THE TIP OF THE BRIMSTONE - PART 2
In my most recent efforts – in a thirty year battle –
to file an official complaint regarding the extreme violence, defamation,
stalking, harassment and psychological hell that has been inflicted on me and
several other relatives by a number of other relatives and a step-father, I
have been informed that the only thing that the police can actually address is
the matter of child abuse.
For the record, I am utterly stunned that the police have no interest in matters concerning stalking, harassment, defamation, fraud, thefts, drink-driving resulting in death (in which the perpetrator has never even been questioned let alone officially reported), interfering with the Federal postal service, elder abuse, incredibly disturbing activities conducted by a man whose behaviour toward young women and children is unpleasant to say the least, and what is clearly a suspicious death.
For the record, I am utterly stunned that the police have no interest in matters concerning stalking, harassment, defamation, fraud, thefts, drink-driving resulting in death (in which the perpetrator has never even been questioned let alone officially reported), interfering with the Federal postal service, elder abuse, incredibly disturbing activities conducted by a man whose behaviour toward young women and children is unpleasant to say the least, and what is clearly a suspicious death.
For thirty years I have been advised to remain silent
on these matters or risk being charged and sued for defamation. In my most
recent efforts to report these matters, Constable Long is the only person who
has agreed to look at some of the correspondence that I have exchanged that
demonstrates the volatility of the situation, suspicious behaviours by those at
fault and supporting evidence confirming abuses. Sadly, due to time constraints
and the sheer volume of material, his response is similar to others who have
not even asked to see this documentation: there is not enough evidence.
I have encountered this response far too often. It is
combined with people only willing to look at incident in isolation. When one
covers one’s eyes either completely or to look through only a tiny gap, then
yes, it is easy to claim there is nothing to see. However, when one looks at
the bigger picture, the history and repeated and linked incidents, and
considers the effects these have on the victims, then suddenly, one can see
that there is more than enough evidence for an investigation.
Constable [DELETED] has given me this benefit of the
doubt and asked me to put together a Timeline of Abuse. In its simplest form it
is this: I was brutalised with physical and psychological violence every day of
my life by my mother and then by her second husband, as well as by my father on
a number of the few occasions he bothered to make time for me. However, since I
am required to provide specific incidents in as much detail as possible then I
will attempt to provide at least one that really stands out for each year,
along with the effects to present a kind of victim impact statement too. Be
careful what you wish for. It may be inconvenient to read through it all, but
not half so much as to live through it.
This is no easy task. I’ve spent most of my life
trying to forget what was done to me and having to repeat my account multiple
times to people who use words like “allegations”, “story” and “tale of woe” in
their indifferent, disbelieving and often mocking responses. These attitudes
make dealing with this even harder. I would like it on record that I am
particularly disturbed by the callous nature of so many people who are supposed
to help but instead treat the victim as if they are a liar and demand
indisputable proof only to set the bar higher at every stage until the victim
cannot comply. If only victims were afforded the same right of being considered
innocent until proven to be at fault that those who inflict themselves on
others receive.
The only encouragement a victim has when they try to
get someone to take an official statement is that there is a (small) provision
for balance of probabilities where documented evidence cannot be provided. Most
predators do not allow their victims to document the abuse they inflict. In my
case, I have no documented evidence. What I do have is history and
correspondence on my side that show the nature and behaviour of those who have
done these things, in addition to corroborating entries therein, that would
cause any reasonable person to be suspicion and ask questions. What I need is
for someone to consider this report with an open mind instead of one predicated
on a desire not to believe, and for them to ask the same questions that I’ve
asked here and for decades.
So, I shall begin to make a nice, neat timeline with
as many specifics as possible so that it can be – I have little doubt – filed
away and everyone else can feel better about what happened as they burry my
report forever. I often wonder how many victims of animals like Rolf Harris,
Robert Hughs, Jimmy Savile and their ilk may have been spared if this attitude
toward victims of crime was eradicated. There appears to be some kind of mental
blockage in the agencies that deal with this problem. It seems the police and
public servants are unable to overcome the attitude that policy dictates the
response to child abuse ends when the victim reaches the age of eighteen. This
Timeline of Abuse, for example, is supposed to deal only with incidents before
that age, but I want to make a point by continuing the Timeline to demonstrate
the flaw in that approach.
There is no magical age where the assault and
psychological abuse just stop. It keeps going until somebody stops it. My
Timeline of Abuse, therefore, does not end with me turning eighteen. The only
distinction is that the physical and psychological assaults and defamation stop
being classified as child abuse and become the same crimes inflicted on an
adult. According to the police and other authorities I have spoken with, none
of these criminal acts inflicted upon me and the others I have mentioned are
actually criminal acts and, as such, are not matters for the police to deal
with. I beg to differ and I want it on record so that whoever reads this
statement can see for themselves the consequences of not only doing nothing,
but of forcing victims to remain silent. My Timeline of Abuse therefore
includes references to these other criminal activities because, in many cases,
they are tied into the neglect, assaults and child abuse. The failure to
address these incidents has led to several of the victims assimilating and
implementing the same anti-social behaviours.
The key message in this statement is that the failure
to act and systemic efforts to silence me (and I have no doubt, too many
others) has concealed and enabled both the initial predators and those within
the public service who have inflicted harm and injustice on others; because
they have not been exposed, there has been no effort made to address the problems
and deter such behaviour, so nothing has changed. The Royal Commission into
Institutional Responses to Child Abuse seems only interested in sexual abuse
perpetrated by the Churches and Salvation Army, and yet it will not even
consider other forms of abuse, the role of the failure within the public
services, or the application of the same recommendations to all institutions
involved with children. Indeed, the investigators just told me my situation
isn’t of use or interest to them, and they made no effort to forward it on to
any other authority or offer help beyond the standard “if you need to talk to
someone” banality.
1975
I was born [DELETED]. My name was ‘Lee’. The earliest
events I can remember begin when I was about two years old. ‘Lilith’ (previously
named [DELETED]) was the woman listed on my Birth Certificate as my mother. She
rented a house in Paynesville. I do not know the address. I was too young to
read and write and details like that weren’t important to me at the time. It
was just “the house”. I remember it having a fence comprised of diamond-pattern
mesh supported by timber posts with a top rail that were coated with cracked,
peeling white flakes of paint
The family across the road were the [DELETED]. The
father was called ‘Ray’, a local mechanic from what ‘Lilith’ said. They had two
or three kids that looked just like him. Dark hair, olive skin and dark eyes.
All chubby little folk. There was talk of the mother being pregnant around the
time ‘Lilith’ gave birth to ‘Micah’, her second son. ‘Ray’ often visit ‘Lilith’
during lunch breaks and after work to ask if she needed anything. As far as I
can remember, he’d done that for years. I’d get sent outside to play with the
dog, a Labrador called ‘Patroclus’ when he came over. Things got heated between
‘Lilith’ and ‘Ray’s’ wife when ‘Micah’ was born.
‘Claud’ was never there. He was listed as my father on
my Birth Certificate. ‘Lilith’ claims they lived in [DELETED] (near Melbourne)
and separated soon after her second son was born in [DELETED], but ‘Lilith’s’
mother, ‘Sharleen’, told me a very different version. ‘Sharleen’ said ‘Claud’
and ‘Lilith’ had separated three months after they were married. I was born
three months later. ‘Lilith’ raised me on stories of how ‘Claud’ was violent,
abusive, how he would get drunk, beat and rape her, how he was constantly
trying to manipulate and control people, and would forever fornicate with other
women, many still in their teens. He was only 19 when they married. She was 21.
‘Claud’ worked, for a time, as a police officer in the [DELETED] police station
until his indiscretions (according to ‘Lilith’) caught up with him. She said
angry fathers would come banging on her door, shouting abuse, threats and
accusations about him forcing himself on their daughters, even after she and
‘Claud’ separated. ‘Lilith’ claimed it was the three young girls, pregnant, and
their fathers making complaints to the police station where he worked, that
finally got ‘Claud’ discharged.
I don’t know if that’s true. ‘Claud’ refuses to speak
about his past. He becomes aggressive if the matter is raised and pursued. He
refuses to reveal the identities - or even confirm the existence of – his other
children. In [DELETED], ‘Claud’s’ younger brother ‘Jeff’ confirmed in an email
that there’s at least one, now two, and maybe more other children. He named one
as ‘James’, the son of ‘Karen’, but thought he might be a few years younger than
me. ‘Claud’ finally admitted he had one other son, but denied these
details ‘Jeff’ provided were true and refused to elaborate on the matter
despite claiming to be a changed man. Given ‘Claud’s’ cavalier nature regarding
women and the truth, however, it seems more than likely he was lying. ‘Jeff’
later made several unfounded accusations and threats in a subsequent email, his
previously friendly nature changed for no apparent reason. It seems he probably
spoke with ‘Claud’ and the pair of them are still manipulating, controlling and
bullying people to conceal things they don’t want revealed about them. I often
wonder why.
If you knew even half of what I know this kind of
behaviour would raise some serious concerns and questions. In any case, back in
1975, ‘Lilith’ had begun to take her frustrations out on me to punish ‘Claud’
for what she claimed ‘Claud’ had done to her, and he couldn’t have cared less.
My first memories are of my grandparents, and of being beaten by [‘Lilith’].
Not smacked, but flogged with whatever came to her hands at the time. As I have
said, these were not isolated incidents, but occurred almost every day, and the
days they didn’t were filled with the terror it would happen.
‘Lilith’ spent most of her time drinking coffee,
smoking Alpine Cigarettes and reading trashy pulp fiction romance novels by
Mills and Boon. As dusk fell, she’d hit the alcohol. A whole cardboard box of
cheap Coolabah Moselle wine. By midnight she’d be drunk, passed out in front of
the radiator heater with her legs burning inches from its front panel, and
music blasting from her record player, usually the Beatles or Elvis Presley.
This pattern of behaviour wouldn’t change for a decade, and then returned after
a break of about seven years.
I didn’t eat very often. My day consisted of getting
sent outside to play with the dog, and ‘Lilith’ would only feed me if she
remembered and felt so compelled. I was thin, small, malnourished, had huge
black bags under my eyes and welts and bruises all over me. “I hate you!”
‘Lilith’ would scream without warning and then lay into me with a wooden
hairbrush, dustpan brush, looped up section of garden hose or whatever she
could get her hands on. “You ruined my life!” She’d complain.
According to ‘Sharleen’ (‘Lilith’s’ mother) I had been
part of a plan. ‘Lilith’ hadn’t been very popular in the last part of her
secondary schooling. Well, not for the right reasons. She started fornicating
with many of the local boys around the age of fourteen and spread slanderous
accusations about other girls to discredit them and anything they might say if
they got in her way. After year 12 she moved to the city. She wasn’t very
popular with other parents or most of the kids in the [DELETED], [DELETED] and
[DELETED] area where she had grown up, and her parents wouldn’t agree with her
lifestyle choices. She had spent years manipulating her father, ‘Edward’,
convincing him that what was being said about her was a lie. She didn’t want to
work but the city had the kind of lifestyle she wanted.
Moving to the city also offered ‘Lilith’ an
opportunity. ‘Sharleen’s’ parents were very old and, so it was said, rather
wealthy. ‘Lilith’ only had two cousins, as far as I can tell: ‘Gregor’ and
‘Pru’ [DELETED], the son of her mother’s sister, ‘Rita’, and her husband, a
lawyer. They lived in the city while ‘Lilith’ had been too far away to spend
much time with her grandparents. The only reason [‘Lilith’] studied nursing at
Prince Henry’s, ‘Sharleen’ said, was so she could spend time with her
grandparents and make sure she was in their Will. ‘Claud’ provided what she
thought she needed to secure that. She was the first grandchild to marry and
the first to have a child of her own. But married life and parenthood, and the
monogamy and responsibility that required, were not ‘Claud’s’ scene.
‘Sharleen’ use to show me photographs of me as a baby
when she and ‘Edward’ looked after me. ‘Sharleen’ said that ‘Lilith’ had dumped
me with her parents after I was born. ‘Lilith’ claimed she had gone into labour
the day her grandfather passed and I was born the day of his funeral. She also
claimed her grandfather had told her he was going to die and said I’d be born
three days later to replace him. It was one of many stories she told, and her
version of reality rarely has anything to do with the facts. ‘Lilith’ would
claim she and ‘Claud’ lived together for the first two years of their marriage,
for example, but ‘Sharleen’ told me that ‘Lilith’ had moved in with her
grandparents three months before I was born. Nobody else had seen her for
weeks. According to ‘Lilith’, the doctors gave her heroin for the pain she
endured during the seventy-two hours of labour before I was delivered. I’ve
often wondered about this. Despite being exhausted and having so many doctors
and nurses present, ‘Lilith’ herself signed as the informant on my Birth
Certificate. I’ve been told this is not unusual, but it seems odd given the
circumstances. A few days after my arrival, ‘Lilith’ dropped me off with her
parents on their farm outside [DELETED] and then vanished for the next six
months.
She left her father a phone number to call if he
needed to contact her and would usually call back within a few days, but she
only came back when ‘Claud’ showed up. He arrived around August, ‘Sharleen’ had
said, and demanded she and ‘Edward’ hand me over, pointing out he was a police
officer and things would go badly for them if they didn’t. ‘Edward’ called the
number ‘Lilith’ had left and the next day, about twenty-four hours later, she
arrived. I have no idea what ‘Claud’s’ plans for me were, but ‘Lilith’ somehow
got custody and moved into the house in [DELETED]. Her parents and social
services provided money so she didn’t have to work. She also got money from
‘Claud’s’ parents, ‘George’ and ‘Elisa’. She would take me to visit them at
Christmas and Easter. Every few weeks we’d visit ‘Sharleen’s’ mother and
sister, ‘Rita’, in one of the outer suburbs of Melbourne. I don’t know what the
name of ‘Sharleen’s’ mother was. I liked her and all my grandparents. The time
I spent with them are my only happy childhood memories.
But the arrival of ‘Micha’ spelled the end of all
that. ‘Ray’ and his wife started fighting as ‘Micha’ got older. He had black
hair, olive skin, dark eyes and was chubby, like their kids. He could have been
one of them. ‘Lilith’ had dyed her light brown hair black a few days after
‘Micha’ was born, and never changed the colour. She would dress me and him in
matching clothes but we were like chalk and cheese. I was thin and pale with
blond hair and blue eyes, his polar opposite.
The visits to ‘Sharleen’s’ mother stopped when I was
about four (1977). I assume she died. ‘Lilith’s’ uncle was never around anymore
when she took us to visit ‘Rita’, but their family always gave us things, like
the clothes ‘Gregor’ had used when he was our age, but twice we got sent their
old trampolines. About three-and-a-half decades later, I saw a photo of
‘Gregor’ at [DELETED], where he worked as one of the cancer docs. He was the
spitting image of ‘Micha’ and around the same build. They could easily have
been mistaken for brothers. In any case, ‘Micha’ and I were very different in
appearance and ‘Lilith’ treated us in accordance. She spoiled ‘Micha’ rotten
but brutalised me. ‘Micha’ was rarely punished for bad behaviour and always ate
well. I have always wondered why.
I remember one time when ‘Micha’ had just started
walking. He tried to get into the chicken shed outside the house. He wanted me
to lift him up to get the eggs out of the nests through the hatches. He was too
heavy and started screaming when he didn’t get his way. Whenever he did that,
‘Lilith’ would lay into me, demanding I do what ‘Micha’ wanted. I didn’t want
that so I managed to open the gate to let him in. He smashed all the eggs and
got covered in chicken crap, straw and feathers. I knew I’d get in trouble so,
in my almost four-year old wisdom, I used a tea-towel in an effort to clean it
off. I remember ‘Lilith’ coming out and screaming abuse as she doubled up the
garden hose and thrashed me. Nobody in the street came to help. She left me
lying in the feathers, straw, eggs and crap when she took ‘Micha’ in to give
him a bath. It took a while before I could move without it hurting as much.
Again, I must point out that this was not an isolated incident.
1976
By the time I was almost four, things had degenerated
to such a state in [DELETED], between ‘Lilith’ and the [DELETED] family that
[‘Lilith’] moved out and took us all to live with her parents on their farm
outside [DELETED]. I never heard about the [DELETED] family again. The next few
months were almost blissful. [‘Lilith’] never hurt me when her father was
around. Her entire personality would change. She would change the way she spoke
and behaved, but it was all an act. As soon as he was absent for whatever job
took him away from the house and sheds, she reverted. She even bullied her
mother. “Shut-up, you stupid old bitch!” she’d snarl, pushing ‘Sharleen’ around
and just being a nasty, vicious cow of a woman. She was 25 at the time, but had
done that for as long as I could remember.
‘Lilith’ was an only child. ‘Sharleen’ had almost died
as a result of the pregnancy and birth, and had been ill for years after. She
never conceived again. Decades later it was discovered she had some kind of
device implanted after the birth to prevent her becoming pregnant again. It was
discovered by sheer chance during a visit to the doctor. ‘Sharleen’ had
succumbed to dementia and nobody had been made aware that it was there and had
to be removed. As a result, she never conceived again and ‘Edward’ had spoiled
his only child rotten. ‘Lilith’ got whatever she wanted and he wouldn’t hear a
bad word about her. She treated her mother like dirt in his absence because she
could manipulate her father to discredit anything her mother might say. These
were skills ‘Lilith’ used on others her entire life.
When she tried them on ‘Claud’s’ relatives, however,
they didn’t work so well. ‘Elisa’ and ‘George’ gave ‘Lilith’ money whenever she
took me over to visit because ‘Claud’ refused to pay child support. In fact, he
never paid one cent for me or ‘Micha’. He never even bothered to send a card
for our birthdays or Christmas. He expresses no remorse for this behaviour.
Even if he had sent anything, ‘Lilith’ probably would have destroyed it. She
had fallen pregnant with me over Easter of 1972 when she made a surprise visit
to ‘Claud’s’ parent’s farm to introduce herself to his parents and siblings.
When ‘Lilith’ made nice with ‘Claud’ over the Christmas and New Year’s visit of
1973, she fell pregnant with ‘Micha’. He arrived early in September, and was so
large he had to be dragged out with forceps despite ‘Lilith’s’ claims he had
arrived a few weeks early. In short, from what ‘Sharleen’ told me, ‘Elisa’ and
‘George’ weren’t sure ‘Claud’ was ‘Micha’s’ father.
They refused to give ‘Lilith’ more money. She had
screamed and beat the walls and furniture with her fists when she returned to
her parent’s farm. She was frustrated and angry about not getting what she
wanted. She cursed ‘Claud’ and all his relatives with vicious profanities and
unfounded accusations that they were all evil and hated us. The visits to
‘George’ and ‘Elisa’ stopped. I’d be seven the next time ‘Micha’ and I got to
see any of ‘Claud’s’ relatives again. Asking when we could go and see themagain
resulted in a vicious beating, so I quickly learned to keep my disappointment
to myself. I both hated and enjoyed the trip from [DELETED] (and then
[DELETED]) to [DELETED] and then over the [DELETED] Highway to [DELETED] to see
my grandparents. The roads wound in, out, up and down the hills, and that plus
‘Lilith’s’ chain smoking caused me to get itching eyes and inner ears, cough,
sneeze and then vomit from motion sickness. Once I’d vomited by the side of the
road, ‘Lilith’ would haul me into the air by the left arm on that lonely,
isolated stretch of road and beat me like a piñata. She’d use a stick if she
could find one, and claim I had deliberately made myself ill. Despite that,
those visits were the only time I was happy. I felt like I was coming home to
the places I really belonged, especially at the [DELETED] where ‘Claud’s’
parents lived.
One year, it must have been 1975 or 1976, ‘Lilith’
took ‘Micha’ and me to the [DELETED] Show with her parents. ‘Edward’ was
participating in the Dog Trials with some of the Kelpies he trained. ‘Micha’
played in the dirt at ‘Lilith’s’ feet while she and ‘Sharleen’ watched the
event. ‘Tracy’, a friend of ‘Lilith’s’, had been there too and took me to look
at the side shows and exhibitions. She often visited and took me – and
sometimes even ‘Micha’ – on day trips. People would mistake her for my mother
because we looked so similar. When we got back, ‘Lilith’ was talking with three
women she had gone to school with. The incident has always stuck with me
because it was so hostile. One of the women turned and saw me and said
something I have never forgotten because the situation seemed so odd. “What
stunning blue eyes he has!” She said. “I wonder where he got them?!” ‘Lilith’
had brown eyes, like ‘Micha’. ‘Tracy’ had gone as white as a sheet and looked
distressed. She had blue eyes, like mine. ‘Lilith’ said to the woman “You stay
away from my son!”
That incident, like too many others, would trigger
‘Lilith’ to violence. In the first week of 1977, just after that disastrous
visit to ‘Claud’s’ parents and ‘Lilith’s’ decision to ensure they never see me
and ‘Micha’ again, ‘Micha’ and I had been playing in the sandpit ‘Edward’ and
‘Sharleen’ had made in the yard outside their house. ‘Micha’ threw his toy
metal Tonka dump-truck onto the roof of a little bike shed. ‘Edward’ had made
it to store the bikes the ‘Arnot’ family (who lived at the end of [DELETED]
Road) had given us for Christmas. Their son and daughter had outgrown them and
Mrs ‘Arnot’ thought we might like them. So, ‘Micha’ wanted his truck back and,
as always, unless he got what he wanted, I got hit and screamed at. I’d climbed
onto the roof to get it down but he kept moving underneath where I tried to
drop it and kept saying “gimme”, one of his few words.
End result was he raced around the side I tried to drop it and it opened a gash in his head that bled and caused him to run inside screaming. ‘Lilith’ decided I’d done it deliberately and beat me so badly with a wooden hearth brush I couldn’t move for several minutes. ‘Sharleen’ had tried to stop her and been told “Shut up you stupid F***en bitch, or I’ll give you a few too!” As fate would have it, ‘Edward’ had returned early and intervened. He was very angry and demanded to know “What the hell are you doing!” He told her to never raise her hand to ‘Micha’ or me ever again, but ‘Lilith’ made sure he regrated his interference. “Mind your own business, you old bastard!” She had snarled. Then she demanded he buy her a home to live in [DELETED] because she couldn’t put up with them any longer. We moved into the house they purchased for her a few weeks later, and didn’t see her parents again until the end of the year. ‘Edward’ learned his lesson. If he wanted to see his only grandchildren, he had to remain silent regarding whatever ‘Lilith’ did to me and ‘Micha’.
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