The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average persons never exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome to another episode of I Catch Killers. Child's sexual abuse is a hideous crime. The impact it has on victims is horrendous, and it can last a lifetime. Today's guest was abused by a step parent and the child
was born from that abuse. Now, I'm sure your initial thoughts upon hearing that would probably lean towards the fact the perpetrator was a step father abusing his stepdaughter. But you would be wrong today's guest, Harrison James, was a naive thirteen year old boy when his stepmother started grooming him and sexually assaulting him. This abuse went on for three years, and the impact nearly destroyed him. It was
a secret he kept for years. A child was born from the abuse, and Harrison had the live of a secret that his sister was actually his daughter. I can't even contemplate how you process what Harrison has been through, but today we have Harrison in the studio to tell us his story. Harrison James, welcome to I Catch Killers.
Thank you so much for having me go. It's a great opportunity.
Well, thanks for coming on. Now let me clarify up front. We've spoken before. I've called you Harry or Harrison.
You're right if.
Either okay, Well, it'll probably drift between the two because I've got a short, short memory. I want to ask you a question up front. Do you think that society looks at child's sexual assault differently when the victim is a male?
Look.
I think there's a unique set of challenges that come with being a male and being a survivor of child sexual abuse. There's sort of this.
Look.
I'll speak from my experience and hopefully we can learn something from it. When I was going through when I was going through the healing process, it was fraught with this sort of tension. There's this expectation that society puts on men on how they should react to trauma, and then there's the flip side to that, which is the
reality of how I navigated my healing. So it's this double standard and you're trying to adhere to that societal expectation, but really behind closed there's this thing that you grapple with. Am I less of a man because I went through this? Am I less of a man because I speak out?
And really that understanding of you know, for me, what really helped me was coming to that understanding that there is strength and vulnerability and there is courage and empathy and speaking out and that's sort of taken me to the position that I'm able to be in today where I'm able to speak out in the way that I do.
Yeah, it touches on a lot of issues what you just raised there about masculinity and the way that we deal with the pressures and traumas that life spits up. The reason I asked you that because it made me reading up and preparing for this podcast and what you've gone through and understanding your story. It made me reflect
on a few things through my life. And I had a mate that was sexually abused as a child that when he was in high school by a teacher, and it was talked about, it was known after he left school, and there wasn't a lot of sympathy and he put on the bravado. It's almost shameful when you sit here and look back, but I'm talking a long time ago looking back, and it's oh luck guy. You know he had that happened to him and there was laughter about it,
and that was all. This misinformation wasn't until he got into his forties and he lived a productive life, but there was a demon there that would surface every now and then when he was in his forties and we sat down had a heart to heart chat and he said he only realized, and this is after he's had kids, he's married and life was going on, how much it affected him and the way it changed the way he looked at life without dealing with it. And it really opened my eyes up to it that we just didn't
fully understand what that type of sexual abuse. The impact that can have on young men throughout their life.
Definitely. I mean that's something that I resonate with quite deeply. I mean, the impact of child sexual abuse and going through that is devastating for any child of any gender, and I'm not saying it's worse, but being a male and going through that, it just presents a unique set of challenges that we have to overcome because of those
societal expectations that you just presented there. So when I was being sexually abused by my stepmother for three years, every day for three years before and after school, you know, I thought I was lucky. I thought I was living out every teenage boy's fantasy. And you know, you see things in media that just confirm that narrative as well. You see things and sorry to be crashed, but in things like pornography as well. You know, there's categories like
stepmom and teen fantasy and things like that. And for me now, at the time, it was just confirming that what I went through was a good thing, something that all teenage boys should strive for, that ultimate fantasy. But now I look back on it with the benefit of hindsight, and I think that doesn't feel like a fantasy that feels like a normalization of my trauma.
There's so many layers, Yeah, so many layers to it, Harrison, And it just adds to the ads, to the pressure and the confused that must you must have been going through at that stage. And yeah, I think we all need to check and realize that it's difficult being a man as it is difficult being a woman. There's certain society expectations that we fulfill.
But yeah, the way the world looked at the.
Type of thing that you went through, it was almost half hard that jokes would be made about it. The comedy movies would have situations in there like that. And you know, it's interesting yourself sitting there thinking while you've been abused that it's not that bad and you're lucky.
Yeah, exactly, it's crazy. Well, that's something that I went through on a daily basis. Just reiterating that, partially because now that I think, you know, maybe it made it easier to go through as well. At the time, true, but also it was just that was the standard. You know, it was if you're a teenage boy, you're getting lucky. That's the quote, right, Like you're living out every teenage boy's fantasy. And now that's something now that I speak now very publicly and share my story as I do.
Part of the reason I do what I do is to let boys know and let other men know that there is that strength and vulnerability and sharing that story. And what you went through was trauma and those feelings that you're feeling but are sort of bubbling just under the surface, they're valid and there's something that need to be addressed. And I think as society we need to we need to look at this as the abuse of power across the board, because that's exactly what child sexual
abuse is. It's that dynamic. It is a total abuse of power.
Yeah, so you take the gender out of it.
That is about the power, the power in balance like a stepmother teenage boy and the confusion that that would cause you. We'll dig into that whole situation that you went through, but I just want to get an understanding of who you were before before the sexual abuse started. So tell us about your early years and the life and that who you were and who you thought you were.
Yeah, for sure, I was a young boy who loved his art and was quite a good drawer and was into his films, loved film. Every time there was a new film out, I had the costume and the toys and everything and would draw it all that. My mother has very fond memories of that, and she reminds me of that all the time. So there were good aspects of my childhood. And when I speak out about the
TRAUMAA interface, that doesn't mitigate those good aspects either. They were there, and I'm very lucky that I had those people like my mother and my mother's parents, my grandma and my grandfather to really be a shining light and an example for me to follow. You know, I wouldn't be here and be able to speak the way I do without that source of inspiration. So there was the divorce, and I didn't see my dad for a good few years, and he was remarried by that point, and to a
woman from the Philippines. And that's when, you know, by the time I was thirteen, I was starting year eight. I was the oldest of four kids. You're in a house with your mother and three other kids. You know, it's and you're becoming a teenage boy. You know, you want your own space, and I wanted that father figure in my life as well. So I reached out to my dad and it went really well in the beginning. You know, he would take me to the gym. I hated the gym, but I just loved the fact that
I was hanging out with my old man. Yeah, and it went really well, and it got to a point where it went so well that I ended up moving in with him because it was attractive. He lived near the beach and it was right near my school. I would have my own room and like that, tick tick tick for a thirteen year old boy, that's unreal. And I moved in and I hadn't met my stepmother before I moved in. But it was a very gradual process
of erosion. And there were things that was sort of maybe rub me the wrong way a little bit, but also made me think, oh, she's just trying to be a proactive mother figure type thing.
Right, if I stop you there, there's so much at thirteen, You've got puberty kicking in the world is so confusing at the best of times. At that age, you don't know what's going on, the feelings, You've got the insecurities, but you're presenting as with all the bravado that comes
with being a teenager. So you've moved in with your father, You've made that connection that felt right, the benefits of your own room and living beside the beach and the connection with your father, and then the step mother starts coming into your life. For kids, it's difficult when they're meeting the new partner in situations like that. What was your first impressions of your stepmother.
I actually thought she was quite unassuming. Thought she was just you know, from a foreign country who came here, didn't really speak the language well, and I just thought, you know, she just kept to herself, and you know, it was sort of just the dynamic that was there. I was there to hang out with dad and she just happened to be there. So it's very unassuming, which is part of the facade that these type of offenders put on. But it was a gradual sort of erosion,
as I was saying before. And she invited me to the movies one night, and again I thought, you know, it's just and.
That's tapping into your interests.
Yeah, exactly, And you know, also just want to put this point there so context is provided. My parents' divorce was a very very messy. It was it was I was put in a situation where I felt like I needed to choose a side as well. So there was that dynamic there that my parents were focused on the divorce and I was sort of just a product byproduct of that, and I think my stepmother saw an opportunity to pray upon that, and she filled that void by
taking me to the movies. You know, I felt seen, I felt heard.
I felt like, why.
Are your parents are the facusy? Your parents were still sorting out the dynamics between their separation. You've got someone that's showing you kindness.
And interest which has been stripped of me. And that was sort of how she weaved her way in anyway. She took me to the movies, and that's where the touching on the leg began, and the holding of the hands and putting her arm around my shoulder when we went home, and things like that. And then in a matter of days it escalated to sexual abuse.
How old were you at the time, thirteen?
Did you even it would have been school yard talk about sex and everything else that goes on at that age At thirteen, did you even have an understanding of what was going on? Did you have an appreciation that she was making the contact with touching your leg or holding your hand.
I thought I was engaging in an affair behind my father's back. I thought I was having a consensual sexual relationship with my stepmother behind my father's back. I thought it was just a secret I needed to keep in that aspect, like don't tell my father.
Okay, yeah, So did you get a sense that something was wrong about it? And I'm not sitting here in judging you. You're the victim, and will make that point very clear throughout this podcast, But did you get a sense that something wasn't quite right or you just didn't know at that age, Because that's why I'm curious about.
Of course, well the grooming and the insidious nature of it, and the preparation and the things that are the rhetoric that I was told over and over and over again. If you say anything, we could both go to jail. You're the man in this relationship, you know, preparing me for that dynamic and to feel like that's what the situation is, That's exactly what happened, and that's what I didn't feel like I was a victim of anything or like it was a crime. I thought we were just
participating in an affair. Behind my father. Yeah, because of that expert grooming and that that that facade that was put upon me. And that's just not that's not a few that's not something that's said a few times. That's something that is codified in every conversation, in the entire dynamic of this. Yeah, I don't even want to call it relationships.
To each other.
It's not a relationship. It's a sexual abuse of minor. How did she hide it from your father or and from her point of view and your point of view of course.
So my father was just starting out his new business at the time, so he was out early mornings back late afternoons. So I remember every Wednesday morning specifically, the first time it happened was on a Wednesday evening because my dad would fly to Queensland every Wednesday because he was expanding the business from New South Wales to Queensland. And the first time it happened was a Wednesday evening when Dad was away and I was just it was expertly sort of before school while he was out. If
he was still away, it would have happened. So anytime he wasn't in that home it would happen.
And did you have have an expectation that would happen all the time, like it became became a regular thing.
Yeah, one per became a regular occurrence.
What was the dynamics like between you and the person who's abusing you, your stepmother when your father was in the house.
Yeah, no, so at that age, so again I was told, you know the things that I was saying before, if you say anything, we'll both go to jail. So that fear was instilled in me as well. So there's that dynamic of you know, I stay in my room, nothing else happens while Dad's in the house, which just normal to me. So I just put my school uniform and packed my lunch and went to school, caught the bus to school.
I sit here and just sort of shake my head. How going through all that with that house is meant to be the safe place, and you're going through that then gave the school looking back and you if you can describe how you felt it impacted on you at the time, but looking back, how was it affecting you your relationships with your schoolmates and socializing teachers you study what sort of impact did that type of abuse have?
Well, everything revolved around it. Gary and I couldn't go to house parties, I couldn't go to school events or anything like that, because if anyone else had any inclination that something was happening between me and my stepmother, I was breaching that and I was putting her at risk. I was putting me at risk. I was putting the relationship, I say in quotations at risk. So I didn't engage
in a normal teenage life. It just wasn't wasn't viable for me because my whole whole sort of mission was to ensure her protection because I was the man in the relationship.
Okay, can we delve in a bit deeper without it explain that you're the victim, you've been abused, but your sense of duty as a man in this relationship, which isn't actually a relationship, it's abuse, felt that you had to protect her even though she was abusing you. That's that insidious manipulation that people that pray on young kids and sexually abuse young kids create, isn't it.
They put the responsibility on the child.
Yeah, it's the dynamic because perpetrators want to put you in a position, a victim, in a position where they are giving them sort of like the perpetrators their entire world, do you know what I mean. It's their source of punishment but also their source of relief and safety, So they create that entire dynamic and child sexual abuse. What I hope that listeners understand when they hear this story is that child sexual abuse is very rarely, very rarely
a singular event. It's an entire process. It is rife with manipulation and expert manipulation, Like these people are pros at what they do, and it's an entire process that spans over years of not just grooming the victim, but their entire safety network. You know, my own mother was groomed into thinking my stepmother was a safe person for me to be in the care of. To an extent, my father was groomed.
You know.
I think what people don't understand the more I sit down and speak with people like yourself than Grace Tame who you know, and people that have gone through that abuse as children, that it's not just the sexual act where the abuse is happening, it's in every aspect of your life and confusing you at that age, confusing you that you're the person responsible for this, like you'll go to jail Yeah, we all carry guilt on things, but as a kid thinking you've committed something or done something
that would send you the jail, that is so much of a burden to carry.
Gary, I went to school the weight.
It felt like a backpack full of bricks. It's the only way I can explain it. It's just the weight of confusion and not being able to understand what the hell has happened to you, you know, because there's all these you know, when you're a teenager, you're going through transformation into adulthood. There's things that are happening, happening neurologically and sort of physically as well, and it's just such
a confusing period already. So you throw this this weight all over like it just exacerbates it, and it just makes you feel a sense of isolation and that that person is your entire world and that's all you that's all your worth is completely tied to that individual.
To that one person.
Yeah, And when you think about that age, that's when the world's opening up to you. So you're discovering the world and you're called in this trap where your whole focus is on this one person who's abusing you.
Yeah, and the other thing is people hear me with the ability to articulate it. Now, I had no ability to articulate what I was going through at thirteen, fourteen or fifteen, So there has.
That as well, that extra Well, where do you start to try? They'll explain that you explained that with your mother and your father's divorce, that there wasn't that much communication between your biological mother and yourself. Did you consider telling anyone close to you, friends at school, or any role models and talk me through the process there at the.
End of the day, know, because it just would jeopardize what I thought was my relationship. But the reason I didn't come forward for all those years was because well when I was fifteen, my daughter became a dynamic of it, which we'll dive into as well. But there was that parental responsibility in me as well to sort of adhere too. But I just you don't even You just think if I if I say anything, even a word, it's going
to jeopardize everything. So if you say anything, it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna blow.
And I would imagine with the manipulation from your step mother, you'd be concerned. And you've articulated quite well and said it that you didn't want you were trying to protect her, and like the irony is not lost on me, But the way that you're explaining it, I think people are getting understanding of the complexities of what child's sexual abuse is about. That is why it's such a horrible crime because the damage that it does.
Undoubtedly it affects every aspect of your life, whether it's your intimate relationships or your ability at work or you know, the the weight of trauma. It's interesting because there are days where progress feels in my life, where progress feels like it's the only way, like it's just great. But there's also these days where the weight of the past just looms large and you can't escape that. It's a
constant navigation and just trying to understand. And even today, like only recently have I been able to engage in a romantic relationship because I found someone that can, you know, hold.
That space for me.
But for years like that was just a real struggle to even be intimate with someone. You know, it just corrupted every facet of my being.
Looking back, and it's not about regrets, it's about looking back. If other people are going through there. Can you talk to someone going through that type of abuse? Do you think it was possible to speak out?
Could of you? Do you regret not speaking out? Was it even an option? Yeah?
I don't know if it was particularly even an option, to be honest.
I haven't seen a crime like child sexual abuse where people just bury their head in the scene and hope it goes away.
Yeah.
I try to rationalize it with the fact that it's too confronting to people, but it challenges people's weaknesses. I think that they don't want the family blown apart.
Yeah, because that's the thing with when abuse happens within a family dynamic. Carrying it completely obliterates that dynamic and splits it into there's a division the camp that believed the survivor and the camp that decide to go side
with the perpetrator. Because no one wants to confirm in their mind that's someone that they've shared Christmas lunches with, and anniversaries with and birthdays with could ever be capable of such harrowing acts that for me, I sort of have an understanding of why it's hard to come to.
Terms with, and it's almost worse than if there was an untimely death in the family where everyone can grieved together, because, as you identify, it splits the family apart. Sides have to be taken, Sides shouldn't be taken. That should be obvious that everyone should be on the same page, but it doesn't. I say it time and time again, and I hope people listening to this and the bravery you've got coming out and talking about your story. So the abuse went on for three years. So how old are
you now? So I'm twenty four now twenty four okay, So we're talking formative views between the ages of thirteen and sinxteen sixteen, and you've described your life as you were so confused about life. You didn't step out anywhere. Did you mask it or hide what was going on.
I was an expert at masking it. It was just part of the gig, so to speak. You had to do that in order to maintain what you thought was the only thing that mattered, which was which was my stepmother for me at the time, and also the birth
of my daughter. So yeah, as you as you stated, I was sexually abused from the ages of thirteen to sixteen and a month before I turned sixteen when I was fifteen, my daughter was born, so my stepmother felt pregnant to my daughter, and I had to pretend that that girl was my sister for many, many years.
If we talk about when we're looking at life, that Scott got some issues and this one. Let's start to start at the beginning with that. So you're fourteen or fifteen, just before we move on to the pregnancy. With your friends when they were boys at that age, they're talking about their first sexual conquest with a girl, that type of thing. Did you just step back from those conversations when.
I remember making things up. I remember saying that I lost my virginity at a party one time and stuff like that to sort of evade any suspicion, Okay.
Otherwise that they would be looking at you going, well, what's what's wrong with them?
What's wrong with him?
So unfortunately that's not the right thing to think. But that's what kids and I would have thought at the time one hundred percent. And that's kids just trying to
survive in the tough environment that at school. Did you have communication with your mother at all, your biological mother, Yeah, yes, so initially because again because of the dynamic dynamics of the divorce, I thought I had to choose a site so that that communication separated a little bit, but it regained, but it was very It was always at an arm's length because again, if she got too close, I know for a fact, she would have, you know, had some sort of suspicion.
So you're you're making a conscious, deliberate decision to keep people. You must have been. Ah, he's just this teenager. It's just a dirty teenne moody teen that doesn't like communicating. You just played that role to suit your purposes. Yea there, yeah, yeah.
Did it affect your schoolwork?
Oh undoubtedly. I mean I was not a because because Gary, as you were saying before, you know, home is usually the safe place for me, it wasn't. So school was sort of an opportunity. I still had to wear a mask, but it was an opportunity for me to sort of get out of that having to be regimented at home, you know, be a certain way, otherwise you know, you'll, you know, suspicional looker. So school was sort of me an opportunity for me to get away from that a
little bit. And I wasn't engaged with school work. It was more just a moment for me to drop your guard. Yeah, I drop my guard a little bit, and I didn't really apply myself to school like I probably could have if the abuse didn't oca. But yeah, it just it didn't happen at the time.
Did you find was there any joy in your life or was your life, as you've said, just called up around what was going on with your step mother.
Look, there were definitely moments of joy. I mean I had friends and like I would go out on the weekends to the beach sometimes and stuff like that. It was it was always very surface level for that protection. Like it's hard to sort of articulate, but I'm just going to say, but my whole life revolved around this perpetrator, my stepmother. Everything everything that I did dictated whether or not it was going to infiltrate upon that.
How did it continue on after that?
Yeah, it was just it was just let's roller back a little bit, be more discreet and be like stay apart when he's in the house, and like even more to an extent. So it's really it was really it wasn't even a direct conversation that occurred between my stepmother and I. It was just sort of, oh, we have to be careful now. And that was it, and and then you sort of knew it's hard to really articulate the dynamic in the house. It was it was strange, like I can't, I can't.
I think strange. It's strange.
It's the only way to sort of say. It's it's an odd it's an odd and unnatural way to live life.
Most definitely, were there times where you're thinking this isn't right, this is not right, and you push back against a stepmother or did she just manipulate you to the point where you didn't even feel like you had a platform to there was no equality there.
You could not tell her.
Yeah, I simply could not. But also the only time that it felt wrong was was if I thought, oh, we're doing this behind my dad's back. You know, we're having an affair. Because she would tell me other things, Garry, like, you know, once you reach eighteen, we're going to run away and we're going to like have our own house and live out our life. Like I was told that just filling your head there was a goal, do you know?
So that sort of made me want to continue at it because I thought I've got the rest of my life set up here. I'm going to live my life with the love of my life.
And that's that's not just sexual abuse, it's the emotional manipulation and that's how much damage it can cause.
That's exactly right.
So how old were you and how did you find out that your stepmother was pregnant?
So I remember my step mother found out she was pregnant on a holiday back to the Philippines, where she was from. And the reason I know for a fact that it's mine, which is a question that I get very regularly, is my father had a It's sorry, I'm not laughing because it's it's just the saying it out loud. It's just so crazy. Yeah, my father had a vasectomy, Okay, yeah, yeah, years before, and he claims that he never got the
test done after. So there's that, there's that that there's a slight change and of.
Doubt that's left in people's minds if they don't have the test after.
So he's sort of been able to tell himself that it's his or during that period of time before it eventually came out.
So she's gone back to the Philippines, she's got family in the Philippines, had she had ldren before. Okay, so she's gone back there, found out she's pregnant, made out it's my father's when she's come back, well, he was over there with her. Okay, yeah, right, okay, So and you you weren't there, you were back. I was back home, back home, and they've come back and announced.
Guess what I was going to have her sister?
Yeah, your step mom's pregnant. Yeah, okay, just break it down.
Where were you talking through? What went through your mind there?
So I got it through a text from my stepmother. I remember I was on the bus home from school. I was in my school uniform, fifteen years old.
You're dealing with here?
Yeah, I remember because I was because obviously my father and stepmother were away. I wasn't staying in the house. I stayed with my mum for that period of time. So I remember I was going past Waverley College, which isn't the school that I went to, but was on the bus going past it. Got the text and just sort of went, okay, like what are our options here?
And and yeah, I think we just sort of came to the conclusion conclusion that we were going to have to pretend it was my sister, and that's what happened.
Okay, so the text you've received, the text, were you openly communicating with what was going on in text with you your stepmother?
Yes?
So it was it was via Facebook, I message, and I remember after every time we'd have a chat, we'd say, like you know, sort of like a normal relationship, I sort of text each other, I love you, and then she'd say delete, make sure you delete this chat. So everything was deleted after. But yeah, that was the that was the format that I sort of found out that I was going to be a father and.
Just touching on that, like I love you. That was you thought that you thought that's what it was. Thought that I thought it was. See that that's that stuffs you up too, doesn't it. Really you don't have have an understanding. Love can be confusing enough at best of times, and that you don't even understand what love is.
No, not at all. But that's what I thought it.
Was, and she led you to belief. So anytime you're hearing people talk about love and all that, your your definition of lover is what was happening between you and your step mother.
Okay, so how.
Were you then four and fifteen fifteen, The fifteen year old boy shouldn't have to deal with in normal circumstances. But when you're having these conversations but via text with your step mother, was there a point in time when you just felt I can't deal with this, Like, was there you just wanted to scream.
Oh, I've never really thought about it because it was just head down, survive, get through it. I didn't know that at the time, but it was just, Okay, this is another thing we have to deal with. I remember the weight of feeling, how are we going to navigate this?
Like are we going to get caught now that there's a little that there's a child involved, And that was sort of the only at the time what I thought was the only sort of lever of stress that was brought upon me, that we get caught because now there's a child involved. But that sort of alleviated when I found out that my father was of the belief that it was his and I thought, okay, we can. We both came to the conclusion that we can navigate and put that for startup and that would cover us.
Okay, so they'll carry you through. But from a personal point of view, your personal point of view and you can talk about it from what you're going through as a fifteen year old and what you know now as a young adult finding out going to be a parent for the first time.
Is Yeah.
I remember when it happened to me, and I was a late twenties when.
I first found out I was going to be a father.
You're overwhelmed with joy, excitement, all the emotions that run with that. What was going through your head was their joy, was their sadness, was their confusion?
What was happening there was there was anxiety, stress, There was also, funnily enough, joy.
I thought it was.
I thought it was I thought it was part of how it.
Was meant to play out. This is beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, And look now with the benefit of hindsight, it's obviously sick and twisted, and no fifteen year old boy, no child should ever have to go through that. It's so devastating. It's part of the reason that I talk out to ensure that we that the next child doesn't even experience a tenth of what I've been through. And most importantly of concern to me is that little girl that came of that. She never asked for any of this. My daughter never asked for a thing here. I didn't
and she she definitely didn't. And that's just so devastating that she's been caught up in this, in this cowards manipulation. She's pose that upon my childhood and stripped that of me, but she's let this child be born into that. It's not fair.
Again, you articulate it so well, but it opens up thought processes that I weren't considering. But that manipulation is at a different.
Level, isn't it. It's expert Gary.
Yeah.
Was there any other signs that you saw with her, like when I'm saying with the step mother that showed her to be a person of such poor morals? Or is there anything about it?
There's no, because she just presented as this wonderful human being. And that initial grooming and that that opportunity where she came into that movie theater where I was articulating before, it just was such a sense of relief for me. I found someone that cared for me, saw me. My parents were off doing the divorce and worried about that. But here's this person just giving me all this love and adoration. How lucky am I?
And therein is the creepiness of pedophiles and child sex abuses that they prey on the vulnerable people, and the vulnerable people are quite often the people like yourself, broken, broken home, looking for love, looking for something secure, and it's almost.
Like a radar to them, is part of their playbook, zero in on it.
Yeah, whether it's the basketball coach at school who says, oh, you know, mom's going through a divorce, I'll take care of the kid this afternoon while while you go sort that out, or it's you know whatever, like it's part of the playbook. They look for that and presented this safe, fine, upstanding person because I'm sure people from the outside be thinking, no, isn't it good how she's taken the responsibility of a thirteen forteen year old boy in her life.
Okay, your father and your stepmother have come back from overseas. You've been living with your biological mother while they're away. You've moved back in with them. What discussions did you have with the step mother?
How did she manipulate the way through?
You've had the text where you've agreed that your father of the belief it's his child and you and your stepmother are going to let that play its natural course. What sort of conversations did you have with it? Did she say she's sorry, did she say was there anything? Did she say this is beautiful? What sort of manipulation continue?
There's nothing like that. I just remember I was working fifteen, or would have been working at a fish and chip shop across the street. I remember using my money to pay for things for babies, and I was just excited to be a part of it. That was the dynamic. Garry as strange, but I was just a victim of this coercion and this grooming, and that's how it was. It's disgraceful. It irks me to even say it out loud. Now you know what I mean.
When you say it's disgraceful.
It's disgraceful that you've been put in the positions and the things that you're articulating is perfectly understandable. The confusion you'd have, your thought, the situation that you're in that was loved.
You thought that.
A child's being born of that love. That's something beautiful. And look at you at at fifteen, you're working in your fish and chip shop, trying to build up the assets and baby toys and all that, and you shouldn't. You shouldn't have to, Like we sit here and laugh, but we're I can assure people were not laughing at the.
We're not laughing at the subject of it. We're laughing at the pure unbelievability that someone could get away with this for that long and just evade total accountability and total suspicion and all that.
And it's just.
I even I laugh at it because it's not a thing of humor. It's just a shock, a total disbelief. It still hits me, you know, because I engage with the media regularly now because of the advocacy and stuff, which we'll get into, and I'm not trying to jump the gun.
No, it's something I want people to understand your story because I want when we talk about the advocacy having an impact, so people understand, of.
Course, but I don't go into it into this much detail, you know. So this is a first for me usually because usually you say it and it fits in a SoundBite. Yeah, but me to take stock and sit back and have this sort of long form discussion with you and talk about it in this level of detail, it still hits me every like I'm saying things that I haven't said for years. You know, it's the shock and the total the aspect of how unbelievable it just is that someone got away with that. It still hits me.
Yeah, the most horrendous crime.
It's happening under everyone's nose, and one person is paying the impact in unbelievable, unbelievable ways. I'm just trying to comprehend as a fifteen year old boy doing the things of the fifteen, like.
Your childhood was stolen from you. Yeah, like your teenage is just stolen stolen.
From you as a fifteen year old boy, the responsibility of working the fish and chip shop so you can buy buy some gifts for your daughter that you've got to pretend is your sister because you've been abused by your.
Step mother living in the house.
Was it just overwhelming as it's confronting watching someone become pregnant. That's not something you even consider when you're a teenager. But she's getting bigger and it's getting closer to the time and everything that happens with pregnancy. What was your life like at that point in time, Well.
Before my daughter was born, I contemplated leaving school to do a trade. I didn't want to do that. But the reason was that thinking was because I thought I had to be a father and build a life for my daughter and sort of create an opportunity for me, my stepmother, and my daughter to run off and be a happy family and sort of provide for that. So that was the thinking at the time. Remember during that summer I said I was going to leave school. I
did like a summer apprenticeship as an electrician. I remember the day my daughter was born, I got a photo of her texted to me while I was putting up a sign on Claverly Road, and I remember finishing there and going straight to the hospital after. And you know, my dad's not that tall, but I'm quite tall, and I saw the long arms and long limbs, and I thought, oh, my god, is she Are we going to get found out because of that fact that just that constant you're trying, you're on a minefield.
Yeah.
I could imagine you also would have been confronted by other people in your life, people that there friends with your father and your stepmother, with the oh, congratulations to your father, you're becoming a father, Good on you, and you would I'm assuming you would have been caught up in discussions like that and have to sit there.
I was sitting there, But also there was a feeling of jealousy coming up as well of real anger. He's taking that from me, and he's taken my partner and my daughter, and that's coming up as well. So there's that dynamic. It's just so complex and complicated, but it this this all came about because of one person decided.
To one person sexually as.
A child just for her own sexual gratification, that she's comfortable destroying, destroying lives. I would imagine that talking on the issue of masculinity too. And you're talking about you're getting jealous of your father. When you're a teenage boy
living in a household, relationships can become fractured. I know with my father, even with my son, where it's almost like the alpha male is trying to take over the household and I would clash with my father and fifteen or sixteen that I'm going to stand up to you, and you sort that you're testing the waters. I experienced the same thing with my son. There's a bit of pushback in your situation. I would imagine that would be like it was on steroids. It was agnified a complete steroids.
It's the only way I can do it. Can I articulate that it was through the roof? I remember when my daughter was born. It was in the December of twenty fifteen, and I turned sixteen in the January. The last sexual act occurred on my sixteenth birthday. And then it got to a point where all that came to
a head. Gary and I couldn't be in that house anymore because that anger was just taking over me and that jealousy, and it was sort of coming out, not in a physical aspect from my end, Like I wasn't violent with my father or anything, but I knew I had to leave the house. So that's when I moved with my grandmother. And then that's when the dynamic between
me and my daughter. I was like the older brother who would just come visit his little sister, can take her out for a swim for the day, take her to McDonald's, or take her to get ice cream more, you know, things like that. It became that dynamic there.
Okay, so the.
Abuses stopped, but the damage is still continuing on. We might take this uppportunity to have a break at this point in time, and when we come back. We're going to talk about having that child that you're pretending to be your sister in your life, what you've learned from that, allegations that your abuser made against you, claiming that she was raped, and the damage that that caused.
She's a class act.
Those limits and the work that you're doing in regards to making the difference. And I've just got to say, I've just got to say, Harry or Harrison, whatever whichever one I decided to call you, the fact that you come out and speak and speak so clearly, I think a lot of people will be listening to this and
go right, I'm starting to understand and get it. Because as we started off, as I said with my mate that was in the situation where a teacher is sexually abusing him, everyone just thought, oh, well, lucky guy type thing.
But there's so much more damage that's done, isn't there.
There's a whole entire dynamic that's behind the curtain, and the only way are going to ensure that this doesn't happen again, or try to the best availability to ensure that this doesn't happen within society again is by bringing light to it and by speaking about these stories, because these crimes, they operate in darkness, they operate and behind
closed doors, and they thrive off shame and silence. And the only way we're going to combat that is by speaking out and speaking candidly, like you and I are here today. So it's a very important discussion and I'm just absolutely honored at the opportunity to contribute to today, and I look forward to coming back after a little break, Okay, Jeers