With Her Abuser Behind Bars, Dassi Erlich Is Ready To Talk

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So my mother grew up in Israel, and she grew up until she was about ten years old and moved to England in quite a traditional home with her father learning to become a rabbi. And my father grew up seven generation English in a very liberal, almost very culturally religious, but not in any way that affected day to day life.

When they got together and started having you guys, because there's seven siblings, they did kind of go down the path of having a very religious way that they raised. You tell us a bit about that, because would we describe it as an orthodox Jewish lifestyle?

Oh? Absolutely. My parents sort of moved into their dust community when I was very young, around two or three years old. So by the time I have my first memories, we were part of the Dust community, an ultra Orthodox, very exclusive and insular lifestyle that basically we had rules from morning to evening about how we lived our lives.

Can you give us some examples. You've said that there was rules around everything. I know that there will be a lot of non Jewish listeners, so even things like Shabbat and kosher and stuff like that is kind of alien to them. But in the ultra Orthodox community, those traditions are taking one step further, aren't they. It's very strict.

Well, I think it's more not just about the rules, but about how you do the rules. And we would spend hours in school learning you know, how do we get out of bed, what foot do we put out first? How do we wash our hands as soon as we get out of bed? You know how many times should we wash our hands and what hands should we wash first? So it went down to the most minutest details.

Wow, what about food? How is food treated in your home in terms of what was kosher and what was not.

Food was governed by the Kosher religious authority in Melbourne, so we were allowed to have any food and there's a little book that would tell us what food we were allowed to buy from supermarkets. There were a couple of kosher Jewish shops that we would buy food from, but we were quite limited in our diet.

So you were still going to coals and places around you. You just were only shopping in certain niles, only.

Shopping for the things that we knew were allowed in the Kosher Authority little book that we had. Now, if you go to Coal's, actually you can see like a little k with a circle around on little things in the Supermark aisles, and you know that that's kosher. But we didn't have that back then, so we would refer to this little book and you'll tell us we can buy this particular brand of corn fins, and that's what we would buy.

I think what I find fascinating about the Adusk community is that they are operating in such close proximity to the rest of society around them. But it's such an isolated world. But it's not like your streets and streets away, your next door to people in Melbourne living a completely different life.

As a young child, you know, I would see that life around me, but it was so separate from me. I didn't even think about that life. And of course, as I got older and I started to notice more how people around me are living, it was a question of curiosity, but almost you know, we're more special. We live a certain way of life, and you know, don't even think about that way of life because it could influence you and tear you away from this life of truth.

So you weren't yearning for what you saw in the backyards of other kids' homes.

Not really. I think as a teenager walking down the street in really thick tights and long skirts in the summer, there would be a curiosity about what it would be like to have the sun actually touched my skin in some way. But I always had this sense that I was more special, or my modesty was something that made me more special.

I want to delve a bit more into your family. We mentioned that there's seven siblings at the time when you were becoming a young teenager who was living in the house with you.

So I had my two sisters, Nicole and Ellie, and my brothers Isaac and Ben.

And when you think back on your childhood and living with your siblings and your parents, how does it make you feel.

I try not to think about my childhood that much. It brings up a lot of really difficult memories. And all I remember is this all encompassing fear that I used to feel as a child, and the feeling of never ever feeling safe. I mean, love was such a foreign concept to me. That wasn't It was just about getting through the day and surviving.

I know that every day is obviously different, but what did an average day look like for you as a kid, because you had daily chores and school around all of that. But what kind of rules were in place that your parents kind of made you abide by?

Really, I was working from the minute I woke up, and I would wake up very early and complete all the chores that I had to complete in order to get to school. I would go to school and have our Jewish studies and English studies, and I'd come home and see another whole list of chores that I needed

What kinds of things would she get angry about?

No rhyme or reason for any of her anger outputs, at least what we felt as children, because one day something would be fine, and then the next day that would be something that was terribly wrong. So it was very hard to understand what I was doing wrong. And I always thought that I was a good child, or I tried to be a good child. I felt like I was an incredibly bad child because I was constantly being told off and beaten.

Was it for things like not completing a chore to standards like were you just doing things like laundry and cooking? And she just wasn't happy with how you delivered those chores.

It was if I didn't do it fast enough, I didn't do it well enough, or I spoke to her with the wrong tone. And I would modulate in my tone so that I was as submissive as possible, but still somehow that was seen as disrespectful. So it was nothing that I could really understand that I was doing.

And what were the punishments if she was angry at you?

The punishments often involve physical abuse. There was a lot of verbal abuse and being told that I'm worthless or nothing, or I don't deserve to live. There was a lot of food withdrawal, and there were many times that my mother would try and pit my siblings against me so that they would join in with her abuse. And of course at times my siblings had to do that, and they were forced to do that, but as we got older, we learned to apologize to each other after that.

I want to focus a bit more on the food withdrawal, because obviously food is essential for life, and it's such a unique punishment. How did it manifest for you? Where did you get food? Because you would deny dinner a lot of the time, weren't you.

I just remember being starving all of my childhood, and I think when I speak to my siblings, they say they remember that, this constant sense of never feeling full and always being hungry, and never certain that your next meal was guaranteed.

And there were times where you were denied the toilet even.

I write about this in the book about when we were young children and we weren't allowed to come downstairs once we had been sent to bed, and there was no toilet upstairs. And this was a constant issue for us because a lot of times we would drink to quell that hole in our stomach and not being able to go to the bathroom was incredibly difficult.

When you look back at that in particular as an adult, are you shocked at some of the stuff that you and your siblings endured and survived.

Absolutely. I think having my own child and realizing the love and the desperate need to protect her, I couldn't imagine going to that extent to hurt someone so vulnerable.

You write as well in a few instances about your siblings or members of your family being banished, being banished from the house, or the community or the religion. Was that a threat that was always hanging above you? And when did it happen in certain instances.

Again, there's no real reason why it happened, but my mother would choose one of us. And my memories are more around my younger brothers because a lot of times

So they were dropped somewhere and then eventually what picked up or just left there for hours, days.

Definitely hours. My memory is a little bit vague, but I do remember when my younger brother be sent off to a park or something outside of the community. I would sit there and beg my mother to allow my father to go and pick him up, and it would be hours and hours of worrying about him.

Are there any happy memories from your childhood.

That's a very difficult one to answer, unfortunately. Also, that's not how trauma works that you do remember. You know, you end up remembering the most traumatic memories. But there were times that we went away on day trips or holidays. But again, that all pervasive fear was always underlying everything that we did. And I think the sense of happiness, especially as a teenager, came from when my siblings and I would ban together almost in the sense of rebellion and support one another.

This might be a heavy question, but do you remember how old you were, or when you first started thinking about death.

I was very young when I was thinking about death. I was incredibly young. I couldn't imagine any other way of getting out of the amount of pain and and fear that I was living every day.

We've spoken about your mum, but you do write in your memoir about feeling unsafe with your dad and not understanding. Why can you tell me about when that started? If you feel comfortable.

That's still something I'm really working on. A lot of those memories only came back after my father passed away in twenty nineteen, so that's still something that I'm still working through.

I want to talk about by mitzvah for our non Jewish listeners. Can you explain firstly what that is and what it was for your community when you were younger.

So abut mitzvah as a girl is when you turn twelve, when you've become responsible for your own sins. Pretty much so, before twelve, you're considered in a way a pure soul, and your parents are responsible for your sins, and when you turn twelve, you are the responsible one, and anything that you do against God that's on you, no longer on your parents.

And in the adusk community. Were there certain things that you were now allowed to do or not do once you became of age, so.

To speak, or as a girl in the dust community, my life became more limited as I turned twelve. I wasn't allowed to sing anymore in the presence of a man. I wasn't allowed to ride a bike anymore because that wasn't modest. There were certain rules that came into place when I was seen as the age of maturity, which is twelve years old. That meant that I could no longer engage in certain practices because it wouldn't be modest anymore.

So is it a milestone that you, as a child look forward to or you're not looking forward to it because you're going to have all these freedoms kind of taken away from you.

I didn't see them as freedoms being taken away in a way. I saw it, I'm growing older, so I'm not allowed to sing in front of men because that my voice is more special. There was that, but for me personally, it was a terrifying time because I felt I was this terrible girl and suddenly I was going to be responsible for all of these sins and my soul is going to turn black. I was utterly terrified.

There's something that happens to young girls when they're around twelve, thirteen, fourteen, they start getting their period. Were you taught about that around that time?

Around that time is the first time that I heard about it. And I was told it was because of the sin of women that I would be bleeding once a month, and that was pretty much all that I was told about it. And I remember going to my older sister Nicole and just saying to her, you know what happens. What are you supposed to do? And she showed me what a pad was, and she said, you know, this is what you have to do, and you know when you need them, you need to ask a father

What about I mean, I know when I was thirteen, it kind of was all rolled into one. It was menstruation talking about that, it was puberty, and it was also a very basic but sex education. Were you given that when you were a teenager or when you were turning into a young woman?

Oh? Absolutely, not. That was all that I was told about periods, and I think that was my education until just before I got married and met my now ex husband.

You and your siblings went to a dust Israel school. It was within your community. What was the school like? Did you like going to school and what did you learn there?

As a young Chrial, school was my safe place, and I loved going to school. It was a chance to get out of home and to learn, and I loved learning. We spent a majority of our day learning Jewish studies and learning how to perform all the things that we were expected to perform, and how to support the men in what they had to perform, and what our role was as a Jewish woman. And then we had some classes in English and math and other topics, but we

So did you have you know, science, art, drama, any of those kinds of subjects that you would see in other Melbourne schools.

We did have science, and we did have art, but again in art, you know, we were preparing stuff for the Jewish holidays, or you know, in science we had a quite limited curriculum because a lot of things we weren't allowed to know.

I want to start talking about Mark Laifer. When do you remember her starting at the school and for what reason did she become principal.

I recall her coming to Australia to be the head of the seminary, the girls seminary, which is what we call a year eleven twelve, and very quickly she became known in the community as this brilliant woman who could just do everything and had a lot of charisma and people were just drawn towards and shortly after she came, I think it was a year or two, she became

So it was quite exciting for you. Like you idolized her.

Oh, absolutely completely idolized her.

You write about her having I think you call them special girls, or she used to call them special girls. What did that mean, especially before you were in the kind of inner circle. What did that look like from the outside.

Her favorite girls were girls that she would pull out of class to ask to go run errands for her, or to go give messages to other teachers, or to just sit in halfuse and speak to her. So that was seen as a huge privilege.

So you wanted in basically, Oh.

Absolutely, I could think of nothing that I wanted more at that age.

Do you remember when you did start becoming a special favorite girl? And did it start innocently at first? Like was it just running errands?

It was? It started very innocently. Or I called her pulling me aside one day and saying, you know, she knew about my home life, and she wanted to help me, and from that point forward, I felt a sense of connection to her. She was there to support me, and you know, you have those fantasies as a young child, maybe this person can save you. And I would run errands for her. I would be kept back sometimes from schall excursions to help her out in the school, and

How long did it take to change or was there a certain turning point.

It happened quite quickly. She asked my mother to give me private lessons and to come to the school on Sunday and have lessons with her. And from the very first lesson, she started almost touching me on my knees and on my thighs. And I was completely innocent at the time, and she was known around the school to be more touchy feely, and coming from a culture where nobody touched anybody else, touch was incredibly rare. We never hugged our friends in that kind of way, or it

And also you had a mum who wasn't overly well, she wasn't affectionate, and as a young girl, I'm imagining that you probably desired motherly affection in that way.

Oh. Absolutely. The first time that she touched me on my skin and her telling me that she was like a mother to me, those words are something that i'll, unfortunately, i'll never forget because it meant everything to my young self.

How did it escalate?

It escalated quite quickly once she understood that I wasn't going to once she I don't know what she understood. Actually, once she realized or I realized there was nothing I could do when there was no one I could tell, I think she just continued progressing and touching me more and more.

What did she tell you in those moments or did she say anything?

She used to tell me that this is love and this is what love means, and not having absolutely any understanding of love. I believed her for a long time.

I believed her once the touch turned from innocent to abuse, did you know in your mind or in your body that what was happening was wrong?

I had some innate understanding that this was incredibly wrong, but not any understanding of why it was wrong or how it was wrong. But my body used my survival system, and I would disassociate and just disappear from the room when she was abusing me, to the point that I would just be completely frozen and still and at times just watching her from above, knowing that she's doing this to my body, but I'm not in that body.

So they started when you were around sixteen. How frequent did it become?

Sometimes it would be several times a week, and then sometimes not for a few weeks. And then I would notice other girls disappearing into her office and her door closed and the blinds down, and I knew that there was someone in else's in there, and now I knew what happened in there, and there would almost be a sense of relief that that wasn't me. I couldn't think part of that.

But you didn't know about your sisters and their experiences at that point.

Not at that point. I had witnessed her climb into my sister's bed one year in camp, and I had suspected, but because we didn't have the words to speak about it. The next morning, I just gave this look to my sister, and my sister gave this look back to me and it was some sort of understanding, and that was it. We never spoke about it. We just didn't know how to.

When you say you didn't have the words to speak about it. I found this fascinating that you write about not even knowing what the word vagina was.

Well, I didn't know I had a vagina, let alone a name for one.

So what were you taught about that part of your body?

I assume that the same place that I urinated from was the same place that I got my period, was the same place that she was abusing me. I just didn't understand that there was more than one place down there.

And the idea of consent and abuse and stuff like that, that just wasn't something that was in your world.

Oh, absolutely not. It was never spoken about.

Did it stop after you finished school?

Well, I went straight from finishing school to becoming a student teacher under missus Lapher, and it didn't actually stop until I was out of the country and living away from her.

You're listening to true crime Conversations with me Jemma Bath. I'm speaking with Dussy Erlick about her life in the adask community and the abuse she suffered at the hands of her school principal, Malkalaifer. You got married when you were nineteen, which is young in most people's eyes, but it's actually on the older side for your community, isn't it.

Yeah. I had friends getting married at seventeen and eighteen, and by the time I got engaged when I was eighteen, and I was so relieved because I knew if I turned nineteen twenty and I hadn't been matched up with someone by the matchmaker, that meant that I wasn't seen of being worthy of marriage, or there was some problem or issue with me, and people would look at me in that way. So it was a big fear of mine that I get married as soon as possible.

So the idea that you were going to be in an arranged marriage, that wasn't nerve wracking to you, that you wouldn't know this person before you married them.

That was the way that all my friends were meeting their husbands. It wasn't strange. I mean, I spent eight hours over a kind of a week or week and a half with my now ex husband, but you know, some of my friends spent maybe an hour, so eight hours was considered a long time.

I want to talk about color. Is that how I pronounce it? Bridal lessons?

Yeah, color lessons.

That seems to have been the time when you started to properly learn about sex and sex education and all of that kind of stuff. Do you remember your teacher sitting you down and kind of telling you what sex was.

I remember her sitting down and drawing a picture for me and saying, this is what you have down there, and this is what a man has, and you need to find this place, and you need to do these rituals and find this place in order for you to get married. And it was such a surprise to me. I just couldn't fathom this idea that this is how children are born into this world. I just absolutely could not fathom it.

How did you think children were brought into the world.

I don't remember how I used to think about it. I knew it or something between a man and a woman. I just didn't know what that something was or have any idea. Couldn't imagine what that thing was.

What were the rules between a married couple in your community in terms of sex once you were married?

So is considered unclean when she has her period and needs to be separated from her husband, and by separation, you have the same rules before your husband in that time as you would any other man in the community. So you need to stay covered up, and you'll have to have your hair covered even at home, and you can't even pass anything to them because your hands might touch.

Husband, and so once you knew about all of these processes, because you would have only learned about this once you actually started having these bridal lessons, right, Yeah.

And I was so confused. I would check in with my bridal teacher continuously in those first few months of marriage. You know, what, if I'm doing something wrong and still unclean in some way, and then my husband is with me and am unclean, that's not me. That's my sin, and that's a huge sin. Any child that's born you from that would be illegitimate.

Did those lessons also kind of get the cogs turning in your brain a little bit more about your experiences with Lifer?

Not really not at the time. At the time it suddenly made sense, Oh, well that's where she's putting her hand, and now that makes sense to me. But I still didn't have any understanding of the abuse, that this was what happened between a man and a wife in order to have children. That was it. That was the breadth of my understanding. And I didn't then equate that with well, that's sex and therefore what she's doing. You know, I didn't connect the dots at that stage.

You also spent your wedding night at her house.

Why she was overseas at the time. Her daughter was getting married on the same day as mine and my husband At the time, we were planning on living in Melbourne for a month before we went to Israel, so she offered her house to my parents. And I never thought even how would I even say anything about why I didn't want that to happen. I had so much disassociation between the different parts of my life, I didn't even think about saying.

Anything, So it wasn't particularly triggering for you.

I just remember waking up that first morning and just figuring this and so freedom because I was finally out of home and I could wake up at my own time and not have to get out of bed and do a whole list of chores. And the fact that I was in the same bed that she had literally raped me on weeks earlier, well, that was the extent of my disassociation. I just didn't even think about it.

So marriage for you was a fresh start.

Absolutely, I saw it as my ticket out of home. But also as I was married and I was joining, you know, the next stage of women, I already a mother soon, and I was doing my duty as a person in this world.

Once you had been married and you're in Melbourne for a month or so, you did move to Israel. Was that a happier time for you, being, you know, physically away from your mom, your family lifer?

It was for a short period of time, I think, before the loneliness set in of being away from my siblings and away from everyone that I knew, and not speaking the language, and being in this foreign country that has a very different culture to Australia and not getting pregnant. My mental health difficulties started just piling on pretty quickly.

While you were over there. You did disclose what happened to you to someone? How did that happen? Who did you tell?

I think it kind of started with me having quite a bit of difficulty getting pregnant and having access to the Internet for the first time, looking up sexual websites to try and understand what it was or what was happening and why I wasn't getting pregnant, and just really educating myself a little bit more about sex, but not having any understanding of the Internet. I ended up in some very shady places and that scared me. That scared me terribly, and I had such a curiosity about it

It took you a while to actually say her name, though, didn't it.

I didn't want to. I didn't think that I would ever have to. It was just I was just starting to connect the dots that it was abuse because of that education I was giving myself online and I was just beginning to connect the dots and realizing that if I said anything, the implications of that, and that was terrifying. This is not something that we talk about, you know, what would happen to me and my family if I

So you did tell her, and then word got back to Melbourne How quickly did your allegations spread throughout the community.

Not very quickly at first, because it got back to Melbourne and several rabbis were involved and asked about what they should do with Lifa, And then I think was it within a week or so, Lafa was leaving and coming back to Israel, and that's really when the rest of the community started talking about it and wondering who it was and why this person had said anything, and if it was really true, and to what extent was

How did your sisters react. Did they start coming to you and asking about the allegation as well.

I think my older sisters Dahlia and Tamar were incredibly shocked, and especially Tama. She had seen the relationship between me and Missus Laifer, she had seen that closeness. She worked at the school, you know, she knew missus life. She had worked under her for a little bit, so for her it was an incredible shock. With Nicole, it was more when we had that conversation after Anna Rabinowitz called her and asked her if it was true what had happened,

You still struggled to kind of have that dialogue with people, even after you had told at least one person what had happened.

I remember telling my husband at the time about it because I had to, because I knew the gospip of and it's better coming from me than hearing it from other people. And I remember having maybe one or two conversations about it and then never speaking about it again the entire rest of our marriage. We never sat down and actually talked about what happened. It was just, okay, this happened, It's been dealt with, she's been sent away. You know, she's not part of the community anymore. That

What about the Australian media, because when life are fled it did make headlines. How because it was such an enclosed community.

That surprised me so much. I remember sitting there on my computer news are googling malklife and seeing these articles come up. And of course I had no understanding of how sexual abuse was reported, so I was sure that I was going to find my name somewhere and everyone

How did you feel, Obviously you saw that your name wasn't there in those early reports, but how did it feel to see headlines like Marklifer accues of molestation, sexual abuse, all these kind of big, heavily loaded words in headlines.

There was a sense of wanting to run away and hide from that. I felt very much almost like they're making a bigger deal of it than it is because I didn't have an understand I didn't even then, really hadn't put words to this is sexual abuse. I hadn't

With life are gone and these kind of allegations out in the headlines, Basically for a next step for the police to get involved, you kind of have to make a statement. You have to tell them what happen and start getting that ball more rolling, which you guys, you and your sisters didn't do for quite a while after that time. So did life almost go back to normal a little bit for a while.

Oh? Absolutely, The gossip kind of died down and pretty much life went back to normal. Sometimes I sit back, like, especially during the trial, I've sat back and kind of questioned myself, would I have made a police statement then if I knew that that was something that I could do, and I can't really answer that. I just know that that wasn't even something I was aware what was possible.

Well, you had a lot going on, to be honest, like, yes, you had all of this stuff with life are happening, But you were talking about before you were struggling with infertility. You're also struggling with a lot of depression and anxiety living in Israel, thinking about what the next steps for you and your then husband were. You did eventually welcome

I think it was having my daughter and realizing that I would go to the ends of the earth to protect her and made me realize so much more how vulnerable and young I was and how no one had protected me, and that caused a lot of mental health difficulties at the time. It made me also begin questioning my way of life.

I think I'm touching on this with you as well, because I've just become a mom. I'm a year in to motherhood and it's hard. It's really hard that first year especially you are so vulnerable, and I feel like it kind of exacerbates all of the other hard shit happening in your life. Is that something that you kind of experience.

Oh, definitely, one hundred percent. I think all the hormones and everything flooding back, breastfeeding my daughter also triggering a lot of memories, and I was just so desperate to not be the way that my mother was. I was desperate to learn everything and understand how to be the best mum for my daughter. But that caused me a lot of anxiety because I didn't know how I could be a good mother to my daughter. Yeah, it was

You did get psychiatric help. How did that transform your life?

That had a major impact on my life. I think walking into the hospital and speaking with other moms that were there, you know, to do the best that they could do for their children, and realizing this whole us versus them mentality I've had all my life wasn't true. And if that wasn't true, what else wasn't true? And I think it was at the same time that my sister had met someone and was going out with someone

Do you remember walking into that police station for the first time and disclosing to an officer what had happened to you?

I do. I remember going there with my wig, and I remember still doing my wedding ring and sitting there and not knowing how to speak about these things. And luckily I was met with an incredible police officer, Daniel Newton, who was very gentle and didn't push me and allowed me to talk at my own pace. And there were some things I still couldn't say, so I was allowed to go home and write about them.

Was it for you being able to get it off your chest to kind of hand what had happened to you over to someone else to deal with.

Not in that sense. I think the consequences of me doing that overwhelmed any other feeling. Now looking back, I can say, yes, it must have been in some way cathartic, but I don't think I felt that at the time.

Had Ellie left the at US community by.

Then she had my two brothers had as well.

How soon after you went to the police did you make the decision to not just leave your community, but I guess in doing that you also made the decision to leave your husband, who was very religious.

I think there were a lot of things going on at the same time, so making that police statement and me questioning my way of life, and there were difficulties in my marriage because I was questioning my way of life and then also seeing this other life that seemed a lot more free, and at the same time still

How do you go about doing that in your world? Is that a hard thing to do? To divorce someone within the Dusk community.

It wasn't something I was familiar with at all. I think I knew one other person that had got divorced, and it was something that, again was very secretive and not spoken about and kind of shrouded in this thing of shame. I actually didn't know anything about what being divorce meant or how I go about doing that. And it wasn't like I had anybody I could really look at and say, oh, well, you know, they managed to do what I could do.

Is it easier said than done? Building a new life completely different to the one you've known for twenty three years.

It's so incredibly difficult. I don't even know if I could describe it in words. But suddenly being in this completely different, you know, culture almost I mean I was still in Australia, but I was living among people that had grown up in the secular world, and they spoke different to me, you know, they had different experiences. I had to suddenly learn all these new rules of how to just exist in that world, rules that people grow up and not think about. But I didn't know how

How did the negligence case that you brought against ADUs Israel School? How did that play out?

So that wasn't really a decision that I made. It was more decision of necessity. My lawyer said I needed help with parenting issues, and I didn't have any fund so I had no money whatsoever to my name, and I needed this legal help from lawyers to be able to work out my parenting issues. And the only way I kind of could afford it is they told me if I took out a case against the school and won that case, I could then pay for these other

Did winning that case give you any confidence at all?

I think going through that whole trial and having to speak about the use for the first time. I was in a much healthier mindset and I felt I had a better sense of self and a lot more self worth by that time, and I'd been working for years on that and hearing that validation in the court and knowing that I'd been heard and believed and seen and validated was incredibly empowering.

Lifer, After you and your sisters went to police, her extradition from Israel was ordered in twenty fourteen. She didn't arrive on our shores until twenty twenty one.

Her tradition was actually ordered in twenty.

Twelve, twenty twelve, so it was even longer.

It was maybe I think twenty thirteen. They finally sent the extradition papers to Israel and kind of sat in Israel for about a year or so before they actually picked it up and went and arrested her. So yes went on for a long time.

Why why did it take so long to bring her back to Australia to face these charges.

Oh, she's a master manipulator. I mean we know that from the way that she abused myself and many other people, and she used that manipulation to manipulate the legal system there pretend she was mentally ill and try and get out of ever coming back to Australia, and she had some very powerful people helping her.

How did that process of watching the person that abused you evade the law for so long and have all of these other people kind of helped prop that up, How did that feel for you? And what was your relationship with the justice system watching that kind of play out?

I felt incredibly angry. I felt that this was a sign of a much bigger problem that we still have as society. So many systems in place that aid and help abusers as opposed to helping victims. There was just so much that needed to change in order for her to be brought back to justice. Sometimes it seems almost unbelievable that she actually did come back here.

I think it's unbelievable that you and your sisters had to fight for so long and so hard. You guys had a hashtag bring life a home. You were traveling over there, you were doing press conferences, you were doing everything in your power. Did that take a toll?

Oh? Absolutely, But we knew if we didn't continue and keep going and pushing for this to happen, she was there living in a community that ignored everything that had happened before, and we just couldn't live with the fact that she would abuse anyone else, and that was something that kept us going through all those years.

How did it feel when she finally touched down on Australian soil.

I mean, that was the beginning of a whole new waiting game, But at the time it felt almost surreal.

And the trial, I know you'd already kind of had a taste of standing up and having to tell people about what you did, but this was at a whole new level. Oh absolutely, How did it feel? Because I think when you haven't sat in a courtroom I have, I've watched people stand up and give witness statements, but I've never had to do it myself. It looks overwhelming, It looks incredibly hard. How did you find that experience.

Incredibly incredibly re traumatizing? Having to sit there and being interrogated and being made out to be a liar and having to share all of these memories in excruciating detail, and then being interrogated and where they're trying to prove that you're lying about all of this or imagining it in some way. But It wasn't just that the abuse was. I wasn't just questioned about the abuse. I was questioned about everything in my life, everything from my marriage to

Putting every detail out there for people to pull apart. And as you've mentioned as well, like going through the kind of trauma that you've experienced, you don't remember a lot of things. Was that kind of used against you?

It was, and having to say those things when I'm feeling retriggered and retraumatized and stay calm and not get defensive in any way, as if becoming defensive would mean that I'm lying.

This might be too big a question, But do you think there's a better way.

I think there's a lot of different things that can help the system be there more for victims. You know. I look at my journey through the Victorian legal system, and I had a great prosecution team and a great police and I was going through them with my sisters, and as I write about in the book, I ended up back in hospital. You know, that's how much I struggled with it. There has to be a better way.

There has to be Did the guilty verdict and the sentence she got fifteen years? Did it bring you any peace?

It did? It really did. Just being able to put that behind me and not have that in my future anymore, which is something that I've had really all my life. And I didn't realize what a sense of peace it was walking away from that and knowing that justice was

What made you want to write a book?

I love writing, and I felt that it was a very important story to share. I feel that's how we learn as a society from other people's stories. I know that I felt much more alone reading other people's stories that have gone through similar circumstances.

And I guess the focus had been so much on Lifer and what she did to you. But what I took away from your book was everything that happened before that, everything that's shaped to you were before you met Lifer.

Yeah, I mean, I think that was a part of writing, of trying to explain why I was so vulnerable and naive and how the world I was born into shaped me.

You mentioned earlier your father passed away in twenty nineteen. Have you got any contact with your mum?

No, I don't. I haven't had for years.

What is life like for you now? Are you happy?

I am. I have a lot more moments of peace and a lot more moments of happiness, and I can look towards the future from a completely different space. I don't feel like I'm in a survival space anymore, which I didn't realize I was in for such a long time.

Do you consider yourself religious anymore in any way?

No, I live a secular lifestyle.

And what do you want people to take away from your story, from hearing everything that you've gone through.

I want people to feel less alone. I want people to learn and understand and to be able to empathize with other peop people in their life that are going through circumstances or dealing with the justice system, or going through abuse. And I hope it changes the conversation around what as a society we need to do to better protect our most vulnerable.

Thanks to Dussie for entrusting us to help tell her story on True Crime Conversations. Her memoir In Bad Faith is out now. You can find a link to it in our episode description. This episode was hosted by me Jemma Bass, with audio design by Tom Lyon. Our executive