A Mother's Story

by Rosie Batty

  I was horrified. At the very mention of those two words – child pornography – my mind began racing, suddenly reassessing every interaction Greg had had with Luke since he was a little boy. The overnight stays, the camping trips, the pool parties. I felt nauseous. Was Greg grooming him? Had he been inappropriate with any of Luke’s friends? Had he exposed Luke to things no child should ever be exposed to?

  And suddenly cast in a new light were all the derogatory comments, overtly sexual comments by Greg about me and the men who had been in my life. The vile intimations about them sharing a bath with Luke, the hideous aspersions about sharing a bed: they all made sense now. They were simply a reflection of his own sick mind. His own dark inner thoughts.

  I leaned forward and hissed at Prosecutor Treverton that I had changed my mind: in light of this new revelation, I wanted to withdraw any access Greg had to Luke.

  Magistrate Goldsborough seemed to be shocked too. Suddenly, everyone in the courtroom, except for Greg and his lawyer, seemed to be performing mental gymnastics to recalibrate everything they understood this case to be about. A short adjournment was called so I could speak with Prosecutor Treverton. He took me to a private meeting room and closed the door.

  ‘Did you know about this?’ he asked, incredulous.

  ‘No! I’m more shocked than anyone,’ I said. ‘I feel sick about it. Why didn’t I know this? Why wasn’t I told?’

  ‘Well, it changes everything,’ he continued. ‘I’m going to press for no contact at all.’

  Feeling a small ripple of validation, I agreed. I didn’t want Greg to have direct contact now although I would be prepared to allow phone contact.

  Back in court, the magistrate gave her ruling. The IVO was to be varied after all, giving Greg access to Luke at sporting events, ‘such as cricket, Little Athletics and football’ where he was permitted to ‘speak to Luke in the company of others’. Telephone contact was not allowed.

  Prosecutor Treverton saw me sitting defeated in the courtroom foyer afterwards and urged me to contact a law firm. He explained how, because the child pornography charges had not yet been heard by a court of law, Greg had to be considered innocent until proven otherwise. Magistrate Goldsborough had acted to the full extent the law allowed her to. It seemed to me that the law was there to protect everyone else but the likes of Luke.

  He further explained that if I wanted permanent change to the custody and access arrangements for Luke, I would need to initiate Family Court proceedings.

  In an email the following day to the psychologist who had been recommended to me, I wrote: ‘It was a hideous day in court. Was there from 9.30 am until about 4.30 pm. I was emotional and angry at everyone and didn’t handle myself well.

  For a week or so following the court appearance, I withheld from Luke the news that his father was facing child pornography charges. I didn’t know how to tell him. I was also conscious that he was still angry with me for betraying his dad to the police in the first place. Finally, I figured it was better that he heard it from me than from someone else. Following my experience with my mother’s death, I’ve always felt strongly that children needed to be kept informed.

  ‘So Dad’s a paedophile as well as everything else?’ Luke responded with an air of defeat when finally I sat him down and told him. I was taken aback. I wasn’t aware he even knew the meaning of the word. The news threw him into a funk.

  A week or so later, he was still moping about. Normally happy-go-lucky (in spite of the turmoil that seemed constantly to surround him), he became sullen and detached. One evening he had returned from school particularly flat.

  I asked him what was wrong, expecting to receive the standard response, ‘Nothing.’

  But instead, he slumped at the kitchen table and told me he ‘hated’ his life and didn’t see the point of being alive. ‘I might as well commit suicide,’ he said.

  His words cut me to the quick. I was thrown into a blind panic. How did he even know about suicide? Where had he come across it as a concept? And how bad did an eleven-year-old’s life need to be for him to consider it? It broke my heart.

  Several days later, I took Luke to the first of his art therapy sessions. They had been recommended as the best way to determine how much he was being affected by traumatic events in his life, because he might express in drawings things he was unable to otherwise find voice for. Luke was initially reluctant to attend, but dutifully trotted off into the therapist’s private office once we arrived.

  I wasn’t informed at the time, because what happened in the sessions was private between Luke and his therapist, but I would learn later that Luke’s ideations of suicide – as immature and undeveloped as they were – were symptomatic of a wider malaise. He had been carrying so much for so long, it was bound to have an effect on him.

  He sat and scribbled as the therapist gently asked him about his life. He said he was worried about me: about the stress I was under, trying to pay the bills, trying to manage his father, trying to keep up a brave face for his sake. He said he was embarrassed by his father, aware of his mental health issues, and he fretted about the effect they had on his friends. He wasn’t able to share any of his worries with his mates because he worried they would judge him for it.

  He told the art therapist that he felt ‘responsible’ for his father’s wellbeing, adding, ‘I think I am the only thing he is living for.’ He said he worried that his father might have to go to jail, because he had hurt people in the past, including me. And Luke said that he had witnessed some of that violence. He said he wasn’t scared that his father would hurt him: he had never felt in danger. But, chillingly, he was worried that I was going to be hurt, and possibly killed.

  When I later heard about it, it struck me what a burden that had been for a little boy. And also how emotionally mature my son had been. Only eleven and able to give expression to these most profound, disturbing truths. My heart ached.

  Even my strategy of keeping Greg engaged with Luke’s sporting activities was backfiring. I had naïvely believed if Greg could interact with Luke and the other parents in his various sporting clubs, it would force him to behave normally in the company of others, and show Luke what it meant to have a normal father.

  But Greg’s mental state was deteriorating, and on a couple of occasions he quoted passages from the Bible to other dads. Luke was mortified. Increasingly, too, parents of other children became aware of the IVOs out against Greg and my ongoing court battle to restrict his access to Luke. Understandably, they were none too excited that this man who had been arrested multiple times for assault was a semi-permanent presence in their own children’s lives. Most parents were supportive of me, but unsurprisingly, they began to ostracise Greg and alienate him from club activities.

  It all reached a climax without me even knowing.

  Around this time, the mother of a boy on Luke’s footy team approached me while the boys were playing, annoyed that I hadn’t told her that Greg had threatened the coach with a knife.

  ‘He did what?’ I replied, astounded. ‘But I had no idea! Nobody told me!’

  It turned out that the coach had wanted Luke to play ruck, but Luke didn’t want to play ruck. Greg had stepped in and told the coach under no circumstances was Luke going to play ruck – to which the coach quite rightly replied something to the effect of, ‘Mate, I’m the coach, I’ll play Luke wherever I think is best.’

  Greg’s response had been to stare down the coach before saying something along the lines of, ‘I have a knife with your name on it,’ and stalking back to his car.

  I confronted the coach about it. ‘You have to tell me when these things happen,’ I implored. ‘I need to know these things so I can protect myself and my son. You might not think it important, but that sort of thing needs to be reported to the police.’

  Of course, it was exactly the kind of information I should have a right to know. The child porn charges were another case in point. DSC Andrew Cocking had known about the charges but had ac
ted to the letter of the law by respecting Greg’s privacy. However, surely in circumstances such as mine, there are mitigating factors that should be taken into account. Clearly DSC Cocking felt constrained by Victoria’s privacy laws.

  Why, I wondered, did the law regard my right as a mother determined to protect her son as less important than Greg’s right to privacy? If it were the child of a police officer or politician, for example, would he or she have thought it acceptable for authorities to withhold that sort of information?

  Now that the child porn charges were out in the open, the law firm that Prosecutor Treverton recommended suggested I contact Child Protection and inform them of the latest developments. Child Protection agreed that Luke’s file ought to be reopened (but only at my suggestion – at no point did there appear to be any official passing of information or referral of a possible child sex offence to Child Protection, oddly enough).

  While they arranged for further investigation, they visited me at home and asked me to sign a written undertaking that I would ensure Luke was protected at all times. I knew that if I could not guarantee Luke’s safety, they would be within their rights to remove him from my care.

  ‘I will not allow Luke to have any unsupervised access with Greg,’ the document read. ‘I understand that supervision means that Luke will be in my line of sight at any time. I will not allow Greg to take photographs of Luke. If I become aware of Greg taking photographs of any child, I will notify Child Protection and/or the police.’

  A second meeting was then scheduled, again at our house. Child Protection had already been in contact with DSC Cocking, requesting further information, specifically the nature of the porn (it was images of young girls) and whether its possession ought to be cause for concern. On the morning of 5 September 2013, Child Protection officer Tracie Portelli and DSC Deborah Charteris from the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team of the Victorian Police arrived on my doorstep. It was just after breakfast, so Luke was taking the morning off school. Not wanting to be the helicopter mother sitting there prompting him throughout his interview, I left the three of them at the kitchen table and retired to the home office space nearby, where I pretended to be working. I nevertheless listened proudly as Luke as summoned all his maturity to speak to the adults as equals.

  He was trying to be mature in his little way, by holding himself upright in his chair, using language beyond his years and displaying overt politeness towards the strangers, bless him.

  ‘Do you know what Child Protection is? What kind of work we do?’ came the first question.

  ‘Your job is to make sure that kids are safe,’ Luke replied.

  ‘That’s right. And do you know why we are here to speak to you?’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. What about Mum. Tell me about Mum?’

  ‘She’s mostly good. Though she can have anxiety attacks.’

  ‘Tell me about that.’

  ‘I don’t like it when Mum gets sad,’ Luke said. I felt a pang.

  ‘What causes this?’

  ‘When she thinks too much. Like, how are we going to pay our taxes, how are we going to care for the animals.’

  ‘How does this make you feel?’

  ‘I want to help Mum. I am okay if we need to move house.’

  ‘What caused Mum to feel this way?’

  ‘Dad hit Mum. Probably this. Then Mum moved jobs. It’s hard and there’s not enough money.’

  ‘Tell me about Dad.’

  ‘I was age three, Dad wanted to take me away from Mum. Dad put me in a room. I peered around the corner. Dad slammed Mum’s head on the wall. Mum ran to the neighbour’s house. I remember all of this.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Mum then got scared, we got anxious around Dad. If we ever saw him again, I worried that he could hit Mum. There are two sides to Dad, he can be nice and then angry.’

  There was silence as the officers took notes. And then, as if to ensure they were not getting the wrong idea, Luke said: ‘Dad is good. He always has a smile on his face.’ Before adding, with what I am sure was a despondent tone: ‘I am the only thing that is good for Dad.’

  ‘Tell me about Dad getting angry,’ said one of the women.

  ‘He makes his own cigarettes, then he starts praying. He is Christian and he acts a bit different. He would see stuff. He does not talk to me. He just prays really. When he is praying, in his head he is okay.’

  There was silence again, and then I could hear Luke choking back tears. I wanted to run to him, to comfort him, but fought the urge.

  ‘How do you feel about Dad?’ Tracie asked.

  ‘I love him to bits,’ Luke said through tears.

  ‘Are there bits about Dad that are not so good?’

  ‘He acts different, he starts praying and walks off. I get a bit embarrassed about Dad.’

  One of the officers asked if he ever felt scared of his dad. Luke said he had never been frightened of Greg.

  ‘Have you ever felt uncomfortable around your dad?’ came the question from one of the women.

  ‘There was this one time,’ Luke began, describing the scene in the car when Greg produced the knife. ‘Dad picked up a knife and said, “It could all end with this.”’

  ‘Tell me about this.’

  ‘We were in Mornington, next to the beach in the parking area. He lost himself. He didn’t know what he was doing, really.’

  ‘Tell me about this.’

  ‘Dad used to be a carpenter. He has tools in his car. He uses the knife to open stuff, like, he will buy me Lego. He cuts up apples with the knife. Dad was praying. I was on my iPad. He didn’t ask for a turn for a bit, then he said, “It could all end with this. Cain has spoken.” I felt that he was going to kill me.’

  I felt sick and relieved all at the same time. Finally, someone other than me was being made aware of the danger my little boy and I were in.

  The officers asked why Luke felt he might be killed.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he replied, starting to go cool on the idea of betraying his father to these two strangers. ‘I have heard some stuff. Friends watched some things on TV like Nightmare on Elm Street – that sort of stuff.’

  DSC Charteris pressed Luke, asking him if he thought Greg would hurt him.

  ‘I felt he was going to hurt himself, not me,’ Luke replied.

  I came out from where I was sitting, unable to remain quiet any longer. ‘But that’s not the only thing he said, is it Luke?’ I ventured, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. ‘Your dad also mentioned going to another world together, didn’t he?’

  At this Luke became suddenly upset. ‘Mum!’ he said, raising his voice and making me jump. ‘Why do you have to say these things? He didn’t say that.’ He glared at me. ‘I can’t remember anything else.’

  And with that, he shut down. I had betrayed a confidence – crossed an invisible line. For whatever reason, whether he thought my interjection was somehow an affront to his own powers of recollection or whether out of loyalty to his father, Luke had put me back in my place.

  I understood from the stares of both Portelli and Charteris that I wasn’t helping matters, and so I retreated again, to let the interview conclude without me. It was just that the thought of Child Protection once again leaving with the impression that all was actually well in our world, and that Greg was not the clear and present danger I had been making him out to be, was too horrible to contemplate. We needed help. We couldn’t fight this man on our own. What was it going to take for someone to take our cries for help seriously?

  I would later learn that they did take Luke at his word, concluding in their case notes that he was not in any danger from his father.

  In the days after her meeting with Luke, DSC Charteris had a meeting with her superior, Detective Sergeant Peter Drake. Luke was not, according to DSC Charteris, in any grave danger. There was no evidence of any offence or a threat to kill having been committed by Greg a
nd Luke did not appear to live in fear of his father. They substantiated that Luke had been harmed by family violence but, because I was a protective parent who had agreed to a plan, they took no further action to protect Luke, and never participated to support my efforts to strengthen protections for Luke and myself. They never interviewed Greg, and in October 2013, the case was closed.

  Four days after Luke’s interview, I was back at Frankston Magistrates Court to seek a variation on the IVO. I wanted it tightened, to limit Luke’s exposure to Greg to football and cricket. Greg had been exploiting the fuzzy language of the existing IVO, showing up to Luke’s Scout Hall, hanging around as he came and went from Scouts in the dark. I wanted to bring an end to it.

  I arrived at the court to two pieces of bad news. The first was that the presiding magistrate was going to be Magistrate Holzer – not Magistrate Goldsborough. The second was that upon learning that I was planning to ask for a change in the wording, limiting him to attend football and cricket only, Greg had shouted abuse at the police prosecutor, Diana Davidson, and stormed out of the courthouse.

  Magistrate Holzer called my case and, once again, I was in a courtroom, feeling sheepish and apologetic. Clearly annoyed that Greg had not fronted for the hearing, Holzer indicated he was inclined to adjourn the hearing until such time as Greg was present. I felt the panic rising in me. Greg was playing the system to maximum effect and each time I was being left vulnerable. I refused to be stymied once again by ridiculous court process.

  As Prosecutor Davidson explained my desire to change the IVO to exclude Scouts, Magistrate Holzer spoke of his own experience of Scouts and the level of adult supervision that was provided. I felt that the inference from the judge was that if Greg could attend cricket and football matches to see his son, he couldn’t see why he should not also attend Scouts.

  I began fidgeting in my seat. As he continued to spar with the police prosecutor, I got the impression that he considered me a troublemaker, that I was some kind of harridan determined to prevent the father of my child from enjoying his God-given rights to see his son.