Justice Shouldnt Hurt: Mum Michelle Milthorpe on how child sex abuse victims are treated in court

When Rose Milthorpe was four, she was desperate for her mum, Michelle Milthorpe, to make her a glittery blue superhero costume that would make her invisible.

It seemed like a typical childhood request, one that Michelle was happy to oblige, but just three months later, in October 2013, Rose revealed the harrowing reason why she wanted to disappear.

“It was a Sunday morning like any other,” Michelle, a teacher and mum-of-three from Albury NSW, says.

“Rose woke me up after spending yet another night sleeping in my bed. She was saying, ‘Mum, can I tell you something?’ She must have said it a couple of times before I finally responded.

“The words she said next would change our lives forever.

“My baby girl had only just turned five. We found out that somebody that was close to our family had been sexually abusing Rose and her older sister Pippa, eight, for a number of years.”

Justice shouldn’t hurt, but for children in Australia, it does. The NSW Government knows how to fix this problem, but has failed to do so. That’s why news.com.au is calling for law reform to make it easier for child victims of sexual abuse to give evidence. Join the movement and sign the petition here.

After a distressing, dragged out court case the offender was eventually convicted of six counts of aggravated indecent assault against Pippa Milthorpe. He was acquitted of four charges of aggravated indecent assault in relation to Rose Milthorpe.

To this day the children remain traumatised by what happened during court.

Now, the whole family is speaking out to court-authorised media to reclaim control and demand change to how the criminal justice system treats children.

‘Parallel universe’

That Sunday morning of Rose’s disclosure they had no idea they’d end up fighting the system designed to protect them.

“As a parent, as a mum, I think it’s probably the worst thing you could find out that has been happening to a child,” Michelle says.

“What unfolded next saw us enter a parallel universe. It was like life had jumped track. I’m a mandatory reporter [the legislative requirement for certain people to report suspected child abuse and neglect to government authorities] and in that second my training took over and I went on autopilot for the next six hours of the worst day of my life.

“We knew it was important to keep the girls separated so that we got an ‘uncontaminated’ account from each.”

The police were contacted that day, but because the sisters were now removed from harm Michelle was told they were considered a “low priority”. It would take eight days before a specialist police interview could take place.

“There is an absolute feeling of powerlessness when you are sitting waiting for your child to give a police statement. Most people manage to get through their entire lives without having to ever give a statement. Here Brent and I were, sitting and handing over our precious children – age five and eight – to strangers so that they could detail the most harrowing accounts of events that they should never have had to endure,” Michelle says.

“We were told that nine times out of 10 the police are unable to act on these crimes as the children couldn’t give them enough detail to warrant an arrest.

“Rose tended to just list a whole lot of things that [she said he] had done without providing details like dates and times. The NSW Legal System doesn’t properly acknowledge that the age of the child impacts on the way they recount events.

“She could recall specific details of abuse, but because she couldn’t place them in a recognisable time frame this would ultimately prove costly at trial.”

Justice delayed is justice denied

That first police interview took place in November 2013 and the paedophile was charged later that month.

“We naively thought that once charges were laid, we would then be headed to court,” Michelle says. “But it took us two and a half years to get our day in court. That is a really long period for anyone but especially when you’re five or eight years old.”

During that holding pattern the sisters couldn’t lean on each other, or speak to each other about their evidence and both parents had to be careful in what they said as all were expected to be called as witnesses.

“Even to this day we haven’t read each other’s police statements,” Brent says.

“It’s a long time to spend stuck in a victim state where you have no control over anything and you can’t move on and heal,” Michelle adds. “You’re expected to keep reliving the memory to hold on to the details for court, but you can’t share it.

“When people would ask ‘what have you been up to?’ our answer was always the same. We were waiting.”

‘Paedophiles can be charming, charismatic, caring and kind’

For Michelle and Brent this time spent in limbo gave torturous opportunity to trawl through memories, retracing their steps seeking any red flags or signs of abuse.

“Paedophiles can be charming, charismatic, caring and kind,” Michelle says. “That’s all part of their plan to win over the whole family, not just the children.

“All of a sudden I was seeing things in a new light and realising that there were so many clues – moments in time that I reflect on and wish I’d been able to knit them together to form a whole pattern sooner than I did.

“Our kids stayed at [the abuser’s] home if we had to go away or on the occasional night out.

“Then there were the UTI’s (urinary tract infections) the girls sometimes got. In isolation none of these things were out of the ordinary. It’s only when you piece it together that the puzzle is complete.”

One of the most devastating reframings is Michelle’s recollection of Rose’s desire to be a superhero.

“When she was four she’d been desperate for me to make her a superhero costume so one day we made our way down to the local fabric store, bought some blue material, some glittery paints, cardboard for a face mask, and we set about making her a costume,” Michelle says.

“That’s how Super-Rose was born and she wore her costume at home and was so very proud of herself.”

“The next day she went to [the offender’s] house for a playdate wearing her cape. That afternoon when I picked her up, Rose was cranky. When we got home she ripped her cape out of her bag, stomped on it and shouted at me that ‘it didn’t work’. I had no idea what she was talking about. Rose told me that her cape was meant to make her invisible but ‘he could still find me!’

“I naively thought she had been playing hide and seek.”

This was in July 2013, just three months before disclosure.

Brent has his own haunted memories: “One day I went to pick Rose up and arrived earlier than expected. I remember the look on his face. I’m certain that I turned up either just before or just after something had happened. She was hiding under a table in the backyard and seemed relieved to see me.”

The girls were also remembering more.

“One of the more heartbreaking things Pip told me,” Michelle says, “happened during one of the last times the girls had been staying there. He came in and tried to take Rose. Pippa knew what he was planning to do to her, so she sent Rose out of the room and sacrificed herself for her little sister instead.”

“Even now the girls will recount an experience that was different to the ones that they originally spoke to the police about. It’s not that their story changes – these are additional incidents they have remembered,” Michelle says. “I believe this is because they process things in stages. Stages of development, stages of grief, stages of understanding, stages of acceptance. This is a pattern that I expect will continue for life.”

‘Worst day of my life but their world got safer’

As time drew on, the family began to create their ‘new normal’. Monday was no longer dance day, but sexual abuse counselling day.

Glen 20 was banned from the home so as not to remind the girls of the smell of the offender’s house.

Michelle and Brent huddled their children in close, drawing a protective ring around the family.

To this day they find it hard to look at photos taken before October 27, 2013: Disclosure Day. But Michelle regularly reminds herself that while that date represents the “worst day of her life,” for her children that was the day things “got a little bit better”.

“Early on a counsellor helped me to realise that while my world jumped track on that day, their world got safer,” Michelle says. “That was the day, things changed and we could now protect them.”

Then came the devastating development that the offender had also been charged with indecently assaulting two other children.

Then one by one, those charges were all dropped. One child, at age four was deemed too young to give evidence. The second would eventually withdraw halfway through the pre-trial after a day of brutal cross examination left her broken.

“I remember us attending a birthday party with a number of friends all with little kids,” Michelle says. “I remember glancing over at Brent and the despair in his eyes will haunt me forever as he watched our friend’s little girls running around doing little girl things in their fairy dresses. He got up, seemingly without warning, and left the party as he couldn’t cope with what we had so abruptly lost.”

The reminders are everywhere

One of the many challenging aspects of preparing for a sexual abuse trial, is that you do not do so in a cultural vacuum. Living in a small town means that there are reminders everywhere. Certain streets and cafes become off limits. Foods once enjoyed are now impermissible.

Then there are the reminders of things which haven’t happened yet: the things still yet to come.

During 2014, as the girls continued to wait for the trial, two particularly high profile paedophilia cases hit the news.

The first was that of Robert Hughes, a now convicted sex offender who had played the father figure on the hit show Hey Dad! In May 2014, the matter went to court and he was eventually found guilty.

The second was Rolf Harris, a children’s entertainer who was also convicted just a few months later and sentenced to five years and nine months jail.

“Around that time, I remember comments from colleagues and acquaintances when newspapers were left out on tables,” Michelle says.

“They would say things like: ‘Oh look another one has just come forward to get her 15 minutes of fame’, ‘Why would she wait all that time to come forward? There must be a payout in it!’, ‘He’s so old, why would you put him in jail now? That doesn’t seem fair?’

“I heard these comments in public, at work, in the media and on social media, often by people who had no idea of the prevalence or impact of sexual abuse.”

And of course Michelle and Brent would worry about what their own girls would face when they eventually got their case in court.

Off to court

By the time the matter went to court in April 2016, Rose had spent more than one third of her life being forced to wait.

The case was initially intended to be held in their home town of Albury, but after several delays and the girls running into the offender in the court foyer, the case was moved to Sydney.

“I expected that the justice system would re-empower our kids,” Michelle says. “I was convinced that justice would be served. But instead it traumatised them.”

First a jury member fell asleep forcing the then seven-year-old Rose to give evidence a second time.

Then the support person from Albury was let go due to lack of funding.

A replacement support person – who the girls had never met before – was brought in but she too was let go, for making eye contact and smiling at the girls.

Initially neither parent was allowed in the courtroom as they were both expected to appear as witnesses. Consequently each day, children who were not deemed old enough to cross the road by themselves, would be dropped off into the hands of strangers at the back of the Downing Centre court.

Then came cross examination.

Pippa, then aged 11, would be kept on the stand for days on end.

“Five days is a long time in anyone’s book,” Brent says, adding that he now finds it “very hard to call it a ‘justice’ system”.

“Look, it’s a ‘legal system’ at best.”

“For days my children were victimised by bully men in wigs who demonstrated further to my kids that men in positions of power should not be trusted,” Michelle says.

“I was so naive as to what could be said and done to our children. They were harassed, intimidated and called liars. It was bully behaviour. There was a point during the trial where I actually turned to the detective and I said, ‘I want that judge and that defence barrister charged with the emotional abuse of my children’.”

We need 20,000 signatures today. Join the movement and sign the petition here.

The Defence’s attrition strategy appeared to be working. The charges were reduced and other complainants fell away.

“In our situation there were two other girls [involved], but we lost them during the process” Brent says. “One was deemed too young for the prosecution to take the stand – she was five – and the second one got broken during the pre-trial process, which, you know, that’s not on them at all: that’s on the legal system.”

As the trial dragged on, the family were forced to live out of suitcases in Sydney for a total of five weeks.

“As bad as the abuse was, that was outside our control. The legal system is meant to protect children. It’s meant to be there to secure justice. But it completely traumatised them, even more so than the abuse in some ways,” Brent says.

Finally, the offender was convicted of six of eight charges against Pippa. Those against Rose – who had been the first to speak up – were ultimately dismissed due to her age.

The paedophile was immediately bailed. Five months later, in September that year, he was sentenced to three years nine months jail but released after two years and six months and returned back to the same town the girls continue to live in.

Justice Shouldn’t Hurt

The Milthorpe family is now fighting for change. Earlier this year, both children took their fight to be able to tell their story under their real names back to court and won.

The process of applying for a court exemption took several months and cost about $45,000 in legal work which was covered by news.com.au and the LetUsSpeak campaign, which you can donate to here.

Now, they have thrown their weight behind the expansion of a program designed to make court less traumatic for children.

They have also launched a petition to make the Child Sexual Offence Evidence Program available across all of NSW, and not just in Sydney and Newcastle.

“No one wants to see kids put through a hard time,” Brent says. “The solution is there, it just needs to be implemented.”

Michelle firmly agrees.

“Our children deserve better than what is currently happening to them. Why are some children still being allowed to be traumatised by a system that’s not working? I don’t know how the Attorney-General can be OK with that.”

The program is only available in Newcastle and Sydney. In 2018, the NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakmen promised to expand the program, but that has yet to happen.

“Why isn’t it being rolled out to every child in NSW?” asks Michelle. “That’s not fair for country kids. It’s not fair that children are not treated equally. They have already been through the worst experience, they should not be traumatised further by the legal system.

“As a community we want people to sign our petition that says that the Child Sexual Offence Evidence Scheme should be rolled out to all children in New South Wales. We need 20,000 signatures for the issue to be debated in parliament.

Today, in support of the Milthorpe family, news.com.au is exclusively launching the Justice Shouldn’t Hurt campaign. Over the coming days we will publish the views of experts, academics, survivor advocates, police and others, all of whom are echoing the call for the program to be rolled out across all of NSW.

Michelle and Brent both say that they are extremely proud of their children. “It’s been six years since the court case. Our girls have endured so much but they are both determined to make lemonade from lemon,” Michelle says.

“We are so proud of all they are doing and are here to support them today, just as we have through this whole journey”, Brent adds.

Join the movement and sign the petition here.

Nina Funnell is a Walkley Award winning journalist and sexual assault survivor advocate who has created the Justice Shouldn't Hurt Campaign in exclusive partnership with news.com.au.

Contact us: ninafunnell@gmail.com

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