'Hey Mum, I want to tell you something': The moment a mother's world changed forever

Executive Producer - Wellington Mornings·Bay of Plenty Times·

12 Nov, 2022 04:00 PM7 mins to read

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse against young people.

Twelve-year-old Ruby was a popular kid.

Excelling at school in both her academic education and sports, she had a large group of friends, came from a loving home and was committed to acihievement.

Then her mother's partner raped her.

"She was robbed of her childhood," her mother says, her voice breaking as she attempts to fight the raw emotion that has consumed her life since found out what happened earlier this year.

For Ruby - not her real name - time on the sports field has been swapped out for counselling sessions. Late nights are no longer consumed by sleepovers and movies, but tears at 2am. School is no longer a necessity, but an outing that requires considerable courage.

"It destroyed my little girl."

And for the now solo mother, the rape has ignited immense feelings of guilt and suspicion of anyone who is around her children.

Despite there being no warning signs, she blames herself for the horror her daughter experienced.

Her feelings aren't rare in cases like this, with victim's advocate Ruth Money saying the pattern of guilt exists across the board, even in offending where no reasonable person could suggest any responsibility or blame.

The man that should have been trusted

Sarah met Tim - not their real names - when she moved to the Bay of Plenty. Her closest friends had moved overseas, and she was looking to settle down and lead a quiet life with her children.

A relationship developed and Tim eventually moved in. He was a respectable man with a well-paying job and a friendly demeanour. Most importantly, he enjoyed spending time with the kids.

"Being a solo mum, it's a lot harder to take the kids out and do stuff," Sarah said. "But with two adults, it's a lot easier. So we'd do a lot of things - activities together, like bowling and mini-golf. And that was always really fun for the kids.

"They trusted him; I trusted him. There was no reason not to."

Earlier this year, Ruby went to work with Tim for a few hours before the family headed out for a family game of mini-golf.

"He was very family-oriented," Sarah told Open Justice. "They were our kids, not my kids. My youngest wanted to call him Dad - he did a very good job with them."

With Tim having come from work and Sarah from home, the family left mini-golf in convoy.

Ruby had asked to ride with her mum - not typical of the preteen, who enjoyed riding with her de facto stepdad.

"We were on the motorway, and she said, 'Hey Mum, I just want to tell you something'. I could see her and hear it in her voice - she was scared."

Ruby told her mother, "Last night, when you were sleeping, Tim touched me and he raped me."

"They were words no mother should ever have to hear," Sarah said.

Looking back on that moment, Sarah says her only thought was that she had a duty to believe her daughter, rather than question her own partner.

"I screamed. I was on the motorway and my whole body started shaking. He was driving behind me and I immediately rang him and told him to stop the car."

Sarah grabbed her youngest child, who was riding with Tim, and rang 111. While on the phone, she drove directly to the police station as Tim followed closely behind, frantically ringing Sarah, attempting to persuade her to pull over.

"It felt like it took so long to get to the police station. He was chasing the car and I was scared - he was trying to get us to stop."

Moments after her daughter opened up, Sarah drove straight to the police station - her partner following closely behind. Photo / George Heard

Tim eventually turned off as soon as he realised where his determined partner was heading.

Ruby's bravery in speaking up almost immediately paid off. It allowed police to gather an evidential DNA sample the same day - the most valuable weapon they can have in their arsenal when it comes to prosecuting a rape.

The evidence resulted in an arrest just three hours after Ruby's complaint was laid. Sarah arrived home from the police station to find a note on the kitchen bench.

"Nothing bad has happened," the note read before it abruptly cut off.

Police officers had arrived and Tim had been arrested - pen still in hand.

Rape deemed 'opportunistic'

According to the police summary of facts, Ruby was in the family's games room watching a movie with Tim on the night of the rape.

He'd earlier spent the evening drinking with friends - something Sarah says he rarely did.

As the house cleared out, Tim sat with Ruby in the games room, where he gave her several bottles of beer. While the exact amount isn't clear, it was enough to leave her so intoxicated she fell asleep.

When she awoke a short time later, her pants had been removed. The remaining details are too graphic to be published, but ultimately resulted in her being raped.

Seemingly at peace in his own mind with what had occurred, Tim cleaned up the games room before taking himself to bed. Brazenly, he then made sexual advances toward the mother of the child he had just raped.

Also now in bed, a distraught Ruby stumped up the courage to message her friend on social media, opening up about what happened.

The summary of facts detail how she was shaking, crying, and questioning exactly what had happened.

Ruby and her de facto stepdad had spent the morning playing mini-golf. Just hours earlier, the same man had brazenly raped her. Photo / 123rf

In court, lawyers told the judge he had co-operated with the police investigation from the outset and was jailed after a guilty plea.

This is not a story of prolonged abuse or grooming; there is no evidence that the man had ever engaged in predatory sexual behaviour towards children before, and the only time he had ever previously appeared before the court was for driving-related charges.

What the evidence doesn't explain, however, was how a man capable of such offending could find himself a loved and trusted member of Sarah's family. It's a question that plays on her mind.

Sarah says she finds it nearly impossible to begin a journey of coming to terms with what happened, without questioning her own role in potentially preventing it.

"The hardest thing is guilt. I've gone through every emotion in my head, but the guilt is the hardest. The number of times I've gone through what happened in my head, looking through every day and trying to find a red flag.

"I'm still trying to work it out in my head now."

Money, who works with victims of sexual abuse on a daily basis, says guilt is almost always the immediate and most obvious emotion among those she works with.

"Because we are adults, in cases like these it is almost always the adult that introduces the offender to the survivor. The guilt comes out of a feeling that, 'I, as a mother, should have protected my child'."

Money says that this pattern of guilt exists across the board.

"Even when it's a teacher offending against a student, a mother still feels guilty because she chose that school."

She says it tends to be the mother who always feels the worst guilt, despite not being to blame.

"It's seemingly a maternal instinct. When someone offends against a child, as a mother, in your own mind, you feel as if you have failed in your maternal responsibility."

That guilt manifests itself in many ways.

For Sarah, she has quit work, solely down to the fact she can't bring herself to place her children in anyone else's care.

"That's the kind of mindset I'm in at the moment. I don't look at people the same way."

Deep down, Sarah knows what happened was not her fault.

"But my motherly intuition goes over in my head - is there something more I could have done?"