Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. 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.
Speaker 1: Less than ten percent of reported sexual assaults result in
Speaker 1: a conviction in Australia. So what does it actually take
Speaker 1: to bring a rapist to justice? In Part two of
Speaker 1: my conversation with former police officer and sexual assault survivor
Speaker 1: Carolyn Clark, we find out exactly that Caroline became an
Speaker 1: active force in her own case, navigating a justice system
Speaker 1: she once served to ensure the man who assaulted her
Speaker 1: faced consequences. We also unpack one of the most misunderstood
Speaker 1: reactions in trauma, the freeze response. It's not a weakness
Speaker 1: or a choice, but rather a survival mechanism hardwired into us,
Speaker 1: yet one that continues to be used against survivors in courtrooms,
Speaker 1: in conversations, and even in their own heads. Caroline breaks
Speaker 1: down why it happens, how it works, and why the
Speaker 1: shame so many survivors carry about it is not only unfair,
Speaker 1: it's also wrong. Carolin Clarke, Welcome back to part two
Speaker 1: of I Catchkillers. Thank you before we start, Can I
Speaker 1: just read out a passage It's about about your journey,
Speaker 1: and I think it'll give us some talking points. Caroline
Speaker 1: was raped, and in the aftermath of the most viole
Speaker 1: lady in experience of her life, something unexpected happened. She
Speaker 1: stopped being silent for the first time, she refused to
Speaker 1: carry shame that was never hers. She traced every pattern,
Speaker 1: every wound, every moment she had been taught to stay quiet,
Speaker 1: all the way back to where it began, and she
Speaker 1: found her voice, not the performance of it, the real one. Again.
Speaker 1: A lot to unpack there. Taught me through what was
Speaker 1: meant in what I just read out.
Speaker 2: So to continue after I got home, and then I
Speaker 2: did what I'd always done, which was I'll just keep
Speaker 2: it inside tell anyone through fear of what the repercushions
Speaker 2: might be. Now by day two, the shame was that
Speaker 2: heavy and insidious. I remember thinking, gosh, I can so
Speaker 2: see how people don't want to be here anymore. To
Speaker 2: end it, you were feeling that shame, it was, I can.
Speaker 2: It's like it was almost like a dark cloud had descended,
Speaker 2: and I wanted it to disappear. And as the days
Speaker 2: went on, the shame got worse, which also made me
Speaker 2: understand is this what people carry? And it's I feel
Speaker 2: like I'd carried it my whole life, and I was
Speaker 2: ready to put it down, to lay it down, and
Speaker 2: I guess this was an opportunity, but the readiness to
Speaker 2: go and do that. Yeah, when people say, oh, why
Speaker 2: didn't you report straight away, it's not as simple as that.
Speaker 2: You have to be really ready to sit down and
Speaker 2: talk through one of the most violating experiences of your
Speaker 2: sacred body to a stranger and then explain why you
Speaker 2: didn't fight back. I mean, you have to be ready
Speaker 2: for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these were all the things that were going through
Speaker 1: your mind at the time, and you know, just pulling
Speaker 1: back on that a little bit, you were saying you
Speaker 1: didn't want to be there? Is that how low that
Speaker 1: you got?
Speaker 2: I was solow. I didn't want to leave the house.
Speaker 2: I just thought, how can I continue? It's as if
Speaker 2: I come to a crossroads in my life where there
Speaker 2: was no choice. I couldn't carry all the things I
Speaker 2: carried and add that to the backpack of silence, if
Speaker 2: that makes sense. It's like a part of me was
Speaker 2: saying I'm done. I can't continue. So I actually rang
Speaker 2: a friend of mine who was living in Costa Rica.
Speaker 2: So I've got something to tell you, and of course
Speaker 2: it tell me, tell me, and I couldn't get the
Speaker 2: words out, and eventually I did, and he said, if
Speaker 2: you don't go and report this, you're just going to
Speaker 2: keep continuing the same cycle your whole life, where people
Speaker 2: in circumstances will keep coming in to keep you silent.
Speaker 2: And I felt like I want to live a life
Speaker 2: of freedom. I don't want to keep being silent. So
Speaker 2: he said to me, well, my friends, the head of
Speaker 2: the DV unit on the Gold Coast, as a friend,
Speaker 2: can I get him to call you you and have
Speaker 2: a conversation. So that felt like it wasn't walking into
Speaker 2: a police station. It was a police officer, but.
Speaker 1: It was less confronting than you turning up on announswer exactly.
Speaker 2: So he called me an hour later and it was
Speaker 2: beautiful and he said, look, you know, he explained the
Speaker 2: seriousness of it, but he said, you don't have to
Speaker 2: do anything with it if you're not ready. So he
Speaker 2: was lobby give me permission to sit with it. And
Speaker 2: then the following week, which would have been a week
Speaker 2: after it happened, I spoke to a friend and she said,
Speaker 2: you've got You've got to go to the police station.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I went to a police station straight away. I
Speaker 2: don't know what I was thinking to even just go
Speaker 2: by myself, like, not even to think about getting a
Speaker 2: support person. I remember walking into the desk and seeing
Speaker 2: the uniformed officer thinking, I used to be that, I
Speaker 2: used to do that. How the heck have I ended
Speaker 2: up in this situation?
Speaker 1: Coming it's hard for place to see themselves as victims
Speaker 1: when they're being on the other side of the counter.
Speaker 2: And you notice the words that I used, Well, is
Speaker 2: how did I get myself in this situation. So again
Speaker 2: that blame of this is my fault. I put myself there.
Speaker 2: I didn't protect myself. So imagine if I've gone in
Speaker 2: there carrying a sense of this is somehow my fault,
Speaker 2: then you're already on the back foot to then explain
Speaker 2: that this was something that happened to me. It's not
Speaker 2: something that I invited. So I said to her, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to speak to a female officer. Of course,
Speaker 2: then they know it's some form of I guess sexual
Speaker 2: or domestic violence. So I sat down and I explained
Speaker 2: to her what happened, and she went he did what?
Speaker 2: And her response alone, and I said, is that bad?
Speaker 2: She's like Caroline? And I thought, okay, this is not
Speaker 2: just going to be something that I can just brush
Speaker 2: off with a give him a slap on the wrisk,
Speaker 2: go around and talk to him. So then she brought
Speaker 2: a detective in, and of course, I think being an
Speaker 2: ext police officer worked in my favor, but also went
Speaker 2: against me because I knew the journey a victim. I'd
Speaker 2: been in the witness box as a police officer. I'd
Speaker 2: been cross examined, and as you remember, it's the most
Speaker 2: terrifying place to be, and I didn't want to go there,
Speaker 2: so I gave a statement, but not a statement that
Speaker 2: was going to then leading to anything. At that moment
Speaker 2: in time, told them what had happened, and he went,
Speaker 2: you know that's rape. I remember my whole body going oh,
Speaker 2: and a part of me went, oh, this is serious now,
Speaker 2: like this isn't just something that happened that I can
Speaker 2: just forget about.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I said, well, what now, and he said, well, it's
Speaker 2: probably high chance it would go to trial. So as
Speaker 2: soon as I heard trial, and as went I'm not ready,
Speaker 2: and I literally got up and ran out of the
Speaker 2: police station.
Speaker 1: Because with your experience, you'd understand the nature of what
Speaker 1: the trial would mean and the questions that would be
Speaker 1: asked of you and all the things that would be put.
Speaker 2: There, and already going in there, going this is something
Speaker 2: my fault. Well that's what they're going to prey upon.
Speaker 2: As we know, it's all about consent, one word against
Speaker 2: the other. And how can I go in there and
Speaker 2: prove that I didn't willingly ask for that and the
Speaker 2: fact that I froze, How the heck do I explain that?
Speaker 1: I can see why you conflicted, Like looking at it
Speaker 1: purely from an evidentary point of view. It's a difficult
Speaker 1: one to prove. And you make this complaint formal, you're
Speaker 1: the one that the whole case is going to rely
Speaker 1: upon your your evidence.
Speaker 2: So I left, yep, and I went home, and I
Speaker 2: think it was a good few days later. Again, there
Speaker 2: has to be that readiness. It's a process. It's not
Speaker 2: something you just go right, I'm going to make a decision.
Speaker 2: So I went back in and they all went, we
Speaker 2: are so glad that you're that you were ready. Yes,
Speaker 2: I think the support that I got, yeah, because of
Speaker 2: course they knew my background. You could see that I
Speaker 2: was a credible witness when I explain what happened in
Speaker 2: such detail, and they I think, just you don't make
Speaker 2: that stuff up. So I would say my experience with
Speaker 2: the police was the second to none, Like they were
Speaker 2: incredible from start to finish.
Speaker 1: That's great too. I like hearing that the police responded
Speaker 1: that way. And I think another thing, and people that
Speaker 1: have been in similar situations as yourself get further traumatized
Speaker 1: if once they walk into the police station, that gets
Speaker 1: taken out of their hands. I think it's important that
Speaker 1: you as a person that's been assaulted, has control of
Speaker 1: the situation, whether you wanted to make a formal complaint,
Speaker 1: because otherwise it just causes more trauma. You have power
Speaker 1: taken away from you again. If you think you walk
Speaker 1: into a police station you're not going to have any
Speaker 1: say in the matter, but you do.
Speaker 2: And just by them saying that, look, you come back
Speaker 2: when you're ready, we're here waiting means that you've got
Speaker 2: the authority and it's not all the longer you imagine
Speaker 2: being told or the longer you leave it, the less
Speaker 2: chance that you're going to get to get a conviction. Here.
Speaker 2: They were like, we're waiting, come back. And I remember
Speaker 2: one of the heads of news police, the detective. He
Speaker 2: said to me, we believe you, Caroline. And I can't
Speaker 2: tell you what those three words that would mean. And
Speaker 2: I think if there's anything that I wanted to go
Speaker 2: out and say to the public, if someone comes to
Speaker 2: you who's been violated abusing any way, when someone says
Speaker 2: I believe you, it's almost like nectar, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can understand going in there. And if you've
Speaker 1: been questioned about it, than people have got douts that
Speaker 1: you've been traumatized again.
Speaker 2: Completely and having to sort of relive it. But then
Speaker 2: you are sitting there going if he gets arrested, he
Speaker 2: could go one of two ways. He either says I
Speaker 2: did it, which I really believe in my heart he would. Yeah. Probably. Again,
Speaker 2: that little naive part surely is going to be honest.
Speaker 2: Surely is just going to own up to it, because
Speaker 2: that's the beautiful heart in me that thinks people just
Speaker 2: tell the truth, right. Yeah, And then another part of
Speaker 2: me is asking if he doesn't, how does then that
Speaker 2: look for me and my four sons. I'm a single mom,
Speaker 2: you know, how would I navigate this while raising boys?
Speaker 1: And I would understand too. There's a public aspector as well,
Speaker 1: when it goes to court that Yeah, if it's in NUSA,
Speaker 1: in that area, you know a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the area, and yeah, this type of thing would become
Speaker 1: very public.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a small community, and I think I'm quite
Speaker 2: a private person and going into a witness box and
Speaker 2: talking about someone violating, say those parts of your body,
Speaker 2: and having to talk about that in public. Yes, is
Speaker 2: it's not for the faint hearted.
Speaker 1: Once it's been reported. You took a couple of I
Speaker 1: used to go into the place after speaking to a friend,
Speaker 1: and then a week to the side that you're goin
Speaker 1: to pursued with it. What were the next things that
Speaker 1: next things that happened.
Speaker 2: Well, firstly, it's almost like I had this angel that
Speaker 2: was guiding me, because I remember closing my eyes and saying,
Speaker 2: there's absolutely no way I want to go through a trial.
Speaker 2: It was almost if if there was certainty that it
Speaker 2: would go to trial, I would have pulled out, Like
Speaker 2: there was every single part of the screaming no, no.
Speaker 2: And then this voice came in and it said, what
Speaker 2: if you don't have to go to trial. It was
Speaker 2: whether it's my mom on the either side, I don't know,
Speaker 2: And I just said, oh, what do you mean? And
Speaker 2: this voice said, just take the next right move for you.
Speaker 2: And that's what I tell my clients. Don't think about
Speaker 2: three months, six months, nine months. If you take the
Speaker 2: next right move, the next door will just automatically open.
Speaker 2: It'll be the right door. So it's almost like the
Speaker 2: message I give my clients was being regurgitated back to me.
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, I'm red and then Brooke, one
Speaker 2: of the females, said there's a possibility you could make
Speaker 2: a call to him and have a conversation and see
Speaker 2: if you'll admit it. And I thought, oh, maybe that
Speaker 2: voice was correct. It's almost like I was being guided.
Speaker 2: There was a bigger part of me, or something about
Speaker 2: me that knew that, and I didn't understand that that
Speaker 2: was ever a possibility. So there was a sense of
Speaker 2: relief that thought, Okay, if he admits it. I knew
Speaker 2: then that the evidence for me would be so substantial
Speaker 2: it could then end up in a conviction. So I said,
Speaker 2: thinking it's the most terrifying thing I could ever do. However,
Speaker 2: and prepared to give it a go.
Speaker 1: And you contacted him and got admission. I did so
Speaker 1: good on you.
Speaker 2: Was a spur of the moment thing. And I called
Speaker 2: him and in order to get the confession out, had
Speaker 2: to name everything that he did, which again was pretty scary.
Speaker 2: If I do it from the heart and just have
Speaker 2: a conversation with him and just ask him like I
Speaker 2: wanted answers. Gary, So I've got an opportunity. Now, Yes,
Speaker 2: I get it recorded, but I also get answers for myself,
Speaker 2: which was why why me? I'm curious? And he said
Speaker 2: I had a crush on you, and I said, I
Speaker 2: work in trauma and I work with clients and we
Speaker 2: have a duty of care. If there's any sense of
Speaker 2: desire or feelings, if you keep that to yourself and
Speaker 2: don't disclose that, then you're taking away an opportunity for
Speaker 2: me to feel safe in your company. If you would
Speaker 2: have told me that you had feelings, is no way
Speaker 2: that I would have undressed and got on that bed. Yes,
Speaker 2: So he had these feelings way before that fourth session,
Speaker 2: kept it to himself, and in that moment he swooped
Speaker 2: in and violated a body that was semi unconscious, relaxed, fully, trusting,
Speaker 2: and with the freeze response. It tends to happen more
Speaker 2: so when you're in a place where you assume trust,
Speaker 2: because there's if someone grabs you off the street. You know,
Speaker 2: people walking down the street, you might be a little
Speaker 2: bit you can hear footsteps behind you, or you might
Speaker 2: look at a figure that looks, you know, a little
Speaker 2: bit dodgy, and you sort of sem me aware. Imagine
Speaker 2: lying on a bed or asleep at night next to
Speaker 2: a partner who you've said, I don't want to have
Speaker 2: any sex tonight, and you're already relaxed. So he swept
Speaker 2: in a moment when I least expected it. So that's
Speaker 2: the most dangerous time because it's some unfamiliar who you'll
Speaker 2: never ever think will cross a boundary with you in
Speaker 2: that moment. So I got the confession. He apologized profusely,
Speaker 2: saying my bad, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I named everything
Speaker 2: he did to me, and I said to him, you know,
Speaker 2: I may never ever enter a room with a male
Speaker 2: in this situation, goin a professional in a medical setting.
Speaker 2: You've robbed me of that opportunity, and you need to
Speaker 2: go on your own journey and I need to go online.
Speaker 2: But I trusted you, and when you've breached someone's trust
Speaker 2: in that situation, it cannot affect someone for the rest
Speaker 2: of their life. So that lasted about four and a
Speaker 2: half minutes. We were meant to meet that day and
Speaker 2: actually see each other face to face, but of course
Speaker 2: the call happened before, which was great, and he said,
Speaker 2: please still meet me. I want to make it up
Speaker 2: to you. He was panicking because I think on that
Speaker 2: call he wasn't sure how I felt right, And I
Speaker 2: got the chance to vocalize that and say, do you
Speaker 2: realize what you've done constitutes rape? In that moment, his
Speaker 2: world fell apart, And I don't think it fell apart
Speaker 2: because he took any accountability, fell apart because it'd been caught.
Speaker 2: So we put the phone down and then Brooke with
Speaker 2: the detective, came in and said, that's the best recorded
Speaker 2: confession I've ever heard. And I realized that all of
Speaker 2: my police background, it's like it was sitting there waiting
Speaker 2: for an opportunity, Yeah, for me to make someone accountable,
Speaker 2: to have a voice, to be heard, and to do
Speaker 2: it in such a way that I had composure. I
Speaker 2: just put everything aside. It's like I was back in
Speaker 2: a role I had a job to do in that
Speaker 2: form minutes and I couldn't believe how quickly it kicked in,
Speaker 2: because after the call, the shake started. So I think
Speaker 2: I've obviously got this great ability in that moment which
Speaker 2: to switch it on.
Speaker 1: At what point in time was he charged? And did
Speaker 1: the police tell you that that? Again? The charging?
Speaker 2: So just after the confession, they didn't have many hours
Speaker 2: left of their shift, and this was a Saturday, and
Speaker 2: they said, I said, oh, when you're going to arrest him, Oh,
Speaker 2: we'll get him on Monday morning. Monday morning, it's now Saturday,
Speaker 2: and bearing in mind massage therapists are not regulated, so
Speaker 2: he could continue massaging. My biggest fear was him doing
Speaker 2: that to somebody else. I felt like it was my
Speaker 2: duty of care to stop him from providing those services
Speaker 2: to anybody else. I said, the police, can you put
Speaker 2: it on his bail conditions? I don't want him. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: we can't do that because what about the old lady
Speaker 2: down the streets. She might say, you can't take his
Speaker 2: livelihood away? I was like, are you kidding me? Like so,
Speaker 2: they were going to do it on the Monday. Then
Speaker 2: I got a barrage of text messages from him over
Speaker 2: and over. He was spiraling out of contract. So they said,
Speaker 2: oh well for places, Well it was almost fun. They said,
Speaker 2: oh well, I said, what am I supposed to do
Speaker 2: with this? I said, well, if you think he's going
Speaker 2: to commit suicide, dad triple zero And I said, you
Speaker 2: can't put that responsibility on me. So I think in
Speaker 2: that time that I left the station, they decided to
Speaker 2: go out and get him that day. So that was
Speaker 2: the seventh of December twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: How did you feel when he was found out that
Speaker 1: he was main charged.
Speaker 2: Well, he didn't have an interview like in the UK,
Speaker 2: everybody's interviewed and they've got a right to not reply.
Speaker 2: He didn't have an interview, so he didn't get to
Speaker 2: give his version of events, which felt a little bit disappointing.
Speaker 2: It was finding saying it on the phone, But then
Speaker 2: what would happen in that situation where he's been interviewed
Speaker 2: by police, So he never knew that that call was recorded.
Speaker 2: It was never put to him because he wasn't interviewed.
Speaker 2: So from the seventh of December until the start of March,
Speaker 2: it took three months for all the evidence to be
Speaker 2: put together and the brief of evidence, so he didn't know.
Speaker 2: So of course, going out into the community, it was
Speaker 2: all this is unfounded and untrue and I'm an innocent man.
Speaker 2: So you can only imagine when that brief of evidence
Speaker 2: lant on his lawyer's desk, when they realized that it
Speaker 2: wasn't just it was a call that had been recorded.
Speaker 2: So I thought, surely he's going to play guilty. I
Speaker 2: just wanted it to be over so that I could
Speaker 2: then start to heal and not just be again. I've
Speaker 2: just got to be composed and get through this. But no,
Speaker 2: he pleaded not guilty all the way through.
Speaker 1: So you would have had the concerns of giving evidence,
Speaker 1: knowing the traumadica time you're going to have in the
Speaker 1: witness box and the type of questions that they're going
Speaker 1: to be asked of you. His name is public, isn't
Speaker 1: it yea? His name yeah, Cameron Petrie.
Speaker 2: He was had a massage room in Sunshine Beach on
Speaker 2: the Sunshine Coast.
Speaker 1: Charge one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault.
Speaker 2: The DPP increased the charges. It was just sexual assault
Speaker 2: I think it was three charges and then they they
Speaker 2: changed them to aggravated sexual assault, which I was quite
Speaker 2: impressed with that they had the brief of evidence and
Speaker 2: when this is more serious than the charge that the
Speaker 2: police have given him, we're going to upgrade them.
Speaker 1: And the aggravation that he was in a position of power.
Speaker 2: No, he actually performed oral sex on me. That was aggravated.
Speaker 2: Ah okay, that was what is this feeling? I don't
Speaker 2: know what it is like? This this is I couldn't
Speaker 2: understand what it was. September twenty twenty five, I got
Speaker 2: called by a female at the DPP and she said
Speaker 2: he wants to do a plea bargain. I was expecting that, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: he wants to reduce. He wants to reduce the rape
Speaker 2: charge an ill plead to the aggravated sexual assault. Her
Speaker 2: response was, Caroline, we had got so much evidence, she said,
Speaker 2: it's ultimately your decision. Again, beautiful, they put it in
Speaker 2: my hands. But we've got enough evidence to take this
Speaker 2: to trial. So that was September twenty twenty five. Yes, okay,
Speaker 2: So we continued pleaded not guilty. Fast forward to March.
Speaker 2: It was supposed to be the trial case number two,
Speaker 2: so we didn't get heard. Just before that trial day,
Speaker 2: on the ninth of March, I get another phone call
Speaker 2: from a male prosecutor who had a very different demeanor
Speaker 2: to the female in September. Caroline, we're now going to
Speaker 2: be delayed another couple of months. Of course, they know
Speaker 2: that I'm going, Oh, just want this over with. I
Speaker 2: just want to move on. And he said, but there
Speaker 2: is another option for you. I said, okay, what's that. Well,
Speaker 2: we can reduce that to aggravated sexual assault. I said,
Speaker 2: We've been here before. Why would I have waited another
Speaker 2: six months to be in exactly the same position. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But and he started to sell it to me that
Speaker 2: it would be somehow easier.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I could understand that if that was a defense, but
Speaker 2: I'm thinking you're on my side. And this is where
Speaker 2: the normal silence felt like it was almost in some
Speaker 2: way elevated the whole mission, because for me, the prosecutor
Speaker 2: should have been we want to give you a voice.
Speaker 2: I want to give you an opportunity. Yes, they want
Speaker 2: to reduce a charge, but we believe that you can
Speaker 2: do this. He did the opposite. It's going to be
Speaker 2: easier for you. It means you don't have to be
Speaker 2: re traumatized. So I just said, do you know who
Speaker 2: I am? I said, have you listened to the call
Speaker 2: that I made?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I haven't. I said, well, if you listen to that,
Speaker 2: you'd understand that I'm not an ordinary witness. Yes, I've
Speaker 2: got police background. And he said, we're not used to
Speaker 2: dealing with people like you. That comment, well, it also
Speaker 2: broke my heart. I just thought, how many victims in
Speaker 2: their most vulnerable state. They were abused in the vulnerable state,
Speaker 2: and now they're highly vulnerable and they're pliable. We can
Speaker 2: almost put it on a platter, silver platter, that this
Speaker 2: is easier for you. No, wonder our conviction rates are
Speaker 2: at less than ten percent. Yeah, because if someone in
Speaker 2: who's on my side, who's with me, going I think
Speaker 2: that this will be easy for you, most will go Okay,
Speaker 2: then let's go down that route.
Speaker 1: Well, you're expecting to be given the advice that you
Speaker 1: can trust when you've put the metal before the courts.
Speaker 1: You're the victim in this situation. You've got the prosecutor.
Speaker 1: You think they're on your side. So if they're giving
Speaker 1: advice and you don't know any different, you're likely to
Speaker 1: take their advice.
Speaker 2: Absolutely because you're thinking that they know better. So I
Speaker 2: said to him, But a female said to me in September,
Speaker 2: we're going to go all the way. So why I
Speaker 2: just thought it was interesting, not that I'm saying that
Speaker 2: because he was a male.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's interesting. You've got two people from
Speaker 1: the same office with different opinions on the same set effects.
Speaker 2: And obviously I was frustrated because it was dragging on. However,
Speaker 2: I just wish that the DPP would have even if
Speaker 2: it's not them directly saying it, the support service is
Speaker 2: with the woman going we're breaking your silence. We've got
Speaker 2: enough evidence we can take it to the end. Let's
Speaker 2: give you support. If you are going to get retraumatized,
Speaker 2: there's services out there that can help you. Not let's
Speaker 2: just take the exit door because it's going to be
Speaker 2: easy everyone. So I said, how's that going to benefit me?
Speaker 2: He gets no jail time, he gets his freedom. Where's
Speaker 2: my freedom? I'm carrying this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: So why would I just lower the charge because it's
Speaker 2: somehow easier on me. It's easier on him, not me.
Speaker 1: You convinced the DPP that wanted to reduce the charges
Speaker 1: for a lesser play to continue on for the trial.
Speaker 1: What happened then?
Speaker 2: So that was March and I was like, mistakes in
Speaker 2: the ground. I'm going all the way and you know
Speaker 2: this was a decision for both me and my boys.
Speaker 1: Can I ask how old you boys were at the time?
Speaker 2: So they would have been nine, thirteen, fifteen, and eighteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they're dealing with a lot saying their mum
Speaker 1: get through.
Speaker 2: Yes, But I thought, it's how I navigated. So if
Speaker 2: I'm not a victim and I show them that mum's
Speaker 2: got this. Thinking about my mom my, mum relied on
Speaker 2: me heavily emotionally that I had to be her backbone.
Speaker 2: What if this is given to me that I can
Speaker 2: show the boys that I don't need to rely on
Speaker 2: you emotionally, you don't need to protect me. I've got this.
Speaker 2: I can do this with you, but you don't have
Speaker 2: to be the parent figure to me. And I also thought,
Speaker 2: if I don't make this man accountable, what message does
Speaker 2: that give to my four sons, is that, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you can do bad things and we just stay silent.
Speaker 1: It's a hard lesson for your kids, but a very
Speaker 1: powerful lesson saying their mother go through this and understanding it.
Speaker 2: So it was three way. It was to protect other
Speaker 2: victims from it happening. I felt that was a duty
Speaker 2: of care. It was for me to break my own silence,
Speaker 2: and it was for my sons to know that if
Speaker 2: you hurt someone, then you have to go through whatever
Speaker 2: justice system puts you through and take accountability. So my
Speaker 2: eldest son, when I first told him, his response was, Mom,
Speaker 2: I feel to be a man right now. I hear
Speaker 2: that it happens, but I never thought it had happened
Speaker 2: to my own him because he's saying, this is not
Speaker 2: what represents the male. So they were all beside me.
Speaker 2: I didn't tell them all straight away. I kind of
Speaker 2: took my time through the ages, and obviously the last
Speaker 2: one I only told him just before because I thought
Speaker 2: this is probably this is going to go public, and
Speaker 2: I didn't want him to hear it somewhere or at
Speaker 2: school in the small community. So from then on, the
Speaker 2: trial was then set for May. We didn't know a
Speaker 2: case number two. Again, I didn't realize this. It can
Speaker 2: be between one and six cases and it just requires
Speaker 2: one to just be you know, but.
Speaker 1: They expect, they run the turn up and carry the
Speaker 1: trauma and concern.
Speaker 2: So you're waiting, You're going is it going ahead? Is
Speaker 2: it not? And I was suffering. I have to say,
Speaker 2: I was riddle with back pain. I wasn't eating, and
Speaker 2: I was just trying to go, just get through this
Speaker 2: while my whole body was clearly yeah it was. It
Speaker 2: was feeling the effects. So May came, we were due
Speaker 2: to go to trial on the Monday. But I still
Speaker 2: had no idea in my heart. I'd always said he's
Speaker 2: going to play guilty. The last minute, I think it
Speaker 2: was let's just see whether they she'll go all the way.
Speaker 2: Let's just see where they shall go through and it
Speaker 2: is right. It's like a game of chess, and when
Speaker 2: it gets to the real crooks of the time, just
Speaker 2: before that's when the chips are down. She's strong enough
Speaker 2: to go through with this. So the Thursday I went
Speaker 2: into the DPP and we went through everything, and it's
Speaker 2: more than just consent. They break it all down and
Speaker 2: it's pretty hard to prove. I can see why our
Speaker 2: conviction rates are so so low. I think for me,
Speaker 2: because it was a professional in that space, that that
Speaker 2: was definitely a breach that I felt compelled to follow
Speaker 2: through with. Not that if it had been a date
Speaker 2: or something it would have been any easy bit. He
Speaker 2: had a duty of care. So the Thursday we went in,
Speaker 2: we went through all the brief of evidence and we
Speaker 2: were there for two or three hours, and that's when
Speaker 2: it hit me. I'm like, am I really okay to
Speaker 2: go through with this? He was giving me some questions
Speaker 2: that might ask and I just saw.
Speaker 1: Questions.
Speaker 2: It was yeah, And again I'm like, you can be
Speaker 2: strong and courageous, but nobody prepares you to go into
Speaker 2: that witness box and face someone who's going to do
Speaker 2: everything in his power to disprove you.
Speaker 1: Well, to discredit you. He used the fence time, with
Speaker 1: the coming, with every trick in the book to discredit
Speaker 1: your version of events.
Speaker 2: So, I mean all they had was the freeze response.
Speaker 2: That's the only that the not saying no and stopping
Speaker 2: it in the moment is all that they had on me.
Speaker 2: So you know, I had all of the the biological
Speaker 2: responses I knew if I had have been asked. I mean,
Speaker 2: I actually said to them, do you have somebody on
Speaker 2: nervous systems who comes in and gives evidence to say
Speaker 2: that this is tonic immobility? This is They said, oh,
Speaker 2: I know, we don't have. I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: the justice system is so far behind, and I think
Speaker 2: it made me realize that I have to be my
Speaker 2: own advocate. Yep. So I think I left the office.
Speaker 2: It was two thirty and I said, it's got until
Speaker 2: four o'clock today to change his plea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is.
Speaker 2: And I said, if not, we definitely going ahead on
Speaker 2: Monday because the case has now been thrown out. And
Speaker 2: the prosecutor said, again, Caroline, I know you've been asked before,
Speaker 2: but defense has wrung me. And they said, are you
Speaker 2: prepared to lower that charge? And I thought, Holy Moley,
Speaker 2: and you know what my mission is, honor her No,
Speaker 2: It's on the back of my T shirt. I've said
Speaker 2: no in September, I've said no in March, and here
Speaker 2: we are four days before and you're asking me again.
Speaker 2: I know it's your job, but honor my no. Like
Speaker 2: even the prosecution and the defense are not listening to me.
Speaker 2: He said he doesn't want to be known as a rapist.
Speaker 2: Said oh, interesting one, maybe he should not go around
Speaker 2: raping for people. Then, so he wanted that charge reduced,
Speaker 2: which meant he wouldn't have got prison time.
Speaker 1: And he wouldn't have had that, and the facts would
Speaker 1: have been I would imagine with entering the play along
Speaker 1: those lines. I'm only speculating here, but that would come
Speaker 1: down to, oh, he just inappropriately touched you somewhere, and
Speaker 1: the full criminality of what took place wouldn't have played
Speaker 1: out in the greed said effects.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just a slip of a hand, Garry, that's
Speaker 2: the thing like his what he did with his mouth
Speaker 2: was very it was I mean that probably disgusted me
Speaker 2: and humiliated me more than anything. The most degrading, So
Speaker 2: he couldn't have had a defense that I didn't touch.
Speaker 2: I didn't stuff right, it was an intentional act. So
Speaker 2: they asked me again and I said, I stood up
Speaker 2: and I gesticulated in my hand and I said, my
Speaker 2: steak is in the ground. I'm going to take this man, Dan,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go all the way. And he said,
Speaker 2: I knew you would, but I've just been asked to
Speaker 2: ask you again. I walked through the door at three
Speaker 2: thirty five pm on the Thursday. I got a call
Speaker 2: five minutes later. He's changed his play. Wow, which is
Speaker 2: kind of what I felt. So I just knew to
Speaker 2: follow my own heart, advocate for myself, and that justice
Speaker 2: would prevail him whatever way. And justice isn't custodial sentence
Speaker 2: for everyone, you know, I wasn't. My recovery was not
Speaker 2: determined by the sentence that he got, because, as we know,
Speaker 2: the sentence never matches the crime. Mine was about getting
Speaker 2: my voice back, standing with my stake and saying no,
Speaker 2: this time, I'm not going to be swayed. Interestingly, when
Speaker 2: I think about my father, buy another man telling me
Speaker 2: that I need to go in a box and stay
Speaker 2: quiet and make his life easier. I did that for
Speaker 2: my dad and look where it got me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this, well, you didn't do it this time.
Speaker 2: I didn't do it this time.
Speaker 1: He got to half years, was it?
Speaker 2: So it got two and a half years for the rate, Yeah,
Speaker 2: eighteen months for the aggravated sexual assault running concurrently.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the argument was the amount of time it serves
Speaker 2: in prison. What I didn't realize is they're actually look
Speaker 2: at other cases that are similar. I wasn't aware of
Speaker 2: this when it comes to sentencing, and.
Speaker 1: That's a guideline for their sensing what the similar type
Speaker 1: of defense with the same the criminality what that person got.
Speaker 2: So that was the argument that they debated on for
Speaker 2: what seemed like forever. But there wasn't a situation identical
Speaker 2: to mine. It's like selling a house. I wonder what
Speaker 2: my house is worth, where we'll look at all the
Speaker 2: houses in the street. That house is not like my house.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't a professional it wasn't in a room
Speaker 2: where there was a duty of care. So it's like,
Speaker 2: how can you compare my case to that case that
Speaker 2: was more violent? So they negated it if that was
Speaker 2: more violent, but yours was professional, the more like for
Speaker 2: like For me, it seemed ludicrous fans wanted six months,
Speaker 2: We wanted more. He got eight months.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well from it's easy to say when you haven't
Speaker 1: been the person that's the victim of the crime, but
Speaker 1: you can't hold on to the sensing. I think that
Speaker 1: can be damaging to people, and I've seen that obviously
Speaker 1: with homicide, the sentencing that people get the families of
Speaker 1: the victim who are always looking for what the sense.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people say, look, that's not what
Speaker 1: it's about. What it's about is that this person has
Speaker 1: been made to be accountable. What length of time that
Speaker 1: person spends in jail is not up to me. It's
Speaker 1: up to the courts. But good on you for standing
Speaker 1: your ground on that, because as a former cop, you
Speaker 1: would have looked at all the possibilities of what could
Speaker 1: have gone wrong there. And you know, we talked the
Speaker 1: freeze response, and I want to break that down and
Speaker 1: really explain that so people have an understanding of what
Speaker 1: we're talking about there, because as we mentioned in part one,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about it and alluded to the questions
Speaker 1: that people would ask, why didn't you just say that,
Speaker 1: why did you stay there when this occurred? Can you
Speaker 1: explain it? In your words, and then let's give a
Speaker 1: detailed explanation of what this freeze response we're referring to
Speaker 1: is all about.
Speaker 2: So it's a nervous system response. So you have fight,
Speaker 2: flight freeze, and fawn. Fawn is like the people, please,
Speaker 2: I just give in. I just don't speak up for myself.
Speaker 2: Fight obviously speaks for itself. Flight run away freeze is
Speaker 2: when fight and flight isn't available in that moment. It's
Speaker 2: a survival response. You know, you could look upon YouTube
Speaker 2: im parlor chase by a lion and you'll watch the
Speaker 2: lion takes the imparlor down, and before it gets eaten,
Speaker 2: the imparlor would start to play dead. It slows its
Speaker 2: breathing to the point where its ribs are hardly moving,
Speaker 2: its eyes are stared. So it's called tonic immobility. It's biology.
Speaker 1: I actually watched the imparlor on YouTube researching for this
Speaker 1: and seeing what happened. Then. I don't know how it
Speaker 1: led me there, but it led me to the animal
Speaker 1: being attacked than the phrase response.
Speaker 2: So when you think about its intelligence, So if you
Speaker 2: can watch a video and see what that imparlor did
Speaker 2: and that one did escape, if you remember The difference
Speaker 2: is when you go into freeze and you are almost
Speaker 2: you're immobile, so you think about the body's response is
Speaker 2: to survive, so it will shut everything down. So the
Speaker 2: frontal lobal part of the brain goes offline, so thinking,
Speaker 2: which is why often when police investigators actually to go
Speaker 2: through your story, things might not add up and it
Speaker 2: might not be a sequential story because this part's gone offline,
Speaker 2: so everything slows down. It's about how do I just
Speaker 2: stay alive? So if we're wired to survive, our body
Speaker 2: gives us that response so that you can go, I
Speaker 2: can just shut everything down in this moment and just
Speaker 2: allow him to do by, you know, using that term,
Speaker 2: because if I fight back, there's a possibility I could
Speaker 2: be killed if the imparlor would have started trying to
Speaker 2: run away, right, So we use that as the same analogy.
Speaker 2: And do you think of domestic violence the most dangerous
Speaker 2: time is when a woman tries to leave, So same
Speaker 2: as me. What if I'd have bolted up right in
Speaker 2: his room and said, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 2: You just did get me out of here. The body's
Speaker 2: going I'm not even going to send you there, because
Speaker 2: it's a possibility that you could get harmed, so we're
Speaker 2: going to stay there. So when people understand, and it
Speaker 2: can happen in conversation or in conflict, you might lose
Speaker 2: your words or you might stand there and go, I
Speaker 2: wonder why I can't say anything. So it's not just
Speaker 2: in that situation, anytime when you're under threat, okay, but
Speaker 2: the issue with that is yourself and the public go why.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's a question that I'm sure would have
Speaker 1: gone through your mind if you went to in front
Speaker 1: of a jury or that being prosecuted, people would be
Speaker 1: asking that question. And unless we understand and I know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about with the free his response, and
Speaker 1: I have seen that in policing aspects, but that's not
Speaker 1: widely known. It's not widely people don't sort of accept it.
Speaker 1: Then that change is the narrative when the police take
Speaker 1: the first response, and then that goes through the courts.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if we could educate and change so
Speaker 2: people ask questions from logic. Oh, these are some of
Speaker 2: the questions. I got asked, Well, you weren't blooded, you
Speaker 2: weren't bruised, you weren't fighting. Why don't you just enjoy it?
Speaker 2: It's like, are you kidding me. Yeah, that's men saying
Speaker 2: why didn't you poke him in the eye? Now that
Speaker 2: seems a logical question. Remember, the frontal lobal part of
Speaker 2: the brain is shut down. That's where our logic and
Speaker 2: reasoning lifts. So you're not talking logic, you're talking survival.
Speaker 2: But there's no education in schools in relationships about what
Speaker 2: does that look like and when we can start to
Speaker 2: change the narrative rather than saying why didn't you do that?
Speaker 2: Versus your body did everything it needed to do to
Speaker 2: get you through. And honestly, Garret, it's the only way
Speaker 2: that I got rid of the shame. It's almost like
Speaker 2: a coach myself through it. You know, in psychology there's
Speaker 2: theory called assault therough and you'll sit something in a
Speaker 2: chair and you'll have a conversation with it. I did
Speaker 2: that with shame. I'm like, what the heck are you
Speaker 2: here to teach me? And I had to unpack this
Speaker 2: and when I looked at my body actually kept me alive,
Speaker 2: I started to, rather than hate it, go wow, you
Speaker 2: did automatically what you needed to do to get me
Speaker 2: out of that room without being harmed. Thank you?
Speaker 1: Were you trying to process what happened to you after
Speaker 1: you're very aware of the phreeze response. Now, did you
Speaker 1: have to educate yourself or learn what happened there were
Speaker 1: Did you walk over there and just so confused by
Speaker 1: the whole whole thing? When did you become aware of
Speaker 1: the phrase response and the in depth understanding that you
Speaker 1: have of it there?
Speaker 2: So I knew about it, so it studied it because
Speaker 2: I've worked in trauma for a while. At the time,
Speaker 2: I was in a year long container with Gabon Marte,
Speaker 2: who is my idol. I love that man, So I
Speaker 2: was already I've been studying for six months all about
Speaker 2: somatic work. So again, it's interesting it happened to me
Speaker 2: while I was in that container learning about nervous systems.
Speaker 1: When you say in that container.
Speaker 2: As in online or learning training under his compassionate and I'm.
Speaker 1: Just picturing you sitting in the container. But that kay,
Speaker 1: we've clarified that. I understand.
Speaker 2: No, that'd be quite nice in the container, Gabon mate.
Speaker 2: So I knew about the phrase response, but it's very
Speaker 2: different reading it and understanding it intellectually and embodying it.
Speaker 2: So it's like I when I went through that, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, now I get it, because everything slowed
Speaker 2: down in slow motion. Remember I said I was screaming
Speaker 2: from the inside, but nothing came out. And I'm going
Speaker 2: to take this one step further because you've got the biology,
Speaker 2: which we understand is survival regardless, it's wired into us. However,
Speaker 2: let's take me back to childhood. A question I needed
Speaker 2: to ask myself was because I knew inside of me,
Speaker 2: the part of me that was screaming was not my
Speaker 2: fifty one year old self. It was ancient, she was little.
Speaker 2: Even the panic in the voice, it wasn't me. So
Speaker 2: I had to say, where did someone teach me to
Speaker 2: stay quiet when I've been harmed abused? And then it
Speaker 2: opened up a Pandora's box to the four year old
Speaker 2: part of me that had been woken up in the night.
Speaker 2: So let's just put the two traumas together. In my
Speaker 2: childhood bed in the night, in the dark, woken up
Speaker 2: on a massage table, eyes closed in the dark. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so what he did in that room literally re enacted
Speaker 2: the very first time I was abused as a child.
Speaker 2: So it was literally that almost like a cab and
Speaker 2: copy experience. So, yes, biology puts you into freeze when
Speaker 2: fight and flight isn't available. However, what if you've already
Speaker 2: been trained as a little girl, that you have screamed
Speaker 2: saved for the first time, and someone's covered up your
Speaker 2: nose or someone's so two things I think were going
Speaker 2: on for me. I've been here before, a long time ago.
Speaker 2: That feels so true. I feel that sadness in my
Speaker 2: heart when I say this four year old has been
Speaker 2: suppressed a whole life, and now she's been put in
Speaker 2: a room with an opportunity to rewrite the story.
Speaker 1: The trauma, that what happened to you later in life
Speaker 1: as a fifty one year old. Did that open the
Speaker 1: trauma the memories of what happened to you as a
Speaker 1: four year old.
Speaker 2: I was inquisitive. I'm like, if I was screaming and
Speaker 2: nothing was coming out, that's obviously something that I've done
Speaker 2: many times over, because I mean, you screaming. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're under threat or in danger, you would scream.
Speaker 2: The only time you would not scream is if something's
Speaker 2: happened to force you to stay quiet. There's you know,
Speaker 2: the danger gets worse, it escalates, so it did. So
Speaker 2: imagine now I'm in the middle, and I'm now wedged
Speaker 2: in a sandwich between two traumas, the current one with
Speaker 2: the massage therapist yep, and the four year old, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, like that would have been enough to tip
Speaker 2: me over the age, Like where do I even begin?
Speaker 2: Do I deal with this one? Do I deal with
Speaker 2: this one? And how dealing with them is gonna How
Speaker 2: is it going to get me through the court case?
Speaker 2: Because if I go deep diving into my trauma, will
Speaker 2: I be then, you know, just courageous and strong enough
Speaker 2: to be able to get through the court case. So
Speaker 2: it was like a bit of a balancing act. I
Speaker 2: want to understand because this is a healing, but I
Speaker 2: don't want it to derail me so that I'm not
Speaker 2: prepared then to go through that. But it was necessary.
Speaker 2: It was that revealed that and if I didn't deal
Speaker 2: with that, there's no way I could have healed that.
Speaker 1: If you imagine the two do you have specific memories
Speaker 1: of what happened to you as a four year old
Speaker 1: and the person responsible for him.
Speaker 2: I did a lot of healing around it. And what
Speaker 2: happens with the mind is when something is so devastating, shocking,
Speaker 2: the trauma is so bad, the mind tries to forget,
Speaker 2: but the body remembers. So if you notice throughout this interview,
Speaker 2: I've gone, oh, I feel that in my body. I
Speaker 2: feel that in my heart. So the body gives us
Speaker 2: a signal, and then the mind tries to understand it.
Speaker 2: I wonder why that signal's gone off, right, So it
Speaker 2: stays in our body. You've probably heard of the book
Speaker 2: called The Body Keeps the Score. Yeah, so everything is
Speaker 2: stored in here. But a lot of very traumatized children
Speaker 2: will say as adults, I don't remember my childhood. Your
Speaker 2: body does. I just haven't recalled it up here first,
Speaker 2: so I know that I was woken up in the night. Now.
Speaker 2: I used to say, oh my goodness, I am such
Speaker 2: a light sleeper. I didn't know why until I did
Speaker 2: this investigation, because I'm like, I'm only a light sleeper
Speaker 2: because someone's come and invaded my sleep and I need
Speaker 2: to be on high alerts. Of course, when the babies
Speaker 2: were little, it was great because any sound I woke up.
Speaker 2: But imagine living a life where you've probably never had
Speaker 2: a full sleep because she's literally waiting in anticipation that
Speaker 2: that door might open and someone might come in and
Speaker 2: harm me. That's exactly what the massage therapis did. I
Speaker 2: went into a room and needed exactly to me, So
Speaker 2: it was a family member. It was extremely confront and
Speaker 2: then you have to go back and go, was my
Speaker 2: whole childhood just a lie? The memory that I have
Speaker 2: of childhood. So it's almost like you're wiping the slate
Speaker 2: clean and questioning everything everything, No wonder, I was petrified
Speaker 2: of that person, No wonder. I used to shrink around them.
Speaker 2: So in some sense it allowed everything to make sense,
Speaker 2: But in another sense, it was absolutely devastating to imagine
Speaker 2: what that little girl went through went through. But then
Speaker 2: you can only turn it into a positive and go.
Speaker 2: That's why I was an amazing police officer. That's why
Speaker 2: I you know, I'm really good with clients now because
Speaker 2: I've been so curious with myself and unpacked and investigated
Speaker 2: that I can now pass on that wisdom and help
Speaker 2: other people. And the question, the question I needed to
Speaker 2: ask was where did all this begin? Because it did
Speaker 2: not begin in that massage room. So I call it
Speaker 2: the crime before the crime. That was a crime, it
Speaker 2: raped me, But where was the first crime that led
Speaker 2: me to that? And that was the childhood? So unless
Speaker 2: you look at the crime before the crime, which was
Speaker 2: who primed me to react, play dead, to stay still,
Speaker 2: not move a muscle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of unpecking to do, isn't it. I
Speaker 1: think full credit to you that you can talk about
Speaker 1: this and educate people and come through what you've been
Speaker 1: through and still have a positive, positive outlook. Purpose. Let's hypothetically,
Speaker 1: if you didn't make this complaint, how do you think
Speaker 1: you would deal with it now?
Speaker 2: I felt like what happened to me was allowing me
Speaker 2: to birth this mission. So it was all part of it.
Speaker 2: And I think the freedom I got from then speaking
Speaker 2: that was my healing. So what if I couldn't speak now,
Speaker 2: if I wouldn't have gone down the justice path, would
Speaker 2: have I still been able to tell my possibly, but
Speaker 2: not in the rawness and the truth of what this
Speaker 2: story is now presented. But I think what's missing along
Speaker 2: the way is, and you talked into this earlier when
Speaker 2: we talked about justice, I had to be really honest
Speaker 2: with myself. If I get so attached to the outcome,
Speaker 2: I'm then relying on that to determine how I heal,
Speaker 2: which is giving away my power. He's already taken my power,
Speaker 2: you know, to get that back. It was who do
Speaker 2: I want to be at the end of this carry
Speaker 2: Who's the woman I want to be? Well, she wants
Speaker 2: to make sure that she never gets silenced again. Her
Speaker 2: voice matters, and I'm a beautiful role model to my sons,
Speaker 2: to the community. So I almost had to pack that. Yes,
Speaker 2: I felt for his you know, for him to take
Speaker 2: full accountability whether they did or not. Personally, he needed
Speaker 2: to go to prison. I felt that deeply, and I
Speaker 2: believed he would, But I wasn't attached to the outcome.
Speaker 2: It was who's the woman that I'm walking to a
Speaker 2: at the end of this eighteen month journey. It's her.
Speaker 2: He's there and I'm focusing on her.
Speaker 1: Well, I think by having that mindset is a much
Speaker 1: more positive way of approaching it than if you like anger, revenge,
Speaker 1: a whole range of emotions that could come from being
Speaker 1: a victim of a perpetrator like that, but that will
Speaker 1: destroy you. And I've seen that happen to victims of crime,
Speaker 1: where that they're being destroyed not once but twice because
Speaker 1: they're hanging on to that anger. But you seem to
Speaker 1: have found the way through it.
Speaker 2: Well. I also feel like if I have got anger
Speaker 2: and resentment I'm harboring towards him. He still then got
Speaker 2: some controls control.
Speaker 1: You know, we had Amanda Knocks on the podcast and
Speaker 1: she talked about forgiveness and kindness, and she said, the
Speaker 1: one thing I could do in the horrible situation I
Speaker 1: was in, the one thing that no one could control
Speaker 1: was kindness. Now I'm not suggesting this for your situation,
Speaker 1: but I thought that was a really powerful way of
Speaker 1: describing how you can control your thoughts, your directions, and
Speaker 1: your emotions. And she said, well, they can put me
Speaker 1: in jail for a crime I didn't commit. They can
Speaker 1: do this to me, they can do that to me,
Speaker 1: but they can't take away my kindness. So I'm just
Speaker 1: going to be kind. And that really resonated with me.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a very powerful way absolutely taking
Speaker 1: control of a situation.
Speaker 2: And with bitterness and resentment, it's like saying, I'm going
Speaker 2: to give you a pill of poison, you know, and
Speaker 2: expect you but I'm swallowing that pill of poison every
Speaker 2: single day, expecting you to be affected. Now, I couldn't
Speaker 2: control how he showed up in the world, and that's
Speaker 2: not anything to do with me. That's his journey, his trajectory.
Speaker 2: So for me and forgiveness is a really great topic
Speaker 2: to speak about because people say, oh, you can't move
Speaker 2: on unless you're forgiven. Forgiveness for me was forgiving that
Speaker 2: little girl who believed that she couldn't speak, forgiving the
Speaker 2: part of me that went into that room and believed
Speaker 2: that the only way out was to go limp, because
Speaker 2: that's the part of me that needed to heal. So
Speaker 2: I forgived her. I forgive the part of me that
Speaker 2: thought it was my fault. So forgiveness for me is
Speaker 2: every single version of me. It's actually got nothing to
Speaker 2: do with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked of Cameron who wanting to raise it
Speaker 1: about just because no it's not said, that doesn't mean consent.
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk us through that.
Speaker 2: I think the whole consent culture needs to be overhauled.
Speaker 2: So the reason I talk about honor her no is
Speaker 2: in the absence of a no, meaning she may be
Speaker 2: under the influence of alcohol, she may be feeling threatened,
Speaker 2: coherst all of those things that suppress her ability to
Speaker 2: say yes. So in the absence of a no, it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean it's a yes. And I think this is
Speaker 2: a really great education tool for boys and girls to understand, Hi,
Speaker 2: I've got a right to say no, can be revoked
Speaker 2: at any time. I can be with a man in
Speaker 2: a situation say yes at the beginning, but halfway through
Speaker 2: this doesn't feel safe for me, and I can speak
Speaker 2: up anytime. So if someone I think, with my court case,
Speaker 2: I wanted the justice system to understand that just because
Speaker 2: I was too afraid to say no, it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that I was a willing party. I wasn't willing. I
Speaker 2: mean straight away, there's an imbalance of power if we're
Speaker 2: to use my example, So the consensual act together has
Speaker 2: to be something that's enthusiastic, and people say, well, what
Speaker 2: does that mean? Well, we have to read body language.
Speaker 2: Someone's going, yeah, that's okay. I mean, you know straight
Speaker 2: away you can see that she's GrITT in her teeth
Speaker 2: and she's and it's asking her like, what's happening for
Speaker 2: you right now? Well, I actually feel scared. I mean
Speaker 2: when you think about every single woman knows another woman
Speaker 2: who's been sexually abused or assaulted, So you've got a
Speaker 2: walking population of women who traumatized. It's going to be
Speaker 2: really traumatized in an Internet environment. So we want to
Speaker 2: equip ourselves to say, if she's had an experience in
Speaker 2: the past where she's been violated, how can I create
Speaker 2: safety for her, which is, how do you let me
Speaker 2: know you're not okay? She might say, well, I actually
Speaker 2: struggle to say anything, so I'm just going to tap you, yeah,
Speaker 2: on the arm. I mean it seems like it's back
Speaker 2: in primary school. But you know, I think men have
Speaker 2: to understand that the absence of this no women often
Speaker 2: like me, who've maybe been silenced, it gets trapped. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we pretend that we're okay because centuries ago, women
Speaker 2: and it still happens in this many cultures are there
Speaker 2: to serve her man as long as he's happy.
Speaker 1: Well, we're talking off camera marriages and yeah, what we
Speaker 1: signed in the ninety three.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm saying in nineteen ninety three in Michigan, in
Speaker 2: the USA, marital rape was still accepted nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're talking that's only thirty three years ago.
Speaker 2: So I think this is so much more complex, and
Speaker 2: we're actually breaking down a culture of the role that
Speaker 2: women were here to play. Go back centuries. She serves
Speaker 2: as a husband. You know, women were objectified. They never
Speaker 2: had a voice, We never had voices, we were suppressed.
Speaker 2: So it's almost like we're now retrieving the very thing
Speaker 2: that was taken from us. You know, you're my property.
Speaker 2: I'm married to you. Of course, when I want sex
Speaker 2: on I click my fingers, you provide. So women are
Speaker 2: now waking up going, oh, I have a choice, and
Speaker 2: I'm serious and I say that they literally I can
Speaker 2: say no. I mean, how sad.
Speaker 1: That is very sad. And I think, you know, on
Speaker 1: the issue of consent, and I look at it the
Speaker 1: complication of it, it doesn't have to be that complicated.
Speaker 1: As you said that it's fairly obvious. If someone's not
Speaker 1: hasn't said no, it doesn't mean they're participating in sexual
Speaker 1: activity that's been played out, and I think common sense
Speaker 1: had come into play. Common sense is not that common
Speaker 1: these days, unfortunately, but education and make sure that in
Speaker 1: whatever situation you're in, from a man's point of view,
Speaker 1: the woman should feel safe and vice versa. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a changing world vice versa that just you need
Speaker 1: the other person that feels safe in that environment.
Speaker 2: But you imagine what if the man will use them
Speaker 2: as examples, well, say, you know it works both ways.
Speaker 2: Has grown up in a home where his mother tried
Speaker 2: to say no. Like me, her no was never a possibility.
Speaker 2: So you've got the girl who's seen that knows not
Speaker 2: an option. He's seen his father override his mom's no.
Speaker 2: So we talked about culture generational trauma. We're talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, rewriting.
Speaker 1: You're just creating an image of my head of someone
Speaker 1: coming home drunk and wanting to get with the wife,
Speaker 1: and the wife saying no. Young children sitting there saying
Speaker 1: what's gone on? And the wife submits because to keep
Speaker 1: placing the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep the peace exactly, because that's what we were
Speaker 2: trained to do. You just hit you just keep the peace.
Speaker 2: So let's give him what he needs to get him
Speaker 2: off my back, to quieten him down. But what's the cost.
Speaker 2: The cost is a woman is self betraying herself over
Speaker 2: and over and over and abandoning that part that says
Speaker 2: I don't want to do this, yeah, to serve him.
Speaker 2: But the after effect of that is I constantly let
Speaker 2: myself down.
Speaker 1: I have to submit and not be true to myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like it's okay to say I actually
Speaker 2: don't feel like it, And for the man to say,
Speaker 2: you know what, I honor that. What's going on for you?
Speaker 2: What do you need? Do you need a cup of tea?
Speaker 2: Let me show you in because you know a lot
Speaker 2: of women want to be intimate in different ways. Intimacy is,
Speaker 2: you know, let's put a movie on, let's hold hands,
Speaker 2: let's I'll cook you a beautiful meal. That's okay, not
Speaker 2: just I want my needs to be served and this
Speaker 2: is the only way.
Speaker 1: Well, I think with the complications of all intimacy and sex,
Speaker 1: it's about there shouldn't be an imbalance anyway, it should
Speaker 1: it should be equal. I think that's a way to
Speaker 1: address the concerns with your advocacy work. Talk us through
Speaker 1: that and what you're doing and the messaging that you're
Speaker 1: trying to get across and where people can reach out
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: Sure, so the normal silence is obviously born from that
Speaker 2: experience in the massage room, but I've been working with
Speaker 2: a lot of women in domestic violence and sexual assault prior.
Speaker 2: But then I realized that what prevented me in that
Speaker 2: moment from stepping forward was the silence. So what if
Speaker 2: we started to break our silence And I'm not talking
Speaker 2: about everyone just gathering at a police station. And that's
Speaker 2: not the path for everyone. But the first step to
Speaker 2: healing is actually voice in what happened. So remember I
Speaker 2: said it has to come out of the body by
Speaker 2: naming it. So I started to one the cockcase was
Speaker 2: finished and I could talk about it. So I've been
Speaker 2: creating a platform on Facebook, just building a community of
Speaker 2: people who have sat for decades and possibly not spoken up.
Speaker 2: So when I've got about, you know, twenty thousand people
Speaker 2: from all around the world who are same, finally someone,
Speaker 2: because I believe if one person goes first, the other
Speaker 2: person has permission to go next. And it becomes almost
Speaker 2: like this is the ripple effect right now. So then
Speaker 2: I speak up and I say, you know, I guess
Speaker 2: that's how the Me Too movement began. It happened to me.
Speaker 2: And someone goes, oh my goodness, it happened to me.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you, every woman you speak to
Speaker 2: other's experienced it or know someone, and they're just wanting
Speaker 2: to talk about it. So I created this Facebook group
Speaker 2: and then I noticed the pushback from people, which I
Speaker 2: think is really important to talk about is how we
Speaker 2: then vilify the victim. And I think after the court case.
Speaker 2: What I wasn't prepared for was the victim shaming.
Speaker 1: Did the experience that did you?
Speaker 2: So his father straight after the court, Channel seven were
Speaker 2: there they asked him, what do you think, mister Petrie,
Speaker 2: and he said, there's two sides to a coin. And
Speaker 2: that actually made me feel pretty sad in the sense
Speaker 2: that if that's the narrative of the family, he's admitted
Speaker 2: it to me, at what point does it become he
Speaker 2: did this? And then I realized this is the you know,
Speaker 2: the Afl family were the same in Melbourne when there
Speaker 2: was that rape, and you know they closed ranks, and
Speaker 2: you know, surely there must be two sides. And I thought,
Speaker 2: that makes me feel so devastated for the victim because
Speaker 2: you've gone through all of this to go out the
Speaker 2: other side and still not being believed. So I was
Speaker 2: kind of gathering all this is information to look at. Okay,
Speaker 2: if this is what we face, where do we need
Speaker 2: to change the mentality and the culture from a victim perspective?
Speaker 2: So I put a post out on my group and
Speaker 2: it was finished this sentence, what did you expect when?
Speaker 2: And oh my goodness, there was like almost two thousand
Speaker 2: people wrote their story and I was sort of reading
Speaker 2: through them, from what did I expect as a seven
Speaker 2: month old on a changing table, to everybody's story and
Speaker 2: to seventy year old women, and I thought there's something
Speaker 2: in this. Look at these women who were trust in
Speaker 2: this space to come forward. And one woman said, I've
Speaker 2: hovered over the send button for twenty minutes. I've never
Speaker 2: spoken this out loud ever powerful. So I realized this
Speaker 2: is a movement. And rather than what did she expect?
Speaker 2: What were you wearing? What did you let's switch that around.
Speaker 2: What were you doing? Why did you do that? So
Speaker 2: the movement is that it's breaking the silence, it's breaking
Speaker 2: the generational trauma. It's listening to a victim without interrogating her.
Speaker 2: She's not the criminal.
Speaker 1: That's important.
Speaker 2: Yeah when she Freeze has been educated enough to say,
Speaker 2: even if she doesn't understand what her body did, oh
Speaker 2: I've read about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that's why it's so good to
Speaker 1: talk about what you experienced. That give other people understanding
Speaker 1: of that might have been through similar situations.
Speaker 2: And then if you should imagine the video that you
Speaker 2: and I've watched, Oh you don't understand, Freeze, I'm going
Speaker 2: to show you a three minute video on YouTube, that's
Speaker 2: what your body did, and then she can go, oh,
Speaker 2: this exists, and then you go to the police station.
Speaker 2: I think if they had literature to hand out to say,
Speaker 2: that's the freeze response, that's what your body did. It's
Speaker 2: not your fault. Yeah, your body saved you.
Speaker 1: Well, I think from an investigator's point of view, it
Speaker 1: would be handy to have that sort of knowledge when
Speaker 1: you're sitting down getting statements from victims as well, have
Speaker 1: an appreciation of the possibilities.
Speaker 2: Because she wouldn't even know, and the courage to step
Speaker 2: through the door. And then if she can get some
Speaker 2: understanding around and why her body did what it did,
Speaker 2: and then the courts understand this too. Might not happen
Speaker 2: in every case, but we can now start to understand
Speaker 2: a woman's body. And then if she can ask herself
Speaker 2: the same question I asked, where did all this begin?
Speaker 2: Was it just there? Or was it a long time ago?
Speaker 2: And then we can start to look at our childhood
Speaker 2: trauma and start to unpack that, which means that now
Speaker 2: I've got my voice. Let me tell you, there'll be
Speaker 2: no way I would ever be in a situation where
Speaker 2: my voice would be silent ever again, because I've broken it,
Speaker 2: and that's what we want people to do. Once you
Speaker 2: get your voice, it never goes back down through the
Speaker 2: trap door.
Speaker 1: I can tell you now, I don't think we're going
Speaker 1: to make you not comment. I'm breaking the good girl code.
Speaker 1: How does that fit into the whole?
Speaker 2: Say so, I was already writing a book from about
Speaker 2: my past about how we're conditioned as children, and then
Speaker 2: when this happened, I realized I was coded and I'll
Speaker 2: explain that, and meaning I was coded to stay quiet,
Speaker 2: to be passive, to be pleasing, to not upset anyone.
Speaker 2: So I realized that we're actually all coded every single
Speaker 2: day in any experience, we'll live in a card into
Speaker 2: a code, right, you know, it might be you know,
Speaker 2: be the good father and you know, stay small, be quiet.
Speaker 2: So if we start to unpack our our codes and
Speaker 2: break the good girl code, I think we'll see red
Speaker 2: flags in relationships, more will spot cohesive control because it's
Speaker 2: basically decoding the codes that we were imprinted with by
Speaker 2: my father.
Speaker 1: Remember, it's all I see what you're saying, the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties housewife attitude that well, it's a man of the
Speaker 1: house I'll do what I'm told and I'll be a
Speaker 1: good girl. And that sounds condescending and saying the words,
Speaker 1: but that type of narrative, that's what you're trying to break. That. No,
Speaker 1: you've got a voice, stand up, talk, stand up for yourself.
Speaker 2: And if I hadn't been taught to be submissive to
Speaker 2: the man like my mother was, I will probably never
Speaker 2: ended up in that massage room. It led me there
Speaker 2: because I needed to break the code, so I could
Speaker 2: list probably a four sheets of coding. So let's look
Speaker 2: at the code in particularly with young girls, and boys
Speaker 2: have their own too. You know, the boys don't cry,
Speaker 2: gals girls don't get angry. So if we can actually
Speaker 2: get the codes out of the vault, break them down,
Speaker 2: recode ourselves with it's safe to speak. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to get thrown against a wall by my dad, So
Speaker 2: it's safe to have a voice, which is where I
Speaker 2: am now. It's safe to be in a room because
Speaker 2: I can protect myself. I'm not four years old anymore.
Speaker 2: And when I took that little girl, when I looked
Speaker 2: around the court before the trial, I thought, I just
Speaker 2: want to go and familiarize myself. I was shaking so violently,
Speaker 2: and I stopped for a moment and I breathed, and
Speaker 2: I said, how old am I right now? And this
Speaker 2: voice said four? And I went ah, And I got
Speaker 2: her by the hand and I said to her, darling,
Speaker 2: you're not facing your father. That was the key moment
Speaker 2: because she goes back to, oh, well, if I speak
Speaker 2: up to my dad, I get hurt. She sees the
Speaker 2: massage therapist as her father representation. So the healing was
Speaker 2: taking her by the hand. I've got you. I'm now
Speaker 2: fifty two, You're not four. You're safe. No one's going
Speaker 2: to hurt you. And what a beautiful healing journey to
Speaker 2: then integrate that part back to me and go, I'm
Speaker 2: going to look after you. Nobody will hurt you. You're
Speaker 2: not four, because as a four year old meant to
Speaker 2: in that situation with a six foot two man protect herself,
Speaker 2: she's going to submit. So the coding is that wherever
Speaker 2: I being coded, is it serving me looking at my
Speaker 2: relationships as a reflection, and how can I break it?
Speaker 2: So it's gone from the book that I was originally
Speaker 2: right into breaking the good Girl code, which kind of
Speaker 2: fits into the whole mission. If we break the code,
Speaker 2: we break the sailings.
Speaker 1: Okay, lots of work to do, lots of work to do,
Speaker 1: but look, I found it very educational and quite fascinating
Speaker 1: having this chat. And good on you for coming out
Speaker 1: and speaking about this. But yeah, when you're walking around
Speaker 1: with a T shirt on, no more silence. So I
Speaker 1: figured you've got a little bit to say, well done,
Speaker 1: Well done for turning what is a horrible situation and
Speaker 1: finding some positivity in the direction that's given you in
Speaker 1: life and the help that you're trying to do others.
Speaker 1: And also thank you for your work in the cops,
Speaker 1: so I know the sacrifices you've got to make and
Speaker 1: the work you did that after that in the child
Speaker 1: protection space. It's a dark world, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's so dark. But I think the world's ready to
Speaker 2: make a change. And I think the more that will
Speaker 2: speak up, yep, changes happen. It's like we need to roar.
Speaker 2: We need voices to come together to be able to
Speaker 2: say we've had enough. You know, we've had enough of
Speaker 2: this suppression and this violence and this harm. We need
Speaker 2: men and women to come together to unite and not divided,
Speaker 2: to come together. And I think there's a possibility that
Speaker 2: we come. I believe in my lifetime that I will
Speaker 2: leave a legacy behind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I think I think the legacy might be
Speaker 1: four boys that you're raising that have been pointed in
Speaker 1: the right direction. So congratulations on that. Thanks very much,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jeers