaker 1: through what was going through in your life while that
Speaker 1: was going on, and the type of information you were receiving,
Speaker 1: Because it was you said three years, but by the
Speaker 1: time time she came back to Australia it was something
Speaker 1: like twelve years.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it was three years until her first arrest.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the process was warrants had to be taken
Speaker 1: out and she got arrested. Over in Israel, you would
Speaker 1: have been notified of that.
Speaker 2: So I was working in a new school, So I
Speaker 2: actually had left the school that I was abused in
Speaker 2: and went to work in a new school. And it
Speaker 2: was just early on in that year that all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, I got this phone call from a reporter
Speaker 2: that Markel Life was arrested. And my sisters were holidaying
Speaker 2: away and they weren't even in Melbourne, and I'm frantically
Speaker 2: trying to call them and say, guys, Michael Life has
Speaker 2: been arrested.
Speaker 1: Like this.
Speaker 2: It was huge. It gave me. It was such a shock,
Speaker 2: but it was also like, why did it happen? No,
Speaker 2: no one warned us, Like the paper suddenly land on
Speaker 2: someone's desk and they're like, oh right, we're going to
Speaker 2: go and arrest her. Was it in relation to the
Speaker 2: fact that there was some civil cases going on? So
Speaker 2: suddenly it sparked a memory, Oh okay, we should go
Speaker 2: and arrest her. Like I still don't know what caused
Speaker 2: that first arrest, And then we had some little bit
Speaker 2: of contact from the prosecutors there in Israel, but very
Speaker 2: shortly after she was arrested in charge and all that,
Speaker 2: she was released on bail. And that was the one
Speaker 2: mistake that the prosecution team admits to because they weren't
Speaker 2: in contact with us enough yet to know that we
Speaker 2: would not want that to happen, that we know what
Speaker 2: she's like, and that if she escaped Australia, she's definitely
Speaker 2: going to try and escape anything there to come back.
Speaker 2: And they released her on bail, and that was a
Speaker 2: huge pivotal moment.
Speaker 1: And did you feel like you've been let down with that? Like,
Speaker 1: when you've come out, you've done the statement, you're doing
Speaker 1: everything that, yeah, we say you should do in a
Speaker 1: situation like that, did you feel like the system had
Speaker 1: let you down?
Speaker 2: I didn't know enough and my sisters didn't either at
Speaker 2: that time to still not trust in the system. Okay,
Speaker 2: she's on bail, she'll go to her house, she won't
Speaker 2: be allowed to leave, she'll turn up the court to
Speaker 2: the next court date and she will have to say
Speaker 2: that she is or isn't you know, able to come
Speaker 2: to Australia. There was no indication that this still would
Speaker 2: not work and she would be back within six months, right,
Speaker 2: So that's.
Speaker 1: The expectation you had yes, even though she had bailed
Speaker 1: to granted yes, So why did it takes so long?
Speaker 2: That's when the game started.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Once she got bailed, there were probably around seventy or
Speaker 2: more court hearings around her mental fitness to stand trial,
Speaker 2: and even a judge over there, which is mind boggling.
Speaker 2: Reported like. He stated that marchal Lifer checks herself into
Speaker 2: a psych word the day before court hearing and checks
Speaker 2: herself out the day after. He stated that at one
Speaker 2: point we had the prosecution team saying we will go
Speaker 2: to hospital with the court to her. That didn't happen,
Speaker 2: and then it was just a game of psychiatrists after
Speaker 2: psychiatrist saying that she's not mentally well to stand trial. Now,
Speaker 2: if she's not mentally fit, she can't be extradited and
Speaker 2: that is their decision to make. So then that's where
Speaker 2: my sisters and I and my sister does started first
Speaker 2: to campaign and starts speaking to leaders in Australia and saying,
Speaker 2: hang on, what's happening here. We've got to start putting
Speaker 2: pressure up because if we don't, she's going to keep
Speaker 2: playing the syste again, not knowing how extensive we would
Speaker 2: have to fight, and how big the fight would be
Speaker 2: to actually bring her back.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm sitting here is done because I'm hearing
Speaker 1: your story, but what you've been through and then the
Speaker 1: battles break down, the fight. I think I've got a
Speaker 1: quote here from the ABC about the extradition That was
Speaker 1: from a Liberal MP, mister south Southwick, and this is
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, so this is years down the track. In
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, the Liberal MP bought a petition with seventeen
Speaker 1: thousand signatures calling for the extradition of life to israel politicians.
Speaker 1: But mister Southwick said members of the community from all
Speaker 1: sides of politics are joined together to support the sisters.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter who you are and where you come from.
Speaker 1: When you see the pain and suffering that innocent women
Speaker 1: have had to go through from a purpose like Malco Lifer,
Speaker 1: then you do everything possible you can to bring that
Speaker 1: person to justice. It was became political, you had to
Speaker 1: like signatures. I'm asking you, from a personal point of view,
Speaker 1: how did that affect you personally.
Speaker 2: We were on a roller coaster that was going so
Speaker 2: fast and when it dipped, it was so painful, But
Speaker 2: then it went so fast up again. Every single core hearing.
Speaker 2: We had people in Israel in the courts live texting us.
Speaker 2: We had a whole group chat of reporters and everyone
Speaker 2: that was present telling us what's going on, because of
Speaker 2: course it was all in a different language that we
Speaker 2: couldn't even understand even if we could log in, which
Speaker 2: we couldn't most of the time, and so we would
Speaker 2: need translators. And my sisters and I just sat down
Speaker 2: and I was two thousand and seventeen. I stopped working
Speaker 2: for the first time in my life. I had been
Speaker 2: working from eighteen years old, post all my pregnancies, right
Speaker 2: back to work right after. I didn't have any long
Speaker 2: maternity leave, and I stopped working in twenty seventeen to
Speaker 2: be able to campaign and advocate and having gone back
Speaker 2: to teaching since then. And it was a huge moment,
Speaker 2: but I don't even understand how big that was. And
Speaker 2: I stepped out, and that's when I kind of became
Speaker 2: public and joined my sisters and we are like, we
Speaker 2: are going to actually go overseas from our own resources,
Speaker 2: our own limited money. No one funded us, no one
Speaker 2: told us what to do. We didn't have a publicist.
Speaker 2: Everything was completely our own organizing, and we hopped on
Speaker 2: a plane and went to Israel October twenty seventeen or November,
Speaker 2: and we started. We went to rape crisis centers, We
Speaker 2: went to the Knesseta, and we met with politicians who
Speaker 2: didn't want to talk to us because it's an uncomfortable topic,
Speaker 2: but we imposed and made sure they did, and we
Speaker 2: had someone in there helping us to get into some politicians.
Speaker 2: We attended events. There was some big event happening then
Speaker 2: between Autralia and Israel, so we attended that. We side
Speaker 2: kind of met the Prime Minister at the time. We
Speaker 2: just did everything possible for two entire weeks, every day
Speaker 2: all day, meeting people to raise awareness about this story.
Speaker 2: We met the prosecution team and we said to them,
Speaker 2: we think there's something more going on. There's some corruption happening,
Speaker 2: something's happening in this case. It's not adding up why
Speaker 2: she's not coming back. And the prosecutor looked at us
Speaker 2: and he said, if something's happening, like if someone's corrupt,
Speaker 2: I'll eat my hat. And then a year later when
Speaker 2: we went and by then we all found out that
Speaker 2: the Health Minister was involved in asking the psychiatrist to
Speaker 2: doctor her her mental health certificates. He looked at us
Speaker 2: and he's like, I can't believe that happened. I think
Speaker 2: to myself, if I was in a position of power
Speaker 2: and I was asked to help someone like that, I
Speaker 2: couldn't do it. It would go against my whole moral compass.
Speaker 2: Like he was, we could see how visibly shocked he
Speaker 2: was that within a year we had because we went
Speaker 2: back on our second campaign trip a year later, and
Speaker 2: he understood that there was corruption going on, that there
Speaker 2: was something much prosecu.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor felt forces.
Speaker 2: Well, we felt it, we raised it. They didn't want
Speaker 2: to believe it. Then when we came a year later,
Speaker 2: By then the Litzmann story had broken out, and we
Speaker 2: found out that the Health Minister had been pressuring the
Speaker 2: psychiatrists who were treating Markolifa to say she was mentally
Speaker 2: unfit based on their own sort of little dirt story
Speaker 2: there that was happening, And the psychiatrist said that she
Speaker 2: was unfit and she wasn't.
Speaker 1: How frustrating was that for you guys?
Speaker 2: It was validating because we knew who we were talking to,
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it was horrible how gout
Speaker 2: someone in power, someone that we met the year before,
Speaker 2: who claimed he had no knowledge of what was going
Speaker 2: on with Marcarl Liifa. We met him in parliament, and
Speaker 2: then we find out that somehow he's involved in the
Speaker 2: corruption that's stopping her from coming back. I actually, and
Speaker 2: I can talk about this now because I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2: I was thinking of lodging a lawsuit against Slitzman because
Speaker 2: I didn't feel that the way that the criminal courts
Speaker 2: dealt with him with a slap on the wrist and
Speaker 2: a little fine and you can't work anything.
Speaker 1: Moore, this was dealt with like it's come out publicly. Yes,
Speaker 1: what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yes, he received charges. Some were dropped because I think
Speaker 2: he pled. It was obstruction of whatever. I don't know
Speaker 2: what exactly was titled. He had got a fine and
Speaker 2: he was told he can't work in parliament for seven years.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that was and that was.
Speaker 2: Finer compared to the incredible impact he had on myself
Speaker 2: and my sisters, making the delay years longer than it
Speaker 2: should have been because of his involvement and corruption which
Speaker 2: is now proven.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll join in with you now that it's been
Speaker 1: in court and it's being proven that's disgraceful. Yes, absolutely disgraceful.
Speaker 1: And this is a person that you had met the
Speaker 1: previous twelve months before, with all the false promises, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2: Well, he didn't, he would do anything. He just said
Speaker 2: he had no involvement in these kind of matters. He
Speaker 2: really shut us down, but also made it seem like
Speaker 2: he doesn't even know what we're talking about, which is
Speaker 2: obviously not true.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did it guess disprove that she wasn't fit
Speaker 1: to stand?
Speaker 2: Well, once the corruption came out and it hit national
Speaker 2: news all over Israel, that propelled the story to the
Speaker 2: highest level. I mean, look, that's second in comand you
Speaker 2: can't actually you can't push that down when someone's that powerful,
Speaker 2: that high up in government. Then my sisters and I
Speaker 2: went decided we're actually going to keep going to court.
Speaker 2: We're going to let this judge see us and look
Speaker 2: at us in the face, and she cannot possibly see
Speaker 2: the three of us sitting in the back of a corner.
Speaker 2: So we did a third campaign trip. This time someone
Speaker 2: stepped up and actually funded our tickets, which was amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was incredible, But we still played accommodation and travel
Speaker 2: on everything, and.
Speaker 1: That's taking time your life and my kids and.
Speaker 2: Life and everything. I've got four children. And we sat
Speaker 2: in the back of the courtroom and we looked at
Speaker 2: that judge like, remember, you are dealing with victims here
Speaker 2: who are sitting here watching you do justice, give justice
Speaker 2: to the case. But it's for some reason, it seemed
Speaker 2: like she had to just keep asking for more. And
Speaker 2: then finally in early twenty twenty, right before COVID hit,
Speaker 2: there was the most incredibly important court case. It was
Speaker 2: when three psychiatrists, three who all said that she's fit
Speaker 2: to stand trial, were going to be cross examined by
Speaker 2: the defense, and there were some of them. Israel visiting
Speaker 2: here and we met him for coffee. He used to
Speaker 2: live in Australia and he came back, comes back twice
Speaker 2: a year, and he said would you go? And I
Speaker 2: looked at my sisters and I was like caught. My husband.
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going to this round three days
Speaker 2: and my husband was like sure, because he's used to
Speaker 2: this already. And I hopped on a plane. Tickets were
Speaker 2: crazy cheap. We didn't know COVID was going to be
Speaker 2: so bad, but it was like literally under fifteen hundred.
Speaker 2: I hopped on a plane by myself, no sisters because
Speaker 2: they weren't available at the time, and I went and
Speaker 2: sat in court for two whole days in a language
Speaker 2: I didn't fully understand, but because it's my story, I could,
Speaker 2: and I listened to every single word that was said
Speaker 2: and saw how those psychiatrists were put under the grill
Speaker 2: by the two defense lawyers who we know who they were.
Speaker 2: We met them over all the time, and they did
Speaker 2: theatrics in the court room and they tried to discredit.
Speaker 2: One of the psychiatrists was a little bit unwell. She
Speaker 2: just wasn't feeling so good that morning, but she still gave,
Speaker 2: you know, she still did a good job. And after
Speaker 2: two whole days, I was like, Okay, that's it. We're
Speaker 2: waiting for decision, and I went home. I was feeling
Speaker 2: very heavy. It was actually very hard to be without
Speaker 2: my sisters. Like I sat in the partment all day
Speaker 2: so depressed, but not depressed because the pressed, but just
Speaker 2: because it was so heavy and so everything was relying
Speaker 2: on this. We had waited years till to this point,
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty to hear what this decision's going to be.
Speaker 2: It's been seventy five CORET hearings, and the next I
Speaker 2: got home, spoke to my sisters, debriefed them and everything,
Speaker 2: and within a couple months, I don't know the exact
Speaker 2: days offhand, it came through that she's fit to be extradided.
Speaker 2: And that was like the penny drop. That was like, oh,
Speaker 2: my goodness, everything we fought for everything, it is still
Speaker 2: for me personally, and I don't know about my sisters.
Speaker 2: When I look at the picture of her on an
Speaker 2: aeroplane going up those steps and landing on Australian soil,
Speaker 2: that can literally still I am in shocked at that
Speaker 2: picture because by that time a lot of people were thinking,
Speaker 2: it's actually not going to happen, She's not going to
Speaker 2: come back. They could see the battle we were fighting,
Speaker 2: and they could see and we had more and more
Speaker 2: support from the whole Australian community. But it just seemed
Speaker 2: that we were fighting that impossible. Yeah, And then it
Speaker 2: came through that she's fit to stand trial. The judge
Speaker 2: could not swing it any other way. It was not
Speaker 2: possible for some basically into it. But what a battle
Speaker 2: for what you've been through and then have the battle
Speaker 2: just to get to the court court matter, and I
Speaker 2: do remember the image of her getting on the planet.
Speaker 2: It's an iconic sort of photo, and you just, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: It was so powerful seeing that when you're not involved
Speaker 1: in it, so I can only imagine what it felt
Speaker 1: like for you. You mentioned seventy five court matters. Is
Speaker 1: that how many? Yeah times it appeared at court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's how many. And every single one we
Speaker 2: were involved in, every single one, we had contact. Every
Speaker 2: single one. We knew when it was a journed because
Speaker 2: there was a Germans that happened many times. Every single
Speaker 2: one we debriefed, We spoke to media before or after
Speaker 2: we met with my sisters. I'll be on holiday like
Speaker 2: summer for a couple of days away with my kids.
Speaker 2: I'll drive back from Rye with my sister sitting in
Speaker 2: her house together doing a court hearing. Didn't matter what
Speaker 2: was going on in our lives. We dropped everything to
Speaker 2: do this court hearing. And actually we had prosecution teams
Speaker 2: in Israel and in Australia look at us in the
Speaker 2: face and say, if you had not done what you
Speaker 2: had done, she would not be back. Well, so to
Speaker 2: have two teams saying that to us, we know that
Speaker 2: what we did is what caused her to be able
Speaker 2: to finally come back.
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to make the comment because I
Speaker 1: see hard investigations that get results, and invariably it's not
Speaker 1: the police, it's not the prosecutors. It's a family just driving,
Speaker 1: just driving and pushing and not giving up. And where
Speaker 1: did you did you know you had that type of
Speaker 1: resilience or did that it just came out because of
Speaker 1: the circumstances. Where where did you get that type of resilience?
Speaker 1: Because I could imagine there would have been times there
Speaker 1: where you just it's too hard. Why am I focusing
Speaker 1: on that? And the focus on that it's time away
Speaker 1: from your kids, your husband, your professional career.
Speaker 2: I think once I gave my statement and that was
Speaker 2: such a huge step out of anything in my life
Speaker 2: that I'd ever done adverse to the way I was
Speaker 2: brought up and raised, there was this tiny flame of
Speaker 2: the need for justice, and that just burned and got
Speaker 2: bigger and bigger and bigger over the years. It never
Speaker 2: ever went down for me personally, absolutely did not. The justice.
Speaker 2: The thought of justice drove everything. Yeah, absolutely everything.
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted from you had delivered. That's just hearing the story.
Speaker 2: It was exhausting.
Speaker 1: I think I'm fascinated by the drive that victims have
Speaker 1: got to get justice, and I fully understand it. But
Speaker 1: full credit to you that you've got to that point.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break down because it's still
Speaker 1: not over, because then this is just the start of it.
Speaker 1: I often said in homicide or with investigations, it only
Speaker 1: starts when you get to the court, and we haven't
Speaker 1: even got to trial. This is just getting the person
Speaker 1: to trial. But we'll talk about that, the impact that's
Speaker 1: had on you, and of course the fact that at
Speaker 1: the trial that the allegations that you made were she
Speaker 1: was found not guilty for those how that impacted on you.
Speaker 1: And we're going to discuss a lot of other things,
Speaker 1: lessons that you've learned from here and messages that you
Speaker 1: want to get out because I think it's such an
Speaker 1: important story to talk about. As we said at the start,
Speaker 1: that you know, let's learn from what's happened here, so
Speaker 1: it makes it harder for these type of I was
Speaker 1: going to say, so these offenses don't happen again. They
Speaker 1: will happen again, but let's make it harder for them
Speaker 1: to happen again, have a shell break, thank you, cheers
Speaker 1: and