oum, I have something to tell you.” Vanessa Smith’s 14-year-old daughter Sarah’s face was pale and her eyes were filled with tears. Vanessa had no idea what the outgoing teenager was about to reveal – could she behaving trouble at school? An argument with a mate? or maybe even a first heartbreak?
But Vanessa wasn’t even close. “Dad’s been touching me,” Sarah said quietly. “He’s been doing it for a long time.” Those devastating words instantly changed Vanessa’s life. She’d married her high school sweetheart, Colin, and they had five children. Sarah was the only girl.
Sarah appeared to be the apple of Colin’s eye – she was a daddy’s girl, happiest when hanging out with her father. But in reality, he had been subjecting his own child to horrific sexual abuse that had started when she was only six years old.
“I was disgusted, really disgusted,” says Vanessa (35), of Auckland, thinking back to the day that shattered her world. “I went through so much guilt and blamed myself. I should have known. He seemed to be such a good family man. He supported his sons in their sports and we would go for drives on Sundays as a family. I trusted him and I was madly in love with him. I worshipped the ground he walked on. I thought we were a good team and, with our gorgeous kids, we seemed like the perfect family.”
Underneath the calm surface of her life, however, Vanessa had been harbouring a secret, niggling worry about Colin (36). He had become increasingly distant from her, as if he was losing interest. She suspected he was having an affair – but not in her worst nightmares could she have imagined that their own child was the object of his interest.
“People close to me ask if I suspected anything and, to be honest, I didn’t. When I think back, he did spend time a lot of time with Sarah, but I just put that down to him being a good dad. She was our only girl. The last thing you would have thought was that there was abuse going on.”
But as soon as Sarah revealed her horrifying and heartbreaking secret, Vanessa knew immediately where her heart lay. She was a devoted mum before she was a wife, and without hesitation, she assured Sarah she believed her and immediately focused on keeping her family safe.
That night, she packed up some things, took the five kids and left. Although it wasn’t a hard decision, withher daughter at the forefront of her mind at all times, it was tough to go from having a good income from Colin’s wages to being on the Domestic Purposes Benefit. Vanessa was studying at university at the time, and they couldn’t afford a home of their own.
Instead, they moved seven times, mainly sleeping in friends’ lounges. “It was the lowest of low times. I never had enough money to give my children even the bare essentials. I could have asked my family for help, but I wanted to do it on my own. I was too proud to ask for handouts. I felt that my kids were my responsibility.”
But the heartache wasn’t over for Vanessa, who soon realised she couldn’t keep Sarah safe from her abuser. Deeply traumatised, Sarah didn’t want to relive the abuse by making a formal police statement about the years of abuse. This meant that Vanessa couldn’t put any legal orders in place to prevent her husband making contact with Sarah.
After years of grooming by her father, Sarah was still under his influence and began sneaking out to meet him. “She was missing her dad and, to be honest, so was I. He had told her she was his girlfriend and so they had this terrible kind of relationship between them. When they went places together, he would hold her hand like they were a couple,” says Vanessa, shaking her head.
But without a formal complaint to police or CYFS backed up by Sarah, there was nothing Vanessa could do to prevent them seeing each other. The final straw came when Vanessa caught them together.
“Sarah hadn’t gone to school that day and said she was going to the shops. I had a really bad feeling about it so I called his work and he wasn’t there. I knew they were together,” she says. Vanessa went to the property her husband was staying at and, in a mother’s worst nightmare, found her husband with their daughter in his bedroom.
Vanessa knew she had to take drastic action. Even though she’d lived in Auckland all her life and had never ventured outside the city, she moved her kids to Wellington immediately, far away from everything and everyone she knew. This was a huge step for Vanessa, but she felt it was worth it to keep Sarah safe from her predatory dad.
“This was what I needed to do and it was isolating for me. The kids were miserable and they were depressed too,” she says. Sarah missed Auckland immensely and knew the only way her determined mum would move back home was if she knew Colin was unable to access his children. Bravely, Sarah decided to make a police statement about the abuse.
Police immediately arrested Colin and in court he pleaded guilty to 11 counts of sexual abuse. He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail. At the sentencing, Vanessa was finally able to confront the man she once loved, and for the first time since finding out about the abuse, tell him exactly how she felt.
“Reading out my victim statement in court was very satisfying for me,” she says. “I looked him the eyes and asked him how he could do this to his own daughter.
“I said, ‘The impact this has had on your kids, especially Sarah, has been unbearable. At least in prison you have a got a roof over your head and three meals a day. Some days, we’re lucky if we can afford to eat anything.'”
Today, Sarah is 18, and though the ordeal has left deep emotional scars, she says she’ll always be grateful to her mum for believing her, for taking action quickly and for making so many sacrifices for her family’s sake.
“Even though oum loved my father more than life itself and planned to grow old with him, she loved me more,” says an emotional Sarah. “She never once questioned me or doubted me, and she gave up everything for me.
I know she struggled and it was hard but she kept telling us that as long as we were together and we were safe, that was all that mattered.”
Four years on, Vanessa has found new hope – and has a new love – in her life. She recently finalised her divorce from Colin and welcomed a new baby into the family. She also has a good job that allows her to support her family – and she has recently become a grandmother too.
She urges all mums whose children find the courage to tell them about abuse to listen and to act and, above all, to stay strong for each other.
“It was the kids that got me through it,” she says. “There were days when I didn’t want to get out of bed. I was so low, I didn’t think it would ever get any better. But the hardship has been worth it. I can finally see the light.”
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