Ellis: And again, when we met before, didn't you say that you'd taken your child to a psychiatrist?
Jane: Yes. Dr *****(a)
Ellis: Charlie Gairdner's? (Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital)
Jane: No, Princess Margaret's. *****, he was our GP when I was a kid. He was in a family practice down in *****. *****(a), *****(b) and *****(c) this was the surgery. And *****(a) we used to see when we didn't see *****(b) and sometimes *****(c) we saw. And *****(a) had disappeared way back in the 70's. Gone to the country on work - Why would someone in *****(expensive suburb) practice go to the country to practice? - and then had supposedly retrained in that following decade as a psychiatrist and had come back, ended up being ***** at Princess Margaret Children's Hospital (PMH).
Ellis: So you never found out what happened with him during those missing years?
Jane: No, never followed it up.
And he denied that he knew me! The DICKHEAD! That was his stupidest thing to have done. What an idiot! If he had any brain he would have gone, 'Oh yes Jane, Jane *****, of course I remember you.' What an idiot!
Ellis: So when you actually made the appointment to meet him
Jane: I didn't. I went to the sexual abuse unit at Princess Margaret Hospital. They'd given me an appointment. I had to wait 6 weeks. My son had been anally abused, orally abused... both and I rang PMH late at night saying. ' My son has been abused by his father on access.' They said, 'We're very busy at the moment. You can either wait 6 weeks or go to the police.' And I was just terrified. I didn't have any experience with anything. And instead of going to the police...And even I was scared of the police, I even realise I was. I said, 'Oh I'll wait the 6 weeks.' Now my son was so traumatised during those 6 weeks, plus his dad found out. I accused his dad of doing it. So his dad used to hurt my son during those 6 weeks to shut him up. If you tell I'll kill you and all this stuff. By the time the appointment came my son was actually terrified to go there. He didn't see it as a help he saw it, as he'll get killed if he tells.
So we had 3 appointments with PMH because he wouldn't say what had happened. But they knew he had a chaffed anus, there were records, they gave him Zaidocon ointment for his anus and all these things.
And it was Dr ***** (d)-another doctor) that interviewed us and she wanted to say, 'Oh there's nothing there.' But the social worker girl that was in the room said, 'There is something here.' That social worker wasn't corrupt. ***** (d) turned out to be very corrupt. And she, ***** (d) was the one who said, 'Ugh well we'd better get a second opinion. How about we send you through to the psychiatric department of the hospital? -And of course I was just looking for the solution. I didn't care how it came so I went, 'Ok, ok, ok.'
So who do we get but ***** (a)! And I hadn't even remembered the satanic abuse. I had no idea. And when I went into the room I went, 'Oh. Dr *****(a). Remember me?'
Thinking, 'Aaah here's out. We've been saved.' You know. 'This is it.' (laughs)...no.
So he finally... when he interviewed my son I had to go out of the room. And my son came out of the room afterwards and he said, 'Mum I don't like that man's eyes, I don't like that man.' And Dr ***** (a) said, 'Your son wasn't able to tell me anything that confirmed what you've said.' And then he said, " I want to see your ex-husband and you together without your son." And we went in there, and this is the uncanny, weird thing. It was like my ex-husband wanted to be caught because we were sitting together in the chairs and he (Dr *****(a)) was standing over there. And he said, "In my opinion this child is traumatised from the divorce proceedings." And I stood up and went 'NO!' You know because this guy's word was going to be my son's future. And I stood up , just involuntary and went 'NO!' And the weird thing is my ex-husband did exactly the same thing. He stood up and went 'NO!' And I remember thinking, 'You know if you're clever, you'll sit down and go, yes I do too.' He obviously wanted to be caught you know from an emotional place. That he didn't want to do this stuff to his son.
Ellis: And did you talk to him about that?
Jane: My ex-husband?
I continually tried to talk to him about it. But there had been a lot of violence. Like to shut me up he would bash me. That's how he would try to shut my son up as well...well he managed. And for me I hadn't really taken my power back from these people because I didn't understand the big picture. And I was still in this victim mode that if you please the person they will do what you want as well. And instead of like when the police first told me to charge him with assault, I thought, 'Ooh if I charge him with assault then there's less chance of him getting caught for him abusing my son, because I've done something wrong.' So I just have to do all of the right things. So for me to have gone straight to my ex-husband and say to him, 'How come you stood up and said no. Am I right in thinking that you don't want this to go on either?' That would be me with my power. Not afraid of saying the truth of what I really felt. But back then I would have walked out of that room 'blown away' by what Dr *****(a) had said. 'Why is this man so creepy?' 'What's this about?' Instinctively knowing that they are all like my dad. Hiding stuff. And rage that he (ex-husband) was getting away with it again. And panic, 'What am I going to do now?' 'I've exhausted my possibilities of getting help from outside. So instead of actively just stopping and going, 'Ok, I'm going to confront him gently or carefully.' I would have just grabbed my son and just tried to get the hell out of there. So that I could get away and think and you know, 'What am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to do?' I lived in panic. I lived in a state of being out of my body and unable to think in a grounded way. It was like just bouncing off walls. And if I did confront him it would be when he was accusing me of being the cause of my son's pain. And me with that sort of, 'How dare you accuse me?' anger would then get me to say, 'We both know you've abused, anally abused...you know I just used to go the whole hog, we both know you have anally abused our son.' And then he would bash me. It was always in real confrontation.
Ellis: But now your son is older.
Jane: 15, yes. You see my son could never get free of his dad. He said to me many, many times, 'I want to get away.' 'I want to get away.' And I would run away and they would get him back. Like every time my son said to the police, 'I don't want to go with my dad, he's abused me in the bottom.' They'd ring the child abuse unit to get the child abuse unit to come to the police station to stop the court order of turning him over to his dad. Then the abuse unit would say, 'Oh sorry we are too busy. We can't be there.' So the policewoman after promising my son not to hand him over if he told would then hand him over to my ex-husband. And if anyone told my ex-husband what my son had said then he'd get bashed.
Ellis: So how come your son still spends time with his father now?
Jane: That's what I am trying to explain. Psychologically my son... from this age his father snatched him from parks... his father had the police come and take him off me... he, from that age on understood that his father had all the power. I had no power to stop him being hurt. The police couldn't stop him from being hurt. If mum went to court to get a restraining order and the court couldn't stop him. You see my son didn't know how courts operate. He didn't know the courts have corrupt paedophiles who then protect paedophiles. He was just a little baby. So for him in his mind, 'I can't escape my dad. I'd better do what my dad wants.' So it was all like before his dad came to the home it was all, 'I don't want to go, I don't want to go...' And the door, the knock! And he would flip he would change. 'Ah daddy's here!' You know in this really false voice and run to the door. And his dad would pick him up and put him on his hip and you could see *****(son) like this, 'Oh hi Daddy, ' (forced smile).. you know. And he was trained to understand like I was. There's no escape. The only escape I could have showed my son was if maybe I had had this man bashed so that he was too scared to come near us again; or if I had gotten out of that country and, and just disappeared. Which I never managed to do. I never had it sorted. I never had a proper plan.
Ellis: Does your ex-husband come from a well-known family?
Jane: Catholic. Catholic in Adelaide. His father was head of ***** ***** in Adelaide. Is that insurance, *****?
His father was English and his mother was Irish.
When my ex-husband was on a manslaughter charge for killing his mother in a car accident he got him off. He got him off the manslaughter charge, the father did. The charges were dropped. And his father abused him as a baby. His father was an abusive man.
Ellis: Who told you this?
Jane: He told me he hated his father and he used to sob when he was tiny because his mum had to sleep in the same bed as his dad and he felt sorry for her. And he told me he had a real problem with his temper as a child. I mean I saw ***** (son) with that temper problem so I straightaway connected the two. And his father is a creep. His father is a total creep. AndI talk instinctively his father was abused. I get the very strong feeling that he used to abuse ***** (ex-husband) and the elder sister. ***** (ex-husband) is the middle boy. There are two sisters either side. The elder sister he would get possessive about, the father would and he'd call her a whore at the age of 15 if she just wanted to go out like a normal 15 year old would. Not even with a boy! Just go out. 'You whore, you slut.' You know, just really over the top and this girl was a goody-goody that turned rebel because of her father's insults. She wasn't a promiscuous girl. She was straight, you know. What I would consider really straight. So he's a sicko. The kids hate him. The children hate-stroke-love him. The same as ***** (son) hates/loves his dad.
Ellis: What's *****'s (ex-husband's) father's name?
Jane: His name is *****.
Ellis: So you have got a history of abuse in both your families?
Jane: Yes. Through the...definitely through the ***** (paternal line) side and also my mum's dad. He was a weirdo. My mum has a half-sister from her father's second marriage. That woman is one of the most psychologically ill women I know. And the family's riddled with it. (sigh)
