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My Story by Wendy Stamp
I find life to be a joyous wonderful adventure, and I know I wouldn't miss for the world. I almost did miss it though, through the despair of the trauma I suffered in childhood.
History Always Repeats!
I grew up in, or rather survived through, a family riddled with generations of incest. My mother, due to her own unresolved history, was unable to see and therefore protect us from this family legacy.I was abused from as early as I can remember until I attempted suicide at 17 years old, the night before my trial HSC exams.
I had learned to cope with the abuse from Neville, by biological father, from his father and from a family friend. I boxed it away and convinced myself it was my fault. This gave me a sense of power that in reality I did not have. If it was my fault then perhaps I was in control. Then I fell in love during my adolescence. All my coping strategies went out the window - suddenly I wanted what I didn't want and couldn't bear - I wanted Terry to love me and kiss me and touch me with "that" look in his eyes. Now, because I was responsible I was ashamed. I told this brave young man what was happening in my family and he listened and he wanted to kill Neville.
After a little while this all got too much for Terry and he drew away from me. I was unlovable and without love a person withers and dies. My mother came to me one evening and asked me if my "father was interfering with" me. I said YES and she waited for him to come home from work and confronted him. My mother promised that it would be different now and she really meant it. Neville came home later that night, they went to bed, got up the next day and it was never spoken of. Terry was there that night. Then he went overseas to work - I imploded and despair kicked in, suicide was inevitable.
While in hospital recovering from this first near death experience I made attempts to distance myself from the family. This started with telling the doctors and nurses that I didn't want to see my parents. They didn't allow them in to see me, no matter how much Neville ranted or raved - WOW! Then I tried to tell them about my family dynamics. I had made a couple of unsuccessful attempts during high school to get help, I disclosed to my school principal and I also called a telephone counselling service a couple of years after that. No help was forthcoming. You know I don't actually remember what I told them, but something got through - the psychiatrist called for my whole family to attend the hospital for a "conference". The body language was extraordinary - I was sitting separated from my parents and siblings and Neville had his arms crossed and chin up the whole time. Funny, he didn't admit to abusing me though. I begged the hospital to not make me go home, so they told my parents I needed to live somewhere else as it was their opinion that if I returned to their home I would again attempt suicide. I went to live with my sister.
While I was in hospital, I wrote a letter to Terry telling him where I was and that it would be different now if he could just write to me so we could talk. He did better than that - he turned up! We talked and talked and we got engaged and I sat my HSC exams without having returned to school. After my exams I went to live with friends of Terry's where he was overseas - now this was living, no family, no judgement, and no fear. I returned to Australia for my sister's wedding and waited for Terry to come back to marry me.
We got married when I was 19 and moved to Adelaide - our first son was born 3 days before our first anniversary. This was hard, never having really been a child, I had a child. I suffered devastating post natal depression. My mother came back and forward to help and yet we didn't talk about what the real pain was - what if I couldn't keep my baby safe, what if I hurt this beautiful little boy even without meaning to?
We moved back to the Hunter Valley and had another son thinking that I would have more support close to my family of origin. The family system that allows incest and other abuse is very powerful - I still wanted to please my parents and get their approval so they would love me the way I wanted to be loved. It was year more before I could accept they were not capable of giving me this.
When our youngest boy was about 2, my work was getting harder. Power dynamics from my childhood had been set up with managers and I was triggered into the old responses. No control here, only fear, it was all an illusion.
Confronting the Perpetrator
I prepared myself to confront Neville. I organised a one on one chat at a public place that was neutral. I told him how he had hurt me and that he was not to touch or kiss me again as he lost his right as a father to do this when he ceased to act like a father. He asked me what I wanted him to say and suggested he could say sorry. He said that you have to feel it in your heart to say sorry - he thought he was foolish as I was a child and he, the adult should have known better. This was not enough for me. I spiralled down into depression and I had 2 admissions into hospital in a year. My children were suffering, my husband was suffering and my marriage was dying. We were all living the legacy - the pain of child abuse.
I called my parents and asked them to come to the hospital to talk to me. Neville asked me what about and said that I should know he couldn't talk about these things in front of my mother. I should just move on and let go of the past. My mother and sister came to the hospital and we talked about our childhoods openly for the first time. I told them that I would not go to our parents' house anymore as I did not want to play the family games anymore; it was not safe for me there. I also said that Neville was not welcome in my home, though I really wanted to continue to have a relationship with my mother. I went to the Police and discussed what I would need to know and do if I was to lay charges against Neville. When I talked to my sister about this she said she would not be able to support me if this was the course of action I chose. I was terrified as my siblings and myself were all having children; it would happen again if we did not MAKE him stop.
When I got home I explained to our sons why Poppy would not be coming to visit anymore. They were confused. I was paralysed with anxiety for months and despair and my old friend arrived - the blackness of suicide. I was in a coma for days, and when I was finally well enough to return home, I did not work for years.
I met up with some people from ASCA. Through ASCA, I found a way to speak out, to claim my voice back, and to "Break the Silence". My family of origin was angry for hurting them and told people I was mentally unstable. Terry and I worked to move away from our home in Maitland to create a distance from Neville so that we could extract our boys from this relationship. We moved to Canberra.
About a year after moving to Canberra, my worst fears were realised, a young girl called me to say she was taking Neville to court as he had assaulted her. This pattern was so familiar to me: the grooming and "special' relationship built over years, the confidences and secrets and then the assault. I was stronger now, more distance, and knew that my family was my husband and sons, not where I came from.
The Trial
I spent 6 weeks working most days with the Australian Federal Police SACAT (Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Team) making a 42 page statement of abuse and events from more than 20 years before. It took another year for charges to be laid and then a year after that before the trial. The other young girl had been to court and Neville was convicted and placed on a bond, because of his previous "good record".
In preparing for the trial, things got rocky for me, anxiety and depression returned and things for my real family became more difficult, again. I identified goals for the trial that would allow me to be successful regardless of the outcome or verdict. These were things that were never in my control and could have been fatal to me. No matter how truthful I was, it did not guarantee a conviction as this was now the law, and if I placed my sense of being believed on that outcome then I was at great risk. I built a careful support network of professionals and friends; including people I met through ASCA like Barb Shearer, to support me. I went prepared - my goals were:
· To not ask for the court to be closed, to speak openly in front of anyone present
· To speak my truth as fully and fearlessly as possible
· To call Neville to account publicly for his actions
These goals were in my control to achieve, whether he was found guilty or not. Needless to say I was successful.
Neville legal representatives subpoenaed my medical records for his defence; this was to establish I was unstable due to a psychiatric history and so not reliable as a witness. I personally wrote to the judge and requested that Neville not have open access to these records as he had invaded so much of my life. I wanted this to remain private to me. I asked that the judge read the records and decide what was to be evidence and to withhold the rest so as not to obstruct a fair trial. The judge ruled that he would read the files (boxes and boxes of them) and then make a decision. He came back and advised that there was nothing in these records that would assist the defence of Mr Harris, but that he was now bound to inform the Crown (the prosecutors) that there was information that would constitute material evidence for the prosecution. I had to go into the courtroom and state that I would allow the evidence to be released to the court. I again asked that Neville not have access in way to these records and not be allowed to read them, just his lawyer. I got everything that I asked and more; the judge ruled that the files were to stay in the courtroom while the defence and prosecution read them, no copies were to be taken and detailed notes could not be taken from the courtroom. Neville was removed back to cells as he was not to be present while the files were in court.
Within a couple of hours, I received the call at the place we were staying; they were discussing a plea of guilty on some of the minor charges. Now what is important to tell here is how wonderful the prosecutors, in particular the Crown Prosecutor, My Greg Fatches, were with me. They were human and compassionate; they also explained the process and the limitations of the law. I understood they were not "my lawyers", as I was only a witness to a crime. However they also explained what was happening during the trial, kept me separate from my family of origin and asked me how I would feel about decisions they were making. They were amazing! So, the phone call was to ask me if I "could live with a guilty plea on lesser charges". It was not actually relevant whether I could or not; it was their decision to make. The discussion allowed me time to process the possibility and be ready the next day in court. There had to be something in it for Neville to plead guilty after all and for the Crown, a guilty plea is one in the bag rather than the risk of a jury decision - he was going down!
The next day in court it was confirmed he was pleading guilty and again I was consulted. The Crown had agreed to lesser charges at the beginning and end of the period of abuse. I asked that it be understood that the abuse was ongoing throughout that period, that they included that in the brief, and that I be in the courtroom to hear him plead guilty. This was for me about not minimising the abuse by words that the law used, and they heard me. Barb organised to get me into the courtroom as quietly as possible as they were all concerned that if I confronted him he would back out. We waited till everyone was in the court then Barb came and got me and I came in the back door. There I sat with 4 or 5 supporters, 1 row over from my whole family and their 2 full rows of supporters for Neville. Wow, what a display of power, but we had the truth on our side.
A fortnight later I had to travel back again for the sentencing. While it was not legally important for me to be there, it was critical for me closure. I submitted my victim impact statement. Again Neville's rows of supporters attempted to intimidate us with stares and whispers. I asked that my name not be suppressed as otherwise I would again lose my "voice" the very thing the trial was about taking back for me. In making his ruling Judge Freeman made these comments; ".As a matter of general interest the community is often deprived of the identity of a wrong-doer out of the law's concern for the privacy and well-being of the wrong-doer's victim. In other words the wrong-doer escapes publication on the coat tails, as it were, of he or she whom he has wronged. In this case I must say it seems to me to be a brave decision on the part of the victim ."
On 15 December 2000, Neville Claude Harris was convicted to 4 years gaol, 80% of the maximum sentence at the time the offences were committed. During sentencing, Judge Freeman made some of the most powerful comments about the abuse I ever heard; this was an amazingly healing experience for me. I have included some of those comments here.
".This prisoner does. apparently now accept both that he did these things to his daughter, that these are horrific abuses of the position of trust in which he stood and that she has been gravely damaged through the entire period of her life so far by the acts of the prisoner in debauching her from a young age. Of course when first questioned. the prisoner denied any responsibility. He appears to have come late, late indeed, to a realisation of the criminality in which he has engaged and the damage he has done. .
...The prisoner is of course not to be punished for offences with which he has not been charged, . but the background puts in the necessary and appropriate context these individual offences. He is shorn of any opportunity to protest that these were isolated, momentary aberrations. These are but part of a systematic, prolonged, frequent extreme campaign of utilising his youngest child for his own sexual gratification. .
...It is of course notorious, and one does not need a victim impact statement to appreciate that children who are abused by adults within the family circle are affected deeply by a sense of helplessness, a feeling of shame, an inability to distinguish between their fault and that of the predator. This must be particularly so when the one male to whom any child, especially perhaps a female child, is entitled to look for protection and succour is indeed the abuser.
... It is tragic of course and illustrative of the helplessness felt by children in circumstances such as this, that even when a complaint was made by the victim no sensible help was forthcoming. The family did not do anything to support her. The school she was attending did not do anything to support her. How could she not, in those circumstances, feel useless and unworthy? These are the effects which continue, spoiling ordinary relationships, tearing apart families who, while sometimes playing lip service to an acknowledgement of the victim's plight, nonetheless congregate on the side of the offender.
It is unnecessary, and perhaps inappropriate, to detail the victim's struggle to regain control over her own life. It is praiseworthy that she has struggled so long and so hard. She should never have been put in the position to have to do so. It is well understood that the courts have a duty, in cases such as this, to not only deter the original offender but to publish and to reinforce the message that children are our most special asset and they are not to be used and abused for the transient sexual gratification of adults to whom they are entitled to look in trust for protection. That protection was indeed required as is evidenced by the fact that he continued to offend in other ways, or at least not dissimilar ways, until as recently as 1999.
I accept the suggestion. that this man needs treatment.he himself was sexually assaulted as a child. .his report seems to suggest that there is some element of cause and effect between being abused and becoming an abuser..I observer that may explain in some small way the actions of the prisoner but it does nothing to excuse them. If anything, having suffered the torment of sexual abuse as a child, this prisoner would have been more acutely aware of the damage it could do.
.he engaged in this extraordinarily prolonged, almost daily, misuse of his child. I accept that this will be the first time in custody and that because of the revulsion felt, even amongst prisoners, against those who would abuse children, he will serve that period in custody on more onerous circumstances that those tolerated by the general gaol populous. He will probably be in protection. .he has told...of his remorse. It is a matter of great regret that he did not tell the victim of that many years ago. the prisoner will need a pro9longed period of intensive psychological counselling, perhaps some psychotherapy. His reabsorption into the community and to the family will be a difficult one and that again is a special circumstance justifying a lengthened period of supervised release.
Having said all that it is quite clear that nothing short of a prolonged period of custody will serve to mark the seriousness of these offences in all the circumstances and to operate as that necessary general deterrent which the courts are obliged to provide. NEVILLE CLAUDE HARRIS UPON YOUR PLEAS YOU ARE CONVICTED."
I left the courthouse and gave an interview to the newspapers. This made the front page the next day!
  Text of above article
Recovery
I made the mistake of thinking that the end of the trial was the end of the hard work. I found that my mental state deteriorated for months after the trial and I again needed to rebuild myself. This was not the end, but the beginning. I was able to get counselling with a fantastic psychologist provided and paid for by the NSW Victims Compensation Tribunal, and she specialised in sexual assault and trauma recovery. I started to work specifically on my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms in 2001 and forever moved away from recurring depression.
I have done 2 years of the hardest work of my life. I acknowledged my demons and the myths that gave them power. These included things like:
· When I told Neville it was OK for him to do these things to me so I would be loved again, I was actually giving permission. This is not so as, even though I was an adolescent, I had been groomed my whole life and so was not capable of making a real decision about this. I did not have a choice at all.
· That I made these men do these things, I encouraged them. Also untrue, this was just a way for me to feel like I had more power than I did. If even a child has now power at all over their environment then they die, so I created a sense of power where none existed.
· That my mother didn't love me. My mother loved me as best as she could. She stopped my father from putting me up for adoption; she tried to keep us safe not knowing our home was the pace of danger. She was simply still acting out of her own history and pain.
· That to be seen is dangerous. I am now able to take up space and not hide from my own magnificence.
· To never tell anyone the things that I really want or are precious to me because they will take them away form me. I am surrounded by love and these people want only the best for me. I can provide for myself and to what is in my best interest now.
· I am unlovable and too difficult to be around, people won't choose me. Neville is not capable of love; he is narcissistic and saw me as an extension of himself. This is not normal behaviour.
I am sure you get the idea now. I balanced this therapy with personal development work and used this as a tool to "reprogram" my beliefs and values.
I learnt to meditate and I get up earlier now and start EVERY day with a 30 minute meditation., This allowed me to introduce my chosen beliefs straight to my subconscious during meditations to replace those lies that I inherited. I started with simple statements like "I have at least 6 hours unbroken sleep every night. I wake feeling rested and refreshed with an abundance of energy throughout the day" to help me overcome my debilitating levels of fatigue. I then moved on to some bigger ones like "I have all the strength courage and wisdom that I need to effectively deal with every challenge and opportunity that is offered to me today."
I built myself a wonderful goal book with words and pictures that talk to my mind and capture my heart. I make sure everyday that I record what a success I am. I also recognise the gifts in my life with daily gratitude which builds a picture of abundance and joy rather than deprivation and fear.
This year, 2004, I got Terry to come to counselling with me. We started to work on the damage in our marriage that is a legacy of the abuse. This was hard and the most frightening thing I had ever undertaken in my life - what if he didn't want me any more, would that make all my worst fears true? Things got tough for us, no doubt about it. As a couple I started a desensitisation program to teach myself that sex is OK. Terry had to agree to this or it would never have worked. We wrote rules together and a step by step hierarchy of introducing me to sex safely, after 19 years of marriage this was one of the most impressive acts of unconditional love I could have asked for. We started to talk bout the unspeakable, not the acts of abuse but of fears and anger and feelings and desires. I found I had desire!
I created powerful phrases to reinforce the truth and overcome the lies. Because I had associated "father" with Neville for so long I was unable to trust stories of families or even the picture of Terry with our boys. I know that Neville was not behaving as a father and so does not deserve this title; he is "Neville" or "my biological father" and nothing more. Words are so powerful to our hearts, so family was the next hurdle for me. Whenever I heard this word I thought of "them" not of Terry and our sons. I taught myself that these three most loving of humans are my family, my parents and siblings are just where I came form, history, not life and reality. I create powerful mental pictures to help me when the fear was strong, a picture of what a most loving father is and him protecting me from Neville's lies with his voice and hands and heart.
I reached a place in my life where life is wonderful, so wonderful that sometimes I can't believe how good it is. Partly because my ability to experience the heights of joy is balanced by experiences of the depths of despair, but not only this, it is a choice I have made and make daily, to cease the struggle. My truth is this:
I surrender myself to an effortless life filled with wonder and joy. I am surrounded by love and experience abundance, I'VE GOT IT MADE!
My father abuse me for 10 years
Author: By Paul Maguire
Publication: Newcastle Herald
Date: 16 December 2000
Section: News
Words: 604 Page: 1
NEVILLE Claude Harris sexually abused his daughter Wendy for 10 years from when she was seven.
He was jailed yesterday for two years after pleading guilty in East Maitland District Court to committing two acts of indecency on her at Lochinvar when she was about 10 and at Branxton when she was about 13.
It is extremely rare that a sexual abuse victim asks a judge to lift a suppression order that commonly prevents the media publishing names.
Wendy Stamp, who is 35 and living in Canberra with her husband and two children, said she wanted her name published so she could comment publicly without breaching a court order.
(Continued on Page 2)
She wanted her father’s name published in an attempt to lift the veil of secrecy that surrounds such cases throughout Australia.
Judge David Freeman agreed on condition that this newspaper report made it clear that Wendy and no other member of Mr Harris’ family was the victim.
Judge Freeman commended Mrs Stamp’s 'brave decision’.
'Wrongdoers’ often escaped publicity on the coat-tails of an order designed to protect victims, he said.
Judge Freeman said that even though Harris, of Lochinvar, had pleaded guilty to only two charges he considered them to be representative of behaviour that had extended over about 10 years.
He said Harris had conducted a systematic campaign, using his youngest child for sexual gratification, at times almost daily. It was an extreme form of indecent assault by someone a child should be able to trust and look to for protection.
Without naming any individual or organisation, Judge Freeman said that despite complaints by Wendy she was unable to get sensible help at the time from her family or through her school.
He said he understood that children abused within a family circle were affected by a sense of helplessness and shame. Judge Freeman directed Hanis receive rehabilitation while in jail and be monitored and supervised when released.
Mrs Stamp told The Newcastle Herald outside the court that she had twice tried to kill herself and been in a psychiatric hospital on three occasions because of the trauma of the abuse.
Parts of her story were initially made public by the Herald in 1997, just before the launching of a book called Breaking the Silence, which gave first-hand accounts by 100 survivors of child abuse.
Mrs Stamp said yesterday that she wanted everyone to know that abuse victims could recover.
'The worst part of it is the secrecy and isolation and I’d like other survivors to know that the secret is not ours to keep,’ she said.
'Court isn’t a healing process in itself’
Mrs Stamp could only do it because she had been growing stronger and wanted her father to accept responsibility for what he had done.
'I think that when people turn a blind eye they condone the actions of the perpetrator,’ she said.
Mrs Stamp said she believed she had a responsibility to show her own children and those of future generations that adults had no right to do that sort of thing.
'I want children to know it’s not their fault,’ she said.
Victims should speak out and seek support from such groups as Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse on the toll-free number
1300 657 380.
There are people who will believe and it’s never too late to regain your voice, Mrs Stamp said.
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