Sue Smethurst - Behind Closed Doors

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

First published in Australia in 2015 by

Simon & Schuster (Australia) Pty Limited

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Sue Smethurst and Katherine X 2015

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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Creator: Smethurst, Sue, author.

Title: Behind closed doors/Sue Smethurst.

ISBN: 9781925030457 (paperback)

9781925030464 (ebook)

Subjects: Adult child sexual abuse victims Australia Biography

Incest victims Australia Biography

Emotional incest Australia.

Captivity Australia Biography.

Fathers and daughters Australia Biography.

Dewey Number: 362.76092

Cover design: Christabella Designs

Cover image: Nikita Vasilchenko/Shutterstock

Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

Extracts of material originally published by The Australian (Dad Controlled Free Incest Victim by Stuart Rintoul, 18 September 2009) and The Herald Sun (Sex Case Shock Over Cries For Help by Padraic Murphy and George Pilcher, 18 September 2009) have been reproduced with permission of the copyright holders.

I dedicate this book to my daughter, my little angel. Even though you werent on this earth for long, you gave me the strength to start making changes. You saved my life.

To my boys and my brother, your unconditional love keeps me alive, and to the other silent victims, let my courage be your courage.

Katherine X

Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.

Elie Wiesel

K atherines story is one that needs to be told. It is a story of courage and resilience in the face of real terror.

Because Katherines abuse continued over a long period of time, it is almost impossible for the person on the street to comprehend and understand her sadness and sense of being neglected and betrayed. This is why her story needs to be told.

Katherine was a prisoner. Although there were no bars, she was absolutely trapped by her father; there was no way out for her, she was totally powerless. Her father had a vice-like grip on her. Wherever she turned, he had eyes on her, she was totally under his control.

When I was interviewed by the media directly after her fathers sentencing, I said that Katherine was the bravest person that Id met. That remains the case. Despite a very real ongoing fragility, and a simmering anger at the system and the people who let her down, Katherine is great to be friends with. She has a wicked sense of humour, a generous outlook on life and a wisdom honed by her unique experiences.

From a personal point of view I found Katherine to be inspirational. Here was a woman whod been pushed under over and over again, and yet she kept coming to the surface. The welfare system continually put her down, blamed her, ignored her, abused her over and over again, but she kept bobbing up like a cork.

All that time people werent listening to her. Every time she came to the surface to tell her story, shed get blamed. Thats what I mean about getting pushed back down. But Katherine has an extraordinary spirit that says listen to me and eventually somebody heard her, although it took an unjustly long time.

Katherine is not a sympathy seeker. She would only hope that her story will open the eyes of those who wonder and strengthen those who suffer.

Bernie Geary, OAM

Principal Commissioner,

Commission for Children and Young People, Victoria

. Katherine is not the victims real name. For legal reasons neither Katherine nor her family members can be identified.

It isnt who they are, it is only what happened to them.

Jaycee Dugard

O n 20 March 2009, Austrian Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment after committing the worlds worst known case of physical and sexual abuse. In what was dubbed the House of Horrors case, Fritzl held his daughter Elisabeth captive for 24 years in a purpose-built dungeon in the basement of their family home in the small rural town of Amstetten. Fritzl shared the house with his wife Rosemarie, Elisabeths mother, and their other children. During that time, as Elisabeths family lived just metres above, Fritzl systematically tortured, abused and raped his daughter, resulting in the underground births of seven children.

Just one month before Fritzls trial began in Europe, Australias own House of Horrors story was emerging in a quiet Victorian country town. Under a blanket of legal suppression orders, and with the attention of the nation focused on the Black Saturday bushfires that were ravaging Victoria at the time, a man in his sixties was quietly arrested and charged with the repeated and systematic rape and imprisonment of his only daughter. She gave birth to four of his children, one of whom died just weeks after birth.

This woman had endured 30 years of shocking psychological, physical and sexual abuse. Shed been raped so many times that detectives found it impossible to count. Her father had made her a prisoner in each of the homes he shared with her mother and brothers. There were no bars on the windows, no dungeon, no handcuffs, but this woman was a psychological, emotional and sexual slave, a plaything for an evil, calculating and cunning man whose grip was impossible to escape.

This womans father was charged with 83 separate offences. After a detailed police investigation, he went to trial with the charges condensed into thirteen counts of indecent assault, incest and assault. Each charge represented multiple offences one charge alone represented 700 counts of rape. The judge described the mans actions towards his daughter as despicable, deplorable and depraved, and said the case fell into the worst category of offending shed ever seen. He was sentenced to 22 years and five months jail. With a non-parole period of eighteen years, he will be 84 years old before he is eligible for release.

The similarities between the Fritzl case and Australias own House of Horrors are chilling. Born just eighteen months apart, although at opposite sides of the planet, fate dealt these two women the same tragic cards.

In the pages of the history books, 1977 stands out as one of those years that changed a generation. The film Star Wars smashed box office records around the world, The Bee Gees released their album Saturday Night Fever , and the first Commodore personal computer was invented. In the same year, two young girls became the sexual and emotional marionettes of two master manipulators. Against the odds, the stories of these two women, plaything puppets of the worlds worst paedophiles, and their unlikely survival would emerge at the same time, but not until four decades later.

In February 1977, in Melbourne Australia, thirteen-year-old Katherine (not her real name) was abused by her father for the first time. In Austria, eleven-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl suffered a similar fate. Elisabeth would eventually be tricked into entering a dungeon, once the family cellar, where the door was bolted behind her. She would remain locked up for the next 24 years. For 24 years of her life, Katherine was a prisoner too. She was subjected to her fathers constant presence, unable to leave the house or even dress herself without him overseeing and controlling her every move. He told her she belonged to him, and he raped her almost every day.