Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1: Hence why I feel so grateful to be precisely where
Speaker 1: I am now, with this little miracle who was clearly,
Speaker 1: spite all the odds, absolutely destined to be. I certainly
Speaker 1: hope the majority of those demons that plagued me earlier
Speaker 1: on are put to rest.
Speaker 2: Waiting for a pregnancy test result can bring on a
Speaker 2: whirlwind of emotions excitement, anxiety, anticipation, dread. But for Madeline West,
Speaker 2: seeing a positive test at forty seven wasn't just surprising,
Speaker 2: it was completely and utterly shocking, because at first she
Speaker 2: thought that she was in perimenopause. She even asked her
Speaker 2: doctor if a positive pregnancy test could be a symptom,
Speaker 2: but no, she was in fact expecting her seventh child,
Speaker 2: and when we spoke, she was just two weeks away
Speaker 2: from giving birth. In this conversation, Madeleine is the epitome
Speaker 2: of no filter. Unflinchingly honest and deeply reflective. She shares
Speaker 2: how she's really feeling, how the media expects her to
Speaker 2: feel about the poetically named geriatric pregnancy and why she's
Speaker 2: choosing to embrace this unexpected twist in her story. But
Speaker 2: more than that, Madeline West opens up about something far
Speaker 2: more profound, her experience of childhood's sexual abuse, a secret
Speaker 2: she had hidden from the world and from herself for
Speaker 2: almost forty years. She speaks about the moment she knew
Speaker 2: she was ready to confront her abuser, and the valiance
Speaker 2: that it took to bring him to justice. Now, as
Speaker 2: she prepares to welcome another baby, Madeleine describes her life
Speaker 2: as a jigsaw puzzle, one that's been scattered, rebuilt, and
Speaker 2: reshaped over time, and after years of healing and self discovery,
Speaker 2: she finally feels like the last piece is falling into place.
Speaker 2: But before we get there, I just want to let
Speaker 2: you know that this conversation through necessity does include very
Speaker 2: candid discussion of the abuse that Madeleine survived. So please
Speaker 2: this and mindfully, and here is Madeline West, Madeline West,
Speaker 2: beautiful of face, extraordinary of soul. We will get to
Speaker 2: that later. Welcome to no filth.
Speaker 1: I feel like, on the basis of that welcome, I
Speaker 1: wish I was in the room with you. I've even
Speaker 1: brought I've brought snacks, with me, because you just can't
Speaker 1: come between a pregnant woman and a snack. So I
Speaker 1: wish I was in the room.
Speaker 2: Whist Kate, Well, so you are pregnant, the duff well,
Speaker 2: and truly you really are barn in the oven all
Speaker 2: of that. This needs a drum roll. Seventh child, you
Speaker 2: are forty five.
Speaker 1: No, I'm forty seven.
Speaker 2: Oh you're forty seven. It's are you laughing?
Speaker 1: Because it's just getting worse. O.
Speaker 2: B Well, it's just I actually, I actually love it.
Speaker 2: I love it. I'm happy it's not me. I'm thrilled.
Speaker 2: I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1: It's so funny to say that, Kate. All my girlfriends
Speaker 1: are saying the same thing. They're like, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to hold a baby, just don't want to carry one
Speaker 1: in one undercarriage, which is right now.
Speaker 2: All right. So I've just made a mistake that I
Speaker 2: imagine is happening a lot. The first thing when someone's pregnant. Congratulations, congratulations, Madeline, congratulations.
Speaker 2: But because it's so extraordinary, is that getting a little
Speaker 2: bit lost in the mix, in the mix of the astonished,
Speaker 2: or that the first reaction is always shocked.
Speaker 1: My first reaction was shocked, and disbelief, so I certainly
Speaker 1: can't judge anyone else for having a similar reaction to it.
Speaker 1: But what I will say, and what I have discovered,
Speaker 1: is that I am far from alone. Statistically, teen pregnancies
Speaker 1: are on a sharp decline. Pregnancies in their forties are
Speaker 1: on the rise, and particularly over forty four, which is
Speaker 1: quite surprising. It's quadrupled in the last twenty years. How
Speaker 1: many women in their latter forties are now going on
Speaker 1: to have babies, So I understand that there is it's
Speaker 1: certainly not helped by the geriatric pregnancy label that you
Speaker 1: get slapped with from thirty five. I'm like, should I
Speaker 1: should I go babies fun thingson buy a pram or
Speaker 1: should I go and get a zimmer Frame. I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure.
Speaker 2: They should do doubles in mission.
Speaker 1: I think they should just little package, our geriatric package.
Speaker 1: But what I have discovered, and I was very slow
Speaker 1: to I really didn't want to initially air where I
Speaker 1: was and what was happening in my life. I've become
Speaker 1: increasingly private as I've gotten older, and and You've moved
Speaker 1: to Bayn and I moved to Byron, and it was
Speaker 1: my hand was kind of forced because I was informed
Speaker 1: by a media agency that there was awareness that I
Speaker 1: was pregnant. And that came about not because I'd rocked
Speaker 1: up to Melbourne Fashion Week or something in alycrate Frock.
Speaker 1: It was because I was actually presenting at Parliament and
Speaker 1: trying to push through legislation to amp up protections around
Speaker 1: child's safety, and I was just spotted by a journalist
Speaker 1: who of course went back to the office told everyone.
Speaker 1: They told everyone they knew. I found out that I
Speaker 1: was being followed by peraps trying to get that first photo.
Speaker 1: So I thought, well, I'm gonna, as much as I
Speaker 1: don't want to, I'm going to speak out about this
Speaker 1: on my terms. And the most wonderful flow on effect
Speaker 1: of that was I had over a thousand responses from
Speaker 1: other women who had or were having babies in their
Speaker 1: forties saying I thought I was the only one. I
Speaker 1: thought I was the only one who was going to
Speaker 1: rock up to play group and everyone would think I
Speaker 1: was grandma. I thought I was the only one who
Speaker 1: at first day of school i'd be mingling with mothers
Speaker 1: and fathers who were half my age. But quite the
Speaker 1: reverse is true, so it's really I'm actually quite gratified
Speaker 1: to have illuminated or shown a spotlight on this particular
Speaker 1: group of men and women who are delving into parenting
Speaker 1: later in life and thought that they were alone.
Speaker 2: And also I find it kind of hopeful because the
Speaker 2: one thing that we know about nature is that nature
Speaker 2: can be cruel, particularly when it comes to issues of fertility.
Speaker 1: Yes, it most definitely can.
Speaker 2: And you thought that you were perimenopausal, and you thought
Speaker 2: that's why you were having these strange cycles.
Speaker 1: See as soon as like that, oh hang on, my
Speaker 1: monthly's disappeared. Oh wow, I must have just hot footed
Speaker 1: it right through the perimenopause phase and I've gone straight
Speaker 1: into menopause. But then I got a couple of other
Speaker 1: symptoms that I recognized but did not quite fit with
Speaker 1: the narrative around menopause, which thankfully is finally getting so
Speaker 1: much traction in the media and just amongst society itself.
Speaker 1: We're finally having meaningful conversations about perimenopause and menopause. But
Speaker 1: my symptoms didn't quite correlate with any of that. I
Speaker 1: wasn't getting hot flushes. I was certainly rageful, But I'm
Speaker 1: a mum of six, and of course I'm rageful. When
Speaker 1: am I not rageful? I did the little I just thought,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, let's just let's just get this out
Speaker 1: of the way, and let's just do a little weir
Speaker 1: on a stick, and two lines popped up, And I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you, Kate. My first thought was, maybe
Speaker 1: this is a symptom of many pause that no one's
Speaker 1: heard about you. Maybe because all your hormones are going
Speaker 1: all over them, maybe this is what happens. So I
Speaker 1: had a little check up with the doctor and he said, no,
Speaker 1: you are most definitely geriatrically up the dust and here
Speaker 1: we are.
Speaker 2: Okay. So because you now live in Byron, so this
Speaker 2: would not have been the same doctor that you had
Speaker 2: through your other six pregnancies.
Speaker 1: Or are you are the tweens that I came went
Speaker 1: and saw had a room full of dream catches and
Speaker 1: healing crystals and well, I'm decrying me a good hard staging.
Speaker 2: No, but you have to explain yourself to a new ishtock.
Speaker 1: Yes, you have to go through everything. And and I am
Speaker 1: someone who prides myself on keeping really healthy both mentally
Speaker 1: and physically. That's become a priority for me, particularly in
Speaker 1: the last five years because I've gone through quite a
Speaker 1: few things, so that became an absolute priority to shore
Speaker 1: up my physical and mental health, and that is what
Speaker 1: I have been doing. So I'm not a frequent visitor
Speaker 1: to a doctor's office, but I did.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: I found I have got a lovely GP who went
Speaker 1: and saw and his eyebrows went through the roof when
Speaker 1: we got the positive result as well. But again he
Speaker 1: reiterated that as much as this is inverted comma's higher risk,
Speaker 1: it's also not uncommon. And that's what I discovered when
Speaker 1: I opened up finally and starting having conversations with my
Speaker 1: core beautiful group of friends, that many of them had
Speaker 1: found myselves themselves in my shoes and had either decided
Speaker 1: to proceed or not proceed. But this was not completely
Speaker 1: I wasn't an anomaly.
Speaker 2: Well, I also had babies in my fings and I
Speaker 2: also had caesareans, and I know when I had to
Speaker 2: go back to the doctor the fourth time that I
Speaker 2: was accidentally pregnant. I love that these are two grown
Speaker 2: up we have Actually it's a great title for a book, accidentally,
Speaker 2: But they were like, they don't like to do caesareans
Speaker 2: past three cesareans. I was going for four you're presumably
Speaker 2: going to have. Yes, so I won't let you go natural, now,
Speaker 2: will that?
Speaker 1: No? No? No, those have an American Emergency Caesar because I'm
Speaker 1: quite small and my babies are generally quite big, so.
Speaker 2: Bigger than bigger than you would like exactly.
Speaker 1: I do have a really lovely doctor who is allowing
Speaker 1: me to go into labor. Yes, which is lovely because
Speaker 1: it means that some of those issues that little ones
Speaker 1: face when they are born by a cesarean section. That
Speaker 1: could be some issues with lungs and issues with the
Speaker 1: milk coming in. Sorry, too much information, but we're going
Speaker 1: down that path. So let's deep dive deep obviated.
Speaker 2: It's no filter. Oh, that's right, said, it's no filtered.
Speaker 1: I've got a wonderful obstetrician who will let me go
Speaker 1: into labor and then we'll pop in and zip a
Speaker 1: little one out.
Speaker 2: Okay. So when you've seen your doctor, yep, you get
Speaker 2: the news that you are pregnant.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: How long ago was this? By the way, how deep
Speaker 2: are you in?
Speaker 1: I've got about two and a half weeks al yes,
Speaker 1: And this is officially the last thing I'm going to
Speaker 1: do that requires my brain to function. I've just sat
Speaker 1: like I drew a line in the sand. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have my chat to Kate and I'm
Speaker 1: doing nothing else.
Speaker 2: So when you get that news, who is the first
Speaker 2: person that you take?
Speaker 1: Um?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: And where is mask?
Speaker 1: So Mum's down in Victoria, so she's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a distance and she's actually going to be my
Speaker 1: birth partner, in which I love. I think that's a
Speaker 1: very strong, almost tribal connection. Yes, and this is I'm
Speaker 1: going on a tight segue, So please hold that question
Speaker 1: in your head, Cake, because I know I'll go off
Speaker 1: on a tangent and I'll completely forget, forget what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. But I've just read the most amazing book
Speaker 1: called Eve by Cat Bohannon. I'd recommend it to anyone
Speaker 1: to read, and it explains how the female body has
Speaker 1: driven evolution for the last two hundred million years, and
Speaker 1: it gives the most precise scientific explanation for why we
Speaker 1: enter menopause. We, apart from killer whales, are the only
Speaker 1: creatures on the planet that experience menopause, and men certainly
Speaker 1: don't experience it, so it's specific to the female body.
Speaker 1: And it was a precise choice that we biologically, genealogically
Speaker 1: made in our history of evolution as we branched off
Speaker 1: from some of our primate predecessors to experience menopause so
Speaker 1: that women could lead.
Speaker 2: And in part the wisdom is this week because I
Speaker 2: have heard this, but I didn't know that was the genes.
Speaker 1: And it's absolutely brilliant, and it's been been quantified by
Speaker 1: numerous scientific studies that demonstrate that, like killer whales, we
Speaker 1: are the ones who say, this is what you do
Speaker 1: in a drought, this is what you do in a famine.
Speaker 1: You need to blanch those vegetables to get the toxins out.
Speaker 1: And mothers are designed to birth their grandchildren. They've got
Speaker 1: this wealth of knowledge. And Western society is very good
Speaker 1: at dismissing how elderly as yes, somehow a little bit
Speaker 1: decrepit us.
Speaker 2: Actually we're out there in the.
Speaker 1: Field now, just let them go and graze. But the
Speaker 1: sheer wealth of instinctive knowledge that our older generations of
Speaker 1: women have is mind boggling. So it feels very symbolic
Speaker 1: and very right that it is my mum there who
Speaker 1: will bring this new little one.
Speaker 2: What did she say? What did she say when you
Speaker 2: told her you were on the phone, she dissuming, Oh.
Speaker 1: And this is a very frequent response I've gotten it's
Speaker 1: just going to be so hard.
Speaker 2: And I paused, so she forgot to say congratulations exactly.
Speaker 1: And then of course it warms up to congratulations, and
Speaker 1: over the weeks and the days and the weeks and
Speaker 1: the months that follows, it becomes overwhelmingly positive the response.
Speaker 1: But her first concern is it's going to be so
Speaker 1: hard because you've already got so much going on. And
Speaker 1: I stepped back for a moment and went, well, I
Speaker 1: I think as I've grown older and hopefully wiser, I've
Speaker 1: come to choose my heart because life is hard. Everything
Speaker 1: about life is hard. We've got all got so many
Speaker 1: pressures on our shoulders. And yes, there's so many things
Speaker 1: I want to do with my life, but I don't
Speaker 1: for a moment believe the presence of this precious little
Speaker 1: miracle in my life is going to stop me doing
Speaker 1: what I want to do. If anything, it's going to
Speaker 1: push me harder to do what I want to do,
Speaker 1: to make the world a better place, a safer place.
Speaker 2: Coming up after the break, I asked Madeline how she
Speaker 2: processed the news of her pregnancy at forty seven years old,
Speaker 2: and whether she considered all the possible options stay with us.
Speaker 2: Was there a moment where you thought maybe I won't
Speaker 2: proceed with this.
Speaker 1: No, No, because initially I thought it was menopause. I
Speaker 1: found out a little bit later that most do.
Speaker 2: And my.
Speaker 1: Body knows this is number seven precisely where that little
Speaker 1: cluster of cells is at every stage and from I
Speaker 1: am all for everyone having everyone and everyone having choice
Speaker 1: and facilities to exercise that choice. But for me, this
Speaker 1: was a little This was a little human being who
Speaker 1: was going to change the world from the moment that
Speaker 1: I found out that I was pregnant, and that has
Speaker 1: not changed.
Speaker 2: You know, you said life is hard, and I know
Speaker 2: a lot of people say that as epithets. You know,
Speaker 2: politicians love to talk about people doing it tough, as
Speaker 2: though they've had nothing to do with the fact that
Speaker 2: people do at that class.
Speaker 1: But do you know what I mean, I can't quite
Speaker 1: join the dots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right. But when you say life is hard,
Speaker 2: you have a much more acute understanding of that than
Speaker 2: most people.
Speaker 1: I do now because I can, I can actually look
Speaker 1: back retrospectively as some of the things that I've experienced which,
Speaker 1: to be honest, I for most of my life wasn't
Speaker 1: prepared to do. I spent most of my life putting
Speaker 1: masks on, pretending to be anyone other than myself because
Speaker 1: I so despised myself, and that self that I despised
Speaker 1: originated from a tiny little girl who had horrible things
Speaker 1: happened to her that she absolutely was not to blame for.
Speaker 2: That little girl was Melanie that was used.
Speaker 1: See there you go. I even changed my name to
Speaker 1: run as hard and fast away from her as I could.
Speaker 1: So so much of my life has been wrapped up
Speaker 1: in ignoring the bad things that happened. But and I
Speaker 1: can speak from experience now because I've done all of
Speaker 1: my training to become something of a trauma expert and
Speaker 1: exploitation expert. So I work very closely with children. I
Speaker 1: work in schools and educate them how to be safe
Speaker 1: online just in life in general. And I also work
Speaker 1: with a lot of historical victims who want to just
Speaker 1: be empowered enough to say the words that this happened
Speaker 1: to me and it was not my fault, and that
Speaker 1: might result in them pursuing criminal or some kind of
Speaker 1: civil remediation. But now I can spot all the red flags,
Speaker 1: and I can spot all the triggers when someone has
Speaker 1: had that experience. I spent my life trying to keep
Speaker 1: that under wraps, which is why acting was a perfect profession.
Speaker 2: Donning the mantle of somebody else. I'm someone else because
Speaker 2: you couldn't bear to be yourself, Sackler.
Speaker 1: I couldn't bear to be Melanie because she'd been told
Speaker 1: for so long that she was to blame for everything
Speaker 1: that had happened to her.
Speaker 2: Now to get our listeners up to speed, who may
Speaker 2: not know this, and this is just an event of
Speaker 2: such cataclysmic proportions to happen in anybody's life that I
Speaker 2: can't believe this is not a story known to everybody.
Speaker 2: I was certainly not familiar as familiar with it. We've
Speaker 2: kind of had been background noised.
Speaker 1: But that's I think you've described it so well that
Speaker 1: this is a cataclysmic event, yet it's experienced by one
Speaker 1: in three girls and one in five boys, and that's
Speaker 1: just the reported cases. So just to qualify for anyone
Speaker 1: who's listening and not familiar with my backstory, and I'm
Speaker 1: so glad to be at a point in my life
Speaker 1: where I'm stepping away from being the poster child of
Speaker 1: trauma and achieving something beautiful and wonderful in the aftermath.
Speaker 1: I was the victim of a pedophile from the ages
Speaker 1: of four to eleven, and it was quite horrific what
Speaker 1: he did. It was your neighbor, Yes, it was my
Speaker 1: next door neighbor. And I was not alone. I was
Speaker 1: not the only victim. And after many years of working
Speaker 1: with therapists, with the police, with the federal police, in
Speaker 1: December of twenty twenty four, we put him away in
Speaker 1: prison for fifteen years. So he's now accountable.
Speaker 2: Peter Vincent wife his name was Yes, So in your
Speaker 2: little seemingly idyllic town of Voudeine that you grew up in,
Speaker 2: this charming, you.
Speaker 1: Know, little town, almost village, tiny, little bucolic, beautiful village
Speaker 1: type town. And he chose the precisely perfect location, which
Speaker 1: was an area peopled predominantly by low socioeconomic young families
Speaker 1: with little kids. And his house was the most magnificent
Speaker 1: house in the neighborhood with all the bits and pieces
Speaker 1: that would attract children, and his wife was a frequent
Speaker 1: babysitter for the neighborhood, so children were drawn to that
Speaker 1: area and he was precisely the epitome of the rock
Speaker 1: spider who, hidden in plain SIGHTE was able to access.
Speaker 2: Young children trusted and adored by the name.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know so many and so many people have said,
Speaker 1: how did they not know? How did they not know?
Speaker 1: And that's the cliche. Hidden in plain site, he was
Speaker 1: right there, and no one would dream. This wonderful, generous
Speaker 1: person who held fabulous parties and invited everyone in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood who'd pop over, and he was a plumber by trade,
Speaker 1: would fix your block toilet without batting an eye, was
Speaker 1: using public, that very positive public facade to hide the
Speaker 1: most horrific and as she said before, heinous, cataclysmic crime.
Speaker 1: You can imagine, and it still bewilders me. But the reason,
Speaker 1: as you said, you know, you can't believe that people
Speaker 1: haven't heard about it, is precisely because people don't talk
Speaker 1: about it. Our society fosters a conspiracy of silence around this, and.
Speaker 2: A lot of that is motivated by fear.
Speaker 1: Absolutely and also shame that we don't attach, we really
Speaker 1: don't appropriately attach a victim or survivor label to those
Speaker 1: who've experienced that they are seen as deficit, as broken
Speaker 1: and as somehow complicit. There's still some degree of question,
Speaker 1: what we're wearing, what we're you're doing. Well, you must
Speaker 1: have brought it on, You must have led him on.
Speaker 1: How the hell does a five year old lead on
Speaker 1: a forty year old man?
Speaker 2: How?
Speaker 1: And yet that seems to be the narrative we attached
Speaker 1: to this crime. And that is why, to this day,
Speaker 1: this crime which has one of the highest ratios of
Speaker 1: victim per capita in our society, the highest ratio of
Speaker 1: recidivus behavior by the perpetrators, yet the lowest sentencing, and
Speaker 1: the majority of cases a perpetrator might get a slap
Speaker 1: on a wrist or a community service order. Yet commit
Speaker 1: tax fraud and you'll get ten years in prison.
Speaker 2: What was the point in your life at which you,
Speaker 2: in the service of that little girl that you carried
Speaker 2: around with you, that you decided to go to the
Speaker 2: police and say, this is what happened to me. What
Speaker 2: is the process for you?
Speaker 1: You reach a point in your life where the white
Speaker 1: noise of what happened to you is so loud you
Speaker 1: can't function anymore, where memories start to resurface and you
Speaker 1: can't tuck them away or push them down anymore. And
Speaker 1: I was on the cusp of a separation and questioning
Speaker 1: so many things in my life. And what tip me
Speaker 1: over was learning that he had grandchildren. And that was
Speaker 1: when I went it stops with me, because I don't
Speaker 1: care what anyone says. If you've experienced this, it will
Speaker 1: manifest in your life in some way.
Speaker 2: Of course, it.
Speaker 1: Might be that you become an alcoholic, you have drug addiction,
Speaker 1: you might dabble in petty crime. You might not be
Speaker 1: able to function socially. You might not be able to
Speaker 1: hold down a relationship or hold down a lot a job.
Speaker 1: All these social what we call ills generally have. Even
Speaker 1: the President, the high ratio of eating disorder sufferers have
Speaker 1: a history of child abuse.
Speaker 2: Was that how it manifested with you?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Yeah, with horrific anorexia from what age? I started
Speaker 1: exercising obsessively when I was twelve. Funnily enough, not long
Speaker 1: after the abuse stopped, and that just got worse and worse,
Speaker 1: and it led to lengthy hospitalizations when I was in
Speaker 1: my late teens. At one point I'd been hospitalized and
Speaker 1: I weighed less than thirty kilos, and I just that
Speaker 1: was the and I'd really call out for anyone who
Speaker 1: has experienced this particular illness that I esdated even to
Speaker 1: call it an illness, because it's often a manifestation of
Speaker 1: something deeper and darker. It's not about weight, it's too much,
Speaker 1: it's too little to correlate it with images that we
Speaker 1: see in popular magazine and in the media. It's about control.
Speaker 1: That that little girl had had her body violated so vilely,
Speaker 1: had no agency over her experience. So the one thing
Speaker 1: I could control was what I put in my mouth.
Speaker 1: And when I didn't put anything in my mouth, I
Speaker 1: felt like I was in control. When I'd managed to
Speaker 1: stave off the hunger pangs long enough that I didn't
Speaker 1: feel hungry anymore, I was in control. And then you
Speaker 1: reach a point when your be and my slips below sixteen,
Speaker 1: where full blown body it's morphia kicks in where you
Speaker 1: don't even see yourself as you are. You could literally
Speaker 1: look in the mirror and your skin is hanging off
Speaker 1: you because there's all your muscles of atrophied and there's
Speaker 1: nobody fat, and you do think that you're obese.
Speaker 2: You were so clearly broken. You flagged it with your
Speaker 2: parents at the time, because he was your neighbor was
Speaker 2: not only raping you, he was raping other children in
Speaker 2: the neighborhood, including one of your friends who was older
Speaker 2: than yous, who was babysitting for his.
Speaker 1: Childrens at a quite a young age and thus extremely exposed.
Speaker 1: And I know it's very easy to cast a judgment
Speaker 1: that how would these other parents let this happen? How
Speaker 1: did they not know? And it might seem like a
Speaker 1: broad jump, but in the same way that we frequently
Speaker 1: don't know what our kids are looking at on their
Speaker 1: devices and what messages they're sending, and the conversations they're having,
Speaker 1: and the cyber bullying that they might be experiencing. That's
Speaker 1: why it's been such an apt move that I now
Speaker 1: work in this sphere where educate kids about how to
Speaker 1: be safe online and what then educate their parents and
Speaker 1: teaches about what the red flags are and what to
Speaker 1: avoid and how best to manage it. Because we're all busy,
Speaker 1: we're all doing the best that we can. And for
Speaker 1: young parents in that neighborhood to have someone with a
Speaker 1: lovely home with a professional career offer to help with
Speaker 1: your kids for free was a gift.
Speaker 2: And that's the dream. I mean, that is the saying
Speaker 2: it takes a valy.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and this was purely an extension of that. Let's
Speaker 1: take advantage of this village, and yeah, this is why
Speaker 1: it's such a social ill. It seems the only way
Speaker 1: to combat it is for us to all be terribly
Speaker 1: cynical and everyone, you know, keeping it suspicious of everyone
Speaker 1: around us. We don't want that, but we need to
Speaker 1: bring broader recognition as to why this happens. How does
Speaker 1: it create in someone an aherent, abhorrent urge to engage
Speaker 1: with the child sexually, to break and break them, to
Speaker 1: manipulate them and take advantage of them.
Speaker 2: There's so many impediments to somebody coming forward, particularly with
Speaker 2: historical offenses like this. There was like a thirty year yeah,
Speaker 2: thirty or forty years in between, as you've already alluded to,
Speaker 2: the shame, the atrophied nature of yourself, the wanting to
Speaker 2: also not immerse yourself back into the world of that darkness.
Speaker 1: I had to and that was a really hard five
Speaker 1: years because once you knock that scab off, because it's
Speaker 1: always a festering wound, Once you knock that scab off
Speaker 1: and you dig in there to that long, festering abscess
Speaker 1: of trauma. Sorry, it's not a very attractive metaphor, but
Speaker 1: it's true. It initially gets harder because you have to
Speaker 1: allow yourself to fully remember what happened, and our brain
Speaker 1: sets up so many guardposts to protect us from that.
Speaker 1: And once you're back in there, it's we're talking about
Speaker 1: crying in your wardrobe, in a puddle of tears on
Speaker 1: a regular basis territory, that's where you go. But once
Speaker 1: you hit that rock bottom, you're acutely aware that as
Speaker 1: hard as this is, and this is what I told
Speaker 1: myself every morning, my mantra while I was meditating, this
Speaker 1: too shall pass, It can only get better. Once I
Speaker 1: was actually able to say the words with complete detail,
Speaker 1: describing the room, the curtains, the time of day, it
Speaker 1: was so specific what my body had held on to
Speaker 1: for so long. It was like the ultimate detox okate.
Speaker 1: It was like a spiritual detox that it just out.
Speaker 2: It came like an exorcism.
Speaker 1: Like an exorcism, and that would only be matched by
Speaker 1: So when you go through these particular cases, and they
Speaker 1: take a long time to get to court, and the
Speaker 1: court process is onerous, but at the time of just
Speaker 1: before sentencing, victims have an opportunity to speak not just
Speaker 1: to the judge, but to the perpetrator who is in
Speaker 1: the dock and express the impact this it's called a
Speaker 1: victim's impact statement, and express the impact that this person
Speaker 1: had on their life. And when it was my time
Speaker 1: to get I elected that yes, I'd like to get
Speaker 1: up and say my peace. But that moment of being
Speaker 1: able to stand up in court and the request is
Speaker 1: that you face the magistrate. And I said to the magistrate,
Speaker 1: your honor, I appreciate that what I have to say
Speaker 1: here is addressed to you, but really it's addressed to him.
Speaker 1: And I turned around and I eyeballed him, and I
Speaker 1: demanded that he look at me, said you look at me.
Speaker 1: Don't you dare look away? You look at me? And
Speaker 1: then I spelled out the imp Did he look at it?
Speaker 2: He did, and he was a man in his seventies.
Speaker 1: In his seventies. And I then spelled out everything he
Speaker 1: had done and laid out for him in the court.
Speaker 1: The jig saw puzzle of my life and how that one?
Speaker 1: That to say one? But it was over numerous years,
Speaker 1: his actions, the consequences for me as a mother, as
Speaker 1: a partner, as a professional, just as a living, breathing
Speaker 1: human being had for the rest of my life. And
Speaker 1: that was the ultimate detox that for me was allowing
Speaker 1: me to shrug off the cross of blame and shame
Speaker 1: and depression and self hatred that I'd carried my entire
Speaker 1: life life for the first time and I literally said,
Speaker 1: I'm dropping this backpack of shame here and you can
Speaker 1: take it back to yourself with you, where I hope
Speaker 1: you rot and die. So harsh words but apt and
Speaker 1: necessary and the ultimate sense of justice. And it's probably hey, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm up here and Byron, and it sounds terribly woo woo,
Speaker 1: but I could literally feel little Melanie by my side,
Speaker 1: and I could feel thousands of women and thousands of
Speaker 1: men who've never had an opportunity to say the words
Speaker 1: to discharge that trauma. I could feel them behind me
Speaker 1: in that moment, and I'll never forget it. It was
Speaker 1: life changing.
Speaker 2: You said in your victim impact statement that you ran
Speaker 2: away from that little girl as far and fast as
Speaker 2: you could and to explain the true impact to him.
Speaker 2: That was your intention, not just on that tiny girl,
Speaker 2: but on the broken woman.
Speaker 1: Yes, that was you when you just you're like a
Speaker 1: Babushka dole and the three internal dolls are being pulled
Speaker 1: out and thrown away, that you're you're fragile. I feel
Speaker 1: like I've lived so much of my life like a
Speaker 1: glass vase that's been shattered to tiny shards but held
Speaker 1: together with nice, glossy, sticky tape. So we're gonna look
Speaker 1: at it and go it looks like a vase, and
Speaker 1: it's shaped like a vase, and it's a beautiful vis
Speaker 1: must be a vavas. But you try to hold any
Speaker 1: substance or any amount of water for any amount of time,
Speaker 1: and it's just going to leak out. And how could
Speaker 1: it be any other way when a crucial component of myself,
Speaker 1: Melanie who I am, was not there. And so from
Speaker 1: that point of leaving the caught that day, I made
Speaker 1: a determination that I will live the life that I
Speaker 1: was destined to live, one of wholeness, one of love,
Speaker 1: one of kindness, understanding, empathy, and appreciation. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to guild the lily. It's hard. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: believe in healing in inverted commons. I believe that you
Speaker 1: learn to tolerate your trauma. I believe you learn to
Speaker 1: navigate your life scars an awareness of yes, with an
Speaker 1: awareness of the scar tissue, and you treat it kindly
Speaker 1: so you don't extend your muscles too hard. If it's
Speaker 1: going to pull and tug, you just very gently give
Speaker 1: yourself a little massage and maybe put a bit of
Speaker 1: balm on it or something like that. But it's about
Speaker 1: for me, being well is making a monumental effort to
Speaker 1: dip my cup into the well of things that I
Speaker 1: do love about me and that I am so grateful
Speaker 1: for having in my life.
Speaker 2: That's not all of my conversation with Madeline West after
Speaker 2: this short break, she tells me how it felt when
Speaker 2: she confronted her abuser.
Speaker 1: What are the things that you love about you that
Speaker 1: I've been blessed with my beautiful children. I love that
Speaker 1: I have a capacity not just for compassion and sympathy,
Speaker 1: but actual empathy that comes from a shared learn experience.
Speaker 1: I do love that. I do love that I have
Speaker 1: a propensity to look on the bright side of life.
Speaker 1: I love that I am a hard worker. Now I
Speaker 1: know that my hard work has been its genesis has
Speaker 1: been got to run, got to run, got to run,
Speaker 1: got to run? So I stop I'm going to feel
Speaker 1: I don't want to feel that. I love that I
Speaker 1: am curious about people in the world and always have been,
Speaker 1: and I do love that throughout my life I've done
Speaker 1: my best to polish a turd.
Speaker 2: I really no matter what the.
Speaker 1: I'm the toilet freshener. Now that I don't for a
Speaker 1: minute reflect on my life with regret. That the things
Speaker 1: that have regretted is pointless. It's like guilt. Guilt is
Speaker 1: just it's just a perfluous It's almost a luxury that
Speaker 1: none of us can afford. You've just got to get
Speaker 1: on with it. And I do believe that I've managed
Speaker 1: to get on with it that yes I haven't been perfect,
Speaker 1: Yes that I've hurt people along the way, certainly not
Speaker 1: with an intention of hurting them, but it's simply not
Speaker 1: really knowing how to best function in most situations. And
Speaker 1: hence why I feel so grateful to be precisely where
Speaker 1: I am now, with this little miracle who was clearly,
Speaker 1: spite all the odds, absolutely destined to be.
Speaker 2: And also, this is the first of your children who
Speaker 2: will come into the.
Speaker 3: World, into this new world, yes, into your new world
Speaker 3: in which you've divested yourself of that cloak of shame
Speaker 3: and heaviness and fear.
Speaker 2: Although obviously, like you said, it's not just a you know,
Speaker 2: it's not a clear excision of those.
Speaker 1: Lines but definitely blurred. But I certainly hope the majority
Speaker 1: of those demons that plagued me earlier on are put
Speaker 1: to rest.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you something that I love about you?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'd love to hear that.
Speaker 2: Obviously there's been your creative gift to the nation. But
Speaker 2: the most extraordinary act of courage and a confluence of
Speaker 2: your acting skills and your desire for justice and you're
Speaker 2: advocating for that little girl who couldn't advocate for herself,
Speaker 2: was when you went to the police and you told
Speaker 2: them was this in twenty twenty eighteen. And I don't
Speaker 2: know how this came about, but you met this incredible.
Speaker 1: Detective Scott Tuttenham, my hero to this.
Speaker 2: Day, and you are a hero to him because of
Speaker 2: what you did. And this will be the subject of
Speaker 2: a movie. Think about who's going to play you. Because
Speaker 2: what you did was to make the case against this
Speaker 2: predator stand up in court. They said that they needed
Speaker 2: his confirmation of what he had done. You put on
Speaker 2: a wire. You went back to that town, to that house.
Speaker 2: He knocked on the door, who opened the door.
Speaker 1: To him and his wife? And we'd purposefully come very
Speaker 1: early in the morning on a public holiday, knowing that
Speaker 1: that gave us the greater chance of actually nabbing him
Speaker 1: or him being home. And he and his wife opened
Speaker 1: the door. And I had done a lot of It's
Speaker 1: almost like researching a character, Kate. I'd done so much
Speaker 1: research on the profile and the psychology of predators that
Speaker 1: I knew, in the first glimpse, the first few seconds
Speaker 1: of confrontation, a criminal will show their truth. And when
Speaker 1: I opened that door, his wife, of course shocked. They
Speaker 1: were both in their dressing gowns, went straight and said, oh, oh, oh, oh, Mel,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? And he was behind her
Speaker 1: shoulder and his face dropped. And I knew in that moment,
Speaker 1: I've got you. You've been waiting, You've been waiting so
Speaker 1: long for one of us to rock up on your doorstep,
Speaker 1: and here I am. And they invited me in, and
Speaker 1: the rest is history.
Speaker 2: Did she go, the wife go to make a cup
Speaker 2: of tea? Did you geek?
Speaker 1: They took me and brought me into the kitchen, said
Speaker 1: let's have a cup of tea. And she then said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get changed into you know, I'm in
Speaker 1: my dressing hown. I just get changed. I said sure,
Speaker 1: and so Peter kept teas back to me and he
Speaker 1: was making tea. I didn't say a word, and I
Speaker 1: just said, look, Peter, it's really you that I've come
Speaker 1: to see because you've played such an important, almost paternal
Speaker 1: role in my life. And I knew from the research
Speaker 1: that i'd done, if you approach a predator from a
Speaker 1: place of understanding, that they're much more likely to open up.
Speaker 1: And I said to him, I just wanted to take
Speaker 1: this time to talk to you because we had such
Speaker 1: a special relationship and I understand that people are sometimes
Speaker 1: driven by needs and wants that not everyone understands, but
Speaker 1: we understand. And I just I felt like I needed
Speaker 1: to talk to you because some of what happened between
Speaker 1: us has impacted me in a really big way in
Speaker 1: my life, and I just feel like I need to
Speaker 1: hear it acknowledged. I just like I feel like I need,
Speaker 1: I need us to talk about that. And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know what you mean. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: when you. You touched me, Peter when you rate me.
Speaker 1: And at that point she walked in and he was
Speaker 1: just standing there with a cup and the tea bag
Speaker 1: kind of frozen, and she said straight away, what's going on,
Speaker 1: What's what's wrong? And I said, well, I just I
Speaker 1: was just talking to Peter because well he used to
Speaker 1: he used to touch me, Leslie, used to rate me.
Speaker 1: And she kind of closed her card again and she went, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I can't imagine him doing anything like that,
Speaker 1: and then grabbed my hands and said, but thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming and talking to us. And we
Speaker 1: then sat down at the table and talked for forty
Speaker 1: five minutes, small small talk, but also I kept coming
Speaker 1: back to and he's react was very much, Oh, I
Speaker 1: can't remember. I might I must have blanked out, But
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that I did that to you. And
Speaker 1: so we just kept that was like on a reel.
Speaker 1: It just kept rolling on, this conversation and his desperation.
Speaker 1: He was in tears at times. I'm so sorry that
Speaker 1: you felt that way, and thank you. Kept thanking me
Speaker 1: for coming and talking to him, which I imagine was
Speaker 1: his way of discharging the fear that I would go
Speaker 1: and speak to someone else. I wrap it up with
Speaker 1: a nice pretty bow. Right now, she won't go anywhere else,
Speaker 1: completely unaware that I had a wire on and with
Speaker 1: the police when in my ear, but they were listening,
Speaker 1: and we continued to talk. We talked about my kids,
Speaker 1: their kids, what everyone was doing, and then they were
Speaker 1: inviting me to come back, let's all have dinner together.
Speaker 1: So I wrapped it up and just by saying, look,
Speaker 1: thank you for a for inviting me into your home,
Speaker 1: but thank you for acknowledging that that makes so many
Speaker 1: things fall into place and just made me feel so
Speaker 1: much better. And that was just bye bye, And I
Speaker 1: walked out the door and nearly collapsed and then got
Speaker 1: to the car and Scott just said, thank you.
Speaker 2: That is.
Speaker 1: Extraordinary, finest piece of acting I've ever done. Maybe, well,
Speaker 1: how's that?
Speaker 2: But you know, it's such a strange thing because if
Speaker 2: you think about and I saw Amanda Lee in the
Speaker 2: sixty minute story that you did about this, she couldn't
Speaker 2: have done it. Those other kids couldn't do it. And
Speaker 2: it's as though your life and the choices that you
Speaker 2: made subsequent to that placed you perfectly with a dose
Speaker 2: of credible as I said, courage to worry out. What
Speaker 2: are the odds? I know? I mean you were talking
Speaker 2: about the statistics of children that are sexually abused, and
Speaker 2: part of what brought that home to you was in
Speaker 2: the wake of you embarking on your own justice, how
Speaker 2: many people approached you or contacted you.
Speaker 1: At its height, I was being approached by between five
Speaker 1: to eight people in the street every day just to
Speaker 1: share their experience. Ada, thank me for my bravery. I
Speaker 1: feel there you go. It's almost like one to put
Speaker 1: inverted commas because I'm too embarrass to own it. Thank
Speaker 1: me for my bravery. But up to this date, since
Speaker 1: first making my initial disclosure publicly, I've had in excess
Speaker 1: of forty thousand, close to fifty thousand Australians who've emailed me,
Speaker 1: messaged me, stop me in the street who have been
Speaker 1: part of my inner outer circle, associates, work colleagues to
Speaker 1: disclose that it happened to them. Now, I'm just one
Speaker 1: person walking around on the planet. If I can be
Speaker 1: a magnet for that degree of disclosures, then how big
Speaker 1: is this issue? I tell you right now, it is
Speaker 1: enormous and it does not get the traction that it deserves.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a little moment here to acknowledge
Speaker 1: my therapist to name was Vada Shepherd, and she was
Speaker 1: a victim of trauma herself, of quite horrific trauma, and
Speaker 1: she taught me how to mitigate my trauma response. Now,
Speaker 1: for those of you, it's become almost a hashtag trauma,
Speaker 1: but for those who've suffered a significant trauma in their
Speaker 1: formative years, it becomes enmeshed in who you are, becomes
Speaker 1: part of You can't rationalize it. All. This thing happened
Speaker 1: to me when I was a child, but that was then.
Speaker 1: This is now. There's a clear distinction for someone who's
Speaker 1: experienced that when they're triggered, you go straight back to
Speaker 1: that place where you're under threat, someone's about to hurt you,
Speaker 1: and you go one of two ways. There's the dorsal
Speaker 1: vagel response, where your body starts goes to sleep, it's
Speaker 1: like the animal rolling over and bearing, exposing its bally
Speaker 1: awesome ye to the predator. Or you go into the
Speaker 1: hypo arousal, where you go a bit nutty, where you're
Speaker 1: in fight or flight. You're doing a million things at once, hyperventilation.
Speaker 2: And I guess which one can I get switch one you.
Speaker 1: Are, I go into drop was in most of my
Speaker 1: I spend most of my functional life in fight or flight.
Speaker 1: All the time. You're mitigating something bad happening. But when
Speaker 1: I'm actually confronted by confrontation or I'm scared or I'm
Speaker 1: under threat, I go into dorsal vagel where I will
Speaker 1: literally fall asleep. And I've been known to be having
Speaker 1: an argument with someone and I will literally drive them batty,
Speaker 1: but I will have literally dozed off. I'll just I'm confronted,
Speaker 1: something bad's going to happen. I just shut down. She
Speaker 1: taught me how to mitigate that. She taught me breathing techniques,
Speaker 1: visualization techniques, physical exercises, almost like preparing to stroll onto
Speaker 1: a stage. And we're talking about vocal warm ups earlier.
Speaker 1: She taught me how to mitigate that. And so when
Speaker 1: we were sitting in a car at five am before
Speaker 1: I went in, I was going into dorsalvagel full, I
Speaker 1: was starting to nod off. I was falling asleep, and
Speaker 1: I said to Scott, I can't do this. I'm just
Speaker 1: not here. I can't do this. And he grabbed my
Speaker 1: hands and he said, Madeline, just act that's what you're
Speaker 1: good at. Pretend that you're a woman who has been
Speaker 1: horrifically wronged. You go in there and you seek justice.
Speaker 1: And I went, oh, okay, I woke up and I
Speaker 1: went I marched in there, and I did what I
Speaker 1: had to do. But I wanted to touch on Varda because
Speaker 1: she and this is quite I've never really spoken about this,
Speaker 1: but she she developed secondary breast cancer whilst my case
Speaker 1: was playing out in court, and she didn't tell anyone
Speaker 1: that she was sick. She just started. She became close
Speaker 1: friends with Scott and his beautiful partner. She was an
Speaker 1: adored mentor to me, and yet suddenly she just sort
Speaker 1: of disappeared off the scene. And she'd send us into
Speaker 1: midten texts just checking on us and telling us how
Speaker 1: much she loved us. And we found out from her daughter.
Speaker 1: The last Varda was coming in out of consciousness and
Speaker 1: Scott had metsage her phone to let her know that
Speaker 1: Peter had pled guilty and was going to jail, and
Speaker 1: she passed away the same day. She'd hold on till
Speaker 1: that last minute, and that very last minute, to ensure
Speaker 1: justice was served, and then she let go, and that
Speaker 1: just breaks my heart. That she didn't tell me. That
Speaker 1: I found out afterwards, and I understand why, but that
Speaker 1: this woman have a fortitude to move through her own
Speaker 1: traumas and assist me to seek justice on behalf of
Speaker 1: so many, she said earlier, who don't have the agency,
Speaker 1: who don't have the opportunity, for all the other victims
Speaker 1: in this case, and all the cases across the centuries,
Speaker 1: and for everyone right here now, living and breathing, who
Speaker 1: has experienced this as a small, defenseless, vulnerable child, for
Speaker 1: me to be able to get up there and get
Speaker 1: justice on behalf of everyone. She waited to ensure justice
Speaker 1: had been served before she let herself go. And for me,
Speaker 1: that's the most important story, at part of.
Speaker 2: The whole story. I mean, it's all important. It's all important.
Speaker 2: And also I imagine from her there was a degree
Speaker 2: also of not wanting to add to what was already,
Speaker 2: what you're already enduring, and what you had to good
Speaker 2: your loin.
Speaker 1: And she knew me too well. She knew that I
Speaker 1: would have cooked up a couple of casseroles and I
Speaker 1: would have been on her doorstep, banging on the door,
Speaker 1: demanding to be let in. And so she chose her path,
Speaker 1: and that path was one of love and support to
Speaker 1: her up right up until her final breath.
Speaker 2: Madeline West, what does the future hold beyond you holding
Speaker 2: your newest baby in three weeks time? What do you
Speaker 2: say for yourself now as you step into the future.
Speaker 1: I see myself living large, laughing loud, loving hard, with
Speaker 1: none of the barriers that stopped me doing that in
Speaker 1: the past. I see me continuing to do the work
Speaker 1: that I do in assisting victims to become not just survivors,
Speaker 1: but you heroes in their own life, to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: you've really you've survived something phenomenal. My focus is very,
Speaker 1: very firmly on being the best mum I can be
Speaker 1: and being the best person I can be to continue
Speaker 1: being a contributing global citizen. I like to feel, in
Speaker 1: my own small way that what I've been through has
Speaker 1: an me to leave a legacy and to act, yeah,
Speaker 1: to continue that work and just being present, really just
Speaker 1: smelling the roses and gosh to have come this far,
Speaker 1: and I have lived a very big life to come
Speaker 1: this far, but to really just be present and to
Speaker 1: appreciate every moment for what it is and stop rushing
Speaker 1: headlong into the future, to be right here, right now,
Speaker 1: and to be so grateful to be right here, right now,
Speaker 1: so to live gracefully and gratefully without apology.
Speaker 2: Oh, Madeline West Melanie, and I embraced that name, that
Speaker 2: little girl she's in Now, I feel like I'm a
Speaker 2: bush godal that is being perfectly put together, and.
Speaker 1: The jigsaw puzzle that makes up my life is complete.
Speaker 2: I cannot thank you enough, not just for sharing your
Speaker 2: story with no filter in our listeners, but also for
Speaker 2: your valiance, proper, proper valiance.
Speaker 1: That is so beautiful. Thank you for that. I would
Speaker 1: have never attached that word to myself and popping that
Speaker 1: in my CV, because I love it. I suppose it's
Speaker 1: a word I wouldn't have associated with myself because valiance
Speaker 1: comes with a really strong image of being armored, you know, armor,
Speaker 1: the white knight riding on his noble steed. And it's
Speaker 1: only now that I've left my armor drop. For so
Speaker 1: many For most of my life, my New Year's resolution
Speaker 1: every year was to pull on the boxing gloves. And
Speaker 1: this year, I'm going to fight. I'm going to fight.
Speaker 1: I'm going to fight. I'm not going to fight anymore.
Speaker 2: Thanks Matt, Thanks.
Speaker 1: Kay, it's been so gorgeous having a chat.
Speaker 2: This is one of the most astounding conversations that I've
Speaker 2: ever had. I said this to Madeline after the interview,
Speaker 2: that I just wanted to thank her for being so
Speaker 2: honest with me and with you, our listeners, and the
Speaker 2: fact that she has allowed so many people to find
Speaker 2: the courage to speak out. She's proven herself to be
Speaker 2: so resourceful, so resilient, and in a word that's bandied
Speaker 2: around far too often, she is the definition of bravery.
Speaker 2: The executive producer of No Filter is Naima Brown, Senior
Speaker 2: producer is Grace U. Sound design is by Jacob Brown,
Speaker 2: and I'm your host, Kate lane Brook. I'll be back
Speaker 2: with you next week. And if this episode brings up
Speaker 2: any hard feelings and you need to talk to someone,
Speaker 2: We've put some links to resources in the show notes.