Harrison James: What Every Parent Should Know About Grooming

0:00Speaker 1:I didn't have the language at the time to say, yeah, you know this is wrong, or because it felt good to be loved and appreciated and to as a thirteen year old boy to have sex. You know, it was I thought I was the king of the world. And you've got this societal sort of grooming outside of that as well, where you've got porn categories like stepmom or teen and you think, oh, but it's in the media, and it's in you know, like I got lucky. I was better than any kid at school, you know, because I was scoring an older woman.

0:32Speaker 2:Hello, I'm Kate lane Brook, host of No Filter. Today's guest is Harrison. James. Harrison has lived through a story that is almost impossible to comprehend. At thirteen years old, after years of upheaval in his family life, Harrison moved in with his father, hoping to reconnect with him and find the stability he'd been missing. Instead, he found himself at the center of a situation no child should ever have to navigate. Between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, Harrison was sexually abused by his stepmother, But one of the most confronting aspects of his story is that for years afterwards, he didn't fully understand what had happened to him was abuse. Like many survivors of grooming, Harrison believed he was in a relationship. At fifteen, his stepmother gave birth to a daughter who was biologically his child. For years, Harrison lived with the secret that the little girl everyone believed was his sister was actually his daughter. In this conversation, Harrison speaks openly about grooming, trauma, abuse, fatherhood, family estrangement, mental health, and the long journey towards understanding what happened

1:56Speaker 2:to him. We also talk about the daughter he has scene for years, the father who still doesn't believe him, and how he transformed his own experience into a campaign that helped change laws across Australia. While we don't discuss child sexual abuse in graphic detail, it is central to this conversation. So please this and mindfully. This is Harrison James on No Filter. Harrison James, welcome to No Filter.

2:28Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me on Cake.

2:30Speaker 2:I have read your book, and well thank you for writing this. The book is called Transform Your Pain into Purpose. You need to have pain to transform in order to transform it into purpose, and that certainly you have had plenty of in your kind of relatively short life. And it started when you were a young boy.

3:01Speaker 1:Yeah, when I was thirteen. I'm twenty six now, by the way.

3:05Speaker 2:Okay, so even if I was to take you further back, or you were to take us further back to your growing up, what was Harrison like then?

3:16Speaker 1:Oh? Yeah, No, I was quite a reserved and shy kid and I but I was also super creative and I think you know, I love drawing. I loved all of that. But there was also a facade. I learned from a very early age what a tumultual household was like, and I think that's what primed me for the sexual abuse that I ended up experiencing at thirty because there was.

3:37Speaker 2:Always a violence in your home. Yeah, so I've traded by your father.

3:43Speaker 1:Correct, Yeah, so my father was physically abusive towards your mother, towards and the kids.

3:50Speaker 2:And also okay, and there were four.

3:52Speaker 1:Four there's four children. I'm the eldest of four. So I can't speak for the other kids because they're going their own way about things, which is more fine. But for me, I experienced you know, physical abuse, emotional abused, mental abuse, all those things. He was a very violent man. He would come through the house like a hurricane most of the time. You know, I talk about it in the book. You know, there was this notion of I wasn't good enough because I was into acting and art, and you know, I was sort of that sort of kid.

4:22Speaker 1:And I remember my father and Fury one time, like he would throw his full weight onto my neck and I wouldn't be able to breathe. Sometimes he catapulted a fork across the room. It landed in my eye. And so there was a myriad of things where it was a very violent household and it was like stepping on you know, it's like you're in a minefield essentially.

4:46Speaker 2:Because I think you can you can break a child more easily than you can make a child. Yes, so you learn at a very young age too, do what retreating to your sell for to always be on guard?

5:02Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and it's also it's a phenomenon. So we hear about flight and fight all the time. Yeah, but there's this other phenomenon called fawning. And I was constantly fawning, which is where you retreat into yourself and sort of cater to the adults around you or the people around you, I should say, to keep them having to keep the peace. And yeah, and like I was always preempting, you know, a violent blow up or you know, the worst possible thing that could happen. So I was always ten steps ahead, even as a child, and that formed into you know, anxiety and all these awful things where you're constantly preempting the worst possible outcome to save yourself. And you would I was constantly reverse engineering my next move.

5:41Speaker 2:Right of course, Yeah, because you even though the pattern is unpredictable, you know that it's coming. So you are living in this state of anticipation.

5:52Speaker 1:Yeah, and fear.

5:53Speaker 2:Right.

5:54Speaker 1:And you know that's common amongst survivors of domestic and family violence. It's you know, not just amongst children too, but amongst women in domestic violence relationships. You know, it's a common fawning is a common you know, retreat practice to ensure that you're safe. Yeah, and that's how I was raised. And I think that's sort of that progression and that slow erosion of my own identity. I didn't have my own identity, but that sort of primed me for the sexual abuse I went on to experience.

6:27Speaker 2:Unfortunately, when you were. So you're talking in your book about when you were eight, one of many incidents with your mum where you tried to come to her aid, what was that feeling for you as a little boy, because you knew that you would obviously incur the wrath and fury of your dad, but your loyalty and your.

6:57Speaker 1:Love for my mom. Yeah, for your mom, it just came through and I remember, yeah, I was on the thing that you're talking about with in the book was when I was sitting on the top the top bunk and my mother. My dad came home in this drunken rage of fury and his head was like bright red. I remember it being like bee troop red almost, and he was abusing Mum and Mum I think mum has felt Mum was pregnant, and I felt as though she thought coming into our room would put him at bay.

7:28Speaker 1:But then he took his belt off corner and went to but I jumped on his back from the top bunk, and I remember, I don't remember what like, I don't remember a specific you know, memory or thought that went processed through my head to want me to do that. I think it was just more instinctual that I wanted to protect my mother, and people would always tell me, even from a very young age, oh, you're so, you're so wise beyond your years. You're this, you're very mature.

7:58Speaker 1:And looking back on that now with hindsight, it's all just you know, that fawning that as I was talking about that preempting of abuse, that you know, had that thing of survival. I had to survive. It was a survival mechanism to be like that, because it was the only way you could get through those moments.

8:17Speaker 2:But even in even though you had learned what by the age of eight, what the outcome would be, you still showed this instinctive bravery, which I'm going to say I think has proven to be kind of a template for you in life.

8:37Speaker 1:Oh thank you.

8:38Speaker 2:But it's amazing, isn't it, Because it's not always the case and you're talking. Also, you mentioned this in your book, and this is well known that a lot of people who have lived with abuse, sexual abuse, because of the shame that's attached to it in a myriad of reasons, take a long time to come out, to say it out loud, to walk in the light.

9:00Speaker 1:It's an average of twenty one and a half years before a survivor of child sexual abuse will ever come forward with what they've experienced.

9:08Speaker 2:Yeah, and we understand why. Yeah, but for you, that was not the path.

9:13Speaker 1:No, it wasn't. I think it wasn't the path because of circumstances outside of my control. Really, after experiencing child sexual abuse from the ages of thirteen to sixteen, and then you know, staying quiet about it because my daughter was involved as well, which we'll get into, I didn't even know it was abuse what I was experiencing, even at nineteen, after all those years, I thought I was complicit in the relationship with my stepmother.

9:42Speaker 2:Okay, so let's go back a little bit. Yeah, so the by this stage, your mum has four children with your dad. Yes, they divorced when your team at that point, did the divorce almost feel like a relief?

9:58Speaker 1:No, because there were moments my father would just come around unannounced and bang on the glass, and we mom would just draw the curtains and we'd be watching TV and we turn off the volume so it would drown out my dad banging on the glass and hurling abuse at my mother.

10:11Speaker 2:Right, So there was no sense of safety or release, No, nothing like that. It was always acrimonious between them.

10:22Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, and it wasn't my mother as well. You know, she was subjected to violence for many, many years and post that divorce, you know, there was a moment where on my twelfth birthday where I woke up to my mum she was bruised and beaten and taken to a hospital. And you know, from your dad, from my dad, Yeah, he followed her home one night. She was at a party and he followed her and she couldn't get in the front door us four kids with my auntie, so she went down into the granny flat at the back and he followed it in the granny flat and beat her to a pulp. And that was the case that went to court where he got good character references.

11:01Speaker 2:Okay, we'll get to that as well. So then you're thirteen, your dad remarries a woman from the Philippines. Where did they meet?

11:14Speaker 1:I have no idea. He would travel to the Philippines regularly during that period of divorce, I believe, and they met over there and he brought her back to Australia and married her, and she got a visa and everything like that.

11:29Speaker 2:And then so that from that period from when you were ten to thirteen, you weren't living with your dad.

11:36Speaker 1:No, No, I'd see him on occasion if he was picking up like my siblings, but they'd come back within the within the next few hours because he would he would do something that would upset them.

11:48Speaker 2:Right, So you pick up your siblings but not pick up you.

11:50Speaker 1:Yeah, well I just refused to go. I've always felt uncomfortable going and stuff like that. And then by the time I was thirteen, oh, you know, I was in year eight. I you know, I had no I was raised by my mother, my grandmother and all my aunties, so it was very you know, it was a maternal sort of environment that I was in constantly. So I was really striving for some male you know.

12:15Speaker 2:Yes, of a young boy emerging into manhood. The hunger for a man.

12:24Speaker 1:Is is it's real?

12:26Speaker 2:Yes, it's real, and I think it's underestimated.

12:28Speaker 1:Yes. So, And because my father had gone, I hadn't seen him for so long by that point, or I saw him sparingly. I felt as though that was my only option and or maybe he's changed. So then we started going to the gym together. And I hate any sort of physical activity. I don't do sport or anything that he's into. But going to the gym together was a way for us to connect, and I thought, oh, he's been really nice to me. Now, how nice is this? This is all I've ever wanted. Our dad really has changed.

12:57Speaker 1:And then that's when I decided to move in with him. And you know, being the eldest of four in a household, you know, it's quite an attractive offer to go live with my dad, have my own bedroom, be right near the beach, one bus away from school, like it was. It was sort of a no brainer at that time. And I had this sense of freedom away from my siblings and I was with dad. He's been really nice to me. Things have changed. But his wife was in the house, and initially I didn't have that. I didn't have any interaction with her.

13:27Speaker 2:Really, did you know her at all before?

13:29Speaker 1:Not before?

13:30Speaker 2:So you weren't at the wedding or no, it was nothing, Yeah, it was nothing like that, right, So she was a fae to complay.

13:37Speaker 1:Yeah, this is my new wife.

13:39Speaker 2:So when you're move in a stranger, yeah, yeah.

13:43Speaker 1:And she was just very unassuming. She was sweet and soft spoken and just sort of kept to herself really and then eventually she wanted to sort of she offered to take me to the movies.

13:56Speaker 2:How long how long have you been living there.

13:58Speaker 1:At the last, oh a fortnight? Not that much of all. Yeah, less than a month. I could definitely say that. Yeah, but she often to take me to the movies, and I went, oh, okay, you know, my stepmother as she's trying to reach out and establish a relationship because I'll be living here now, she wants to do something friendly and nice. And we went to a movie theater and saw A Step Up. Yeah, And we were watching that and then that's when the sort of touching on the leg and the hand holding and the I remember her rubbing my legs throughout the film, like going inside my leg yeah, yeah, and and and then you know, we were hugging. And when we got the bus home and walked there's a hill that we had to walk up to get to the apartment that we were living in with my dad in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney, and I remember, you know, I was putting my arm around her and she was hugging me. And then the first thing I remember her specifically saying, oh, do you you hug your real mum like this, and it was just now with hindsight, I understand it was that she was trying to establish that feeling of the fact that I

15:09Speaker 1:was complicit in the in the touching, and it was just a little thing.

15:14Speaker 2:But that you're doing it. Yeah, you're the one that's hugging.

15:17Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, And then soon after that it progressed to kissing, and then you know, more explicit things and then yeah, obviously sexual abuse as well.

15:30Speaker 2:So wow.

15:32Speaker 1:So but it's a gradual erosion of boundaries. And that's what I'm trying to get at. It's not this when people say sexual abuse or sexual assault, people think of this really hyper dramatic, which sometimes sometimes it is, and I never deny that, but.

15:48Speaker 2:Usual context of this, it's classic.

15:52Speaker 1:Grooming, yes, exactly, and especially with child sexual abuse. You know, these perpetrators, they're experts, are what they do. It's a gradual erosion of boundaries, making the victim feel complicit. And that's why when a victim finally speaks out, there was so much shame shrouded around it because they're grappling with the fact, or even I was grappling with the fact, Oh no, I wanted this as well. Yeah, yeah, but.

16:16Speaker 2:You don't have a vocabulary. You don't have a sexual or an emotional vocabulary for any of this.

16:21Speaker 1:At this point, I don't even have a developed mind yet, let alone the language to be able to speak about it.

16:27Speaker 2:How much older was she than you?

16:30Speaker 1:Yep, so she was in her mid to late twenties at the time.

16:33Speaker 2:And how was her relationship with your dad? Was that like marked by violence as well?

16:40Speaker 1:She would tell me that it was, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was. But part of me thinks, was she telling me that for me to feel a sort of you know, sensitivity towards her, feel like I need to help it, like keep me in the loop. So I can't verify, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was either, because I'm Dad's history as well.

17:02Speaker 2:So now you're in this position that you're basically living with someone who has predatory sexual intent towards you, but you're being double gained because you're a thirteen year old old boy, freshly pubescent with all of the confusion and those attendant urges and whatever. And it's well documented that that's one of the things that's often attributed I think with shame of sexual assault survivors sexual abuse survivors, is that because there's a certain degree of pleasure. Of course there is, that's the whole point of you know, especially.

17:51Speaker 1:For young boys, there's actually a physical sort of embodiment of pleasure, which is, you know, yes, I don't want to be crashed, but like in the peanis and you start to feel that guilt and shame. Well, how was I aroused? You know if it wasn't sexual abuse, And that's a common trope, but the abuse part is the coercion and the grooming to get to that point as well as the physical aspect. But there's so many elements.

18:15Speaker 2:To it in that So when you came back for it from the movies that night and you go into the house, how is she? How is she the next morning? Like when you're in front of your dad, how is she towards you?

18:31Speaker 1:Well, it was interesting because my dad was starting his company at the time that he runs at the moment, and it was at the time of establishing that company he was gone from early hours of the morning till late hours of the evening. So the sexual abuse occurred, you know, before and after school, and my dad wasn't in the house. When my dad was in the house, we would just be it was normal. It wasn't like, yeah, of facade essentially to play pretend in front of my dad.

19:03Speaker 1:And we were having this illicit affair behind my dad's back, and it was true love and you know, nobody else will understand it, so we can't tell anyone. And she would tell me, you know, if you say anything, you and I can both go to jail. And I remember when a police car would go buy me in my school uniform in my backpack as a thirteen year old, fourteen year old kid, my stomach would drop because I think, oh, the cops are going to find out I've done the wrong thing. And you know, it was it was an awful experience.

19:31Speaker 2:How long between the initial the movie yep and the first kind of sexual Yeah.

19:41Speaker 1:It was a matter of two weeks. Yeah, So it went from the movies the next morning. You know. My stepmother was a cleaner for my dad's company, and she would get the bus to the city and I would get on the same bus because my school was on the way, my high school, so we'd get on the bus together and we'd make sure to go to the back row, so no one could see her holding my hand or touching my leg or kissing me in the backseat of the bus. And that's what the next morning was.

20:10Speaker 2:And I don't know if you can answer this or that, but do you think a part of the part of the reason that it made it possible for her to pray on you, aside from the fact that she had the power in this house anyway, was because of what you had experienced at the hands of your dad.

20:31Speaker 1:Oh, undoubtedly. Yeah, what I experienced, the violence that I experienced, And I want to remind you as well, by this point, my dad already become violent again. Right, Yeah, So like that feeling of oh, my dad's change, that went away very quickly.

20:47Speaker 2:Right, But what was the first can you remember the first?

20:54Speaker 1:Oh?

20:54Speaker 2:I can't recall the experience where you went, Oh, I'd get screened out and called a puff and you know, an idiot every day, or you know, he'd thrown me about or hit me or whatever like it was.

21:07Speaker 1:It was just back to usual how it was when I was a kid.

21:12Speaker 2:You were still a kid.

21:13Speaker 1:I still was a kid.

21:14Speaker 2:He's still a kid.

21:15Speaker 1:Yeah. But the thing is, well, the violence that I experienced it in my household as a younger boy. Primed me for the sexual abuse, and my parents' divorce primed me for my stepmother to interject and groom me because as a kid, you know, I felt as though I needed to take a side in my parents' divorce when my dad's telling me my mother's the worst in the world, and my mom's you know, going through this violence and expressing frustration at my father. You know, one day I think he's not a great dad. The next day I think my mother's awful. And it's this pendulum and there's no middle middle ground where I can hold both truths at one time. Because I'm being different. Messaging is coming to me all the time, your disputed territory. Yeah, and you know, I felt as though I had to be absolutist in choosing which side I was on. So when I moved in with my dad, I cut my mother off.

22:09Speaker 1:And that's why my mother didn't see so much of this for so long, you know, my biological mother.

22:15Speaker 2:Yes, and so how much contact would you have with her?

22:18Speaker 1:It was very minimal during this period of time, and you know, I would just constantly cut her off as well. I keep things to a minimum. Short, I would shun her off because I knew if my mum got me, she would pick up on something. She knows who her son is. And yeah, So that that feeling of having to choose a side and not feeling loved in any way and feeling abandoned, that was I was primed for my stepmother to come in and make me feel loved and seen and heard. And for the first time in a very long time, I did feel that. I felt like an adult really loves me. Now I'm loved, I'm appreciated.

22:59Speaker 2:But it was Yeah, when with the sexual nature of the relationship that she initiated with you, what what was the confusion within that or was there none? Did it feel like an extension of what she was saying that she loved you and you felt this love for her?

23:25Speaker 1:Yeah?

23:25Speaker 2:Or did you sometimes feel that you were like you obviously knew it wasn't right.

23:30Speaker 1:Yes, well I knew it wasn't right, but not from the point of an older woman's abusing me or having sex with me what I thought. But I thought, oh, we're doing something behind dad's back. We're having an affair behind dad's back. And that's because I was so young and didn't have the language to explain what the hell was going on as a child, you simplify it, you know, you say, oh, yeah, this is love, or you say this is an affair, or you say these simple time to try and make sense of it, because you don't have I didn't have the language at the time to say, yeah, you know, this is wrong, or because it felt good to be loved and appreciated and to as a thirteen year old boy to have sex, you know it. It was like I thought I was the king of the world.

24:16Speaker 1:And you've got this societal sort of grooming outside of that as well, where you've got porn categories like step mum or teen and you think, oh, but it's in the media, and it's in you know, like I got lucky. I was I was better than any kid at school, you know, because I was I was scoring an older woman. And that's the sort of societal grooming aspect of it as well. There's societal pressure on men specifically. I feel to feel as though that any form of you know, anything that's sexually loaded, whether it be abuse or a comment or whatever, is the ultimate form of social currency for men.

24:57Speaker 2:Because there wasn't a There wasn't a toe for you, not like a constant when you felt like you were in love with your stepmother, did you feel that you were somehow asserting yourself against your dad.

25:18Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, one hundred percent. And that was it was this thing of you know, oh, we have a relationship, we have a thing of true love that no one else will be able to understand because if dad finds out, he's going to he's going to abuse us or hit us and be violent. So we can't tell him. And by the time on eighteen we can figure it out and run away and have our own lives.

25:42Speaker 2:And which what you thought was going to happen, because she was the love of your life.

25:48Speaker 1:Yes, she was so calculating and telling me all these things.

25:51Speaker 2:And what would she say to you?

25:53Speaker 1:Oh, she was everything that you would gain from a from a normal sort of romantic relationship. It was just it was same sort of dynamic I remember, Kate, there was whenever my dad was around and we hadn't sort of because we were putting on this facade and not being interacting in front of my dad. If we were sitting down and watching TV, altogether as a family. I say in loose terms, but she would like put her She would trace two to four E on my on my back or my arm or something too. Two meant love you for E meant forever. So it was just like this constant thing.

26:34Speaker 2:Of while your dad's sitting on the Yeah, so.

26:38Speaker 1:I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. You're still in the loop. It's just like those little things like that just kept you hooked and kept you with Yeah.

26:45Speaker 2:Of course, because these the illicit nature of itself is also thrilling, yes, terrifying, but thrilling yes.

26:54Speaker 1:And also there's she's you know she you'd lies this sort of image of or me or like, your dad's not very nice to me, so I feel like I have to stick up for her. So that puts tension between my dad and I or further is it?

27:11Speaker 2:And did you do that?

27:12Speaker 1:Yeah, without a doubt, I was jealous of my father. Wives here living in my position, right, but that should be me, yes, And so that there was this constant state of rivalry between my dad and I. It was never spoken about that I hated him because of how he treated my stepmother. For example, what she was telling me how he treated right. Again, I can't verify if it was true.

27:33Speaker 2:And also, there were just three of you living in an apartment or a house.

27:37Speaker 1:To an apartment a flat.

27:40Speaker 2:Did you hear them having sex or you were aware of their sexual relation? Yeah?

27:43Speaker 1:Like I knew when the when their bedroom door was closed, something was going on, right. So, like there's this fury that's invigorating in me because I know what's going on there with someone I love good jealous, but I had to. I had to. I had to, you know, save face and keep the story going so her secret didn't get out. Yeah, So it's incredibly an intense environment. And you know, I was getting messages on Facebook Messenger from her, you know, saying she would always she would always finish off by saying I love you, and then I would say I love you too, and then she go, now delete these messages.

28:24Speaker 1:So every message was deleted because I thought I was saving the woman I loved. And then when my daughter gets involved, which will get into you know, that just creates another layer of assertion as to why I need to remain silent and protect my stepmother and my daughter.

28:42Speaker 2:I'll be back with Harrison after this short break. Tell me about when she tells you that she's pregnant.

28:50Speaker 1:So, as I speak about in the book, I was on the bus home from school. My dad and stepmother went on a holiday to Thailand, so not the Philippines where she's from, but Thailand, and they were on a holiday and she found out she was pregnant. Over there. I get a text on Facebook messager saying I'm pregnant. I'm on the school bus, like literally in my school uniform going home. I'm passing Waverley College in Bronte, which is not my school, but I remember being there. There's the East Leagues Club and the netball courts that I was literally on the bus at the back. Every kids are carrying on, throwing shit at each other and stuff, and I'm there looking at my phone. I'm pregnant, and my stomach jobs. I respond, don't tell dad. She goes, I already have. He thinks it's his. And then I went, okay, okay, well that's probably the best outcome, and then yeah, and then I had to. Then I just when they came home eventually, yeah, just pretended, oh my god, well I'm having a little half sister and stuff like that, and just played along with it to avoid being caught out once again.

30:02Speaker 2:You must have had every single emotion conflicting with every other single emotion.

30:10Speaker 1:Yes, Oh, without a doubt. It was a very confusing time, an incredibly difficult time. But also, Kate, I knew that I even then, So I found out my stepmother was pregnant when I was at the start, when I just turned fifteen, and my daughter was born just before a few months before I turned sixteen, So that was the year where we found out. My daughter was born in December of twenty fifteen, and I turned sixteen on the seventh of January in twenty sixteen, which is where the last act of sexual abuse happened. But for those years when my daughter, when my daughter was for when my stepmother was pregnant, when my daughter was first born, it was just that constant state of playing pretend and keeping face and keeping the story going of you know, half sisters on the way really excited about it, I let I wasn't. My stepmother didn't allow me to go to any of the appointments like during the pregnancy because that would be too suspicious. Is he there? Yes? Did your dad go to those appointments? Oh? Here and that my dad's not very Yeah, he's not like that at all. Yeah, So it was just a corruption of truth, but also

31:29Speaker 1:was a corruption of my experience of fatherhood. I mean, I shouldn't have been experiencing fatherhood at fifteen years old. In the first place. I didn't really have a choice in it. My stepmother told me for years that she couldn't fall pregnant, and that gave me reassurances when the sexual abuse was occurring, but then she did end up falling pregnant, and essentially, yeah, it was. It corrupted my experience of fatherhood. It corrupted my experience of love and safety and choice and those are you know, have far reaching ramifications that I've still been dealing with to this day and I've only just come to terms with. Really.

32:07Speaker 2:So the day that your daughter was born.

32:11Speaker 1:Yes, I was doing an electrician apprenticeship. I was on a ladder hanging up a sign on Cloverly Road and I got a text saying with a photo of my daughter.

32:23Speaker 2:And who sent that you're at mother?

32:25Speaker 1:Yeah right, and yeah, as soon as soon as I finished my shift, I went straight to the hospital to go see her.

32:32Speaker 2:And was your dad there?

32:33Speaker 1:Yeah? He was there, So you met your daughter, but pretended it was my half sister with.

32:40Speaker 2:Them in front of the man who also believed it was his daughter who was also your father.

32:46Speaker 1:Yes, it's very confusing. It's a multi layered story. And how did you.

32:53Speaker 2:How did you compartmentalize all of that?

32:56Speaker 1:Again, just that childlike sort of way of saying, this is a secret I've got to keep.

33:02Speaker 2:I've just safety first, going to be.

33:06Speaker 1:Everything else was just noise. It was just keep quiet, yeah, safe face. This is my half sister. When dad is out of the picture, when he's out of the house. Oh, it's my daughter. This is the love of my life that I'm with as well. So that was the dynamic when my dad was away the real family was here.

33:27Speaker 2:There's a lot of anxiety.

33:29Speaker 1:Yeah, of course there was.

33:30Speaker 2:Yeah, did your stepmother feel any of that anxiety or.

33:35Speaker 1:To an extent that was projected onto me? And that's why I felt that I had to keep that secret. So yeah, there was definitely that feeling from her, But also there's I can say there's that feeling emanating from her, which is true to an extent, but there's also just an audacity to be able to do it as well, which you can't deny, there's a there's a there's a blatant dismissal of Yeah, care say like all of that.

34:02Speaker 2:And to embroil a child in your what what whatever, however she whatever game she's playing, whatever that is. Yeah, but how was the moment when you saw your daughter?

34:16Speaker 1:I had to hold tears back because I knew that if I cried too much it would be suspicious, Like my mind is constantly operating in that way. Can I act like this right now or is that? Is that going to unravel?

34:28Speaker 2:Did you get to hold her?

34:29Speaker 1:Yeah? I got to hold her, and that was special. Yeah. I wanted to burst into tears, but as I said, I couldn't. But yeah, I also remember her my dad's Can I get my height from my mother? My biological mother? My dad's short ass? I remember my daughter actually had exceptionally long arms and legs. And that wasn't even to tell tale signed for my dad. He was so buried in ego and yeah, just buried his head in the sand with it that he didn't Yeah, he's a fool.

35:05Speaker 2:So you go back to the family home. It's a family of four. Now, what role do you play there?

35:15Speaker 1:I'm just the I'm just the heavily involved older brother, right, yeah, just in love with his half sister.

35:22Speaker 2:And what's going on between you and your stepmother when?

35:25Speaker 1:So the sexual abuse ceased for a while. So, as I said, my daughter was born in early December of twenty fifteen. My birthday was on the seventh of January twenty sixteenth, and that's when the last act of sexual abuse occurred. And then it.

35:41Speaker 2:Ceased there And why did it cease?

35:44Speaker 1:So because it was my birthday. My stepmother performed a sexual act on me, and it just happened to stop there. We like in the kitchen, in the kitchen, yeah, yeah, it was the kitchen, as I said in the book. And essentially, eventually, you know, a little bit after that, we ended up going to the Philippines to show the baby off to my stepmother's side of the family, right, And I went along on that trip. It was the first time to the Philippines. And you know, I'm a nearly sixteen year old boy, and you know, my father went out drinking and I went along with him. I don't know, you know, he allowed me to go to the clubs and stuff like that with him. And anyway, my stepmother would stay at the hotel with the baby most of the time. I remember, you know, I'd never really drank before. This is the first time I drank in clubs, and you know, I remember being so drunk that I ended up, you know, in the bathroom and vomiting and spewing, and and yeah, it was just no place that a sixteen year old should be. And there was my stepmother's sister brought along a friend, and the sister and the friend, my dad, his friend and me

36:59Speaker 1:would all go clubbing all night for these two weeks we were in the Philippines and I was there and essentially, you know, throughout the span of that two weeks, my stepmother's sister's friend who came along, ended up ended up raping me twice. I was sexually assaulted twice by that woman. So essentially, so yeah, I was sexually assaulted by that woman twice throughout that trip. Again, because I've been through the sexual abuse. I was sixteen, I thought I was the king of the world. I thought I got lucky, how good this And then my stepmother found out about it and said, you cheated on me. To me, she said, you cheated on me. You did the wrong thing. I'm cutting it off now. I don't think she instigated that woman to sexually assault me, but I think there was.

37:49Speaker 1:I think there was a perfect opportunity for an out for my step mother. Yeah, do you think she was.

37:57Speaker 2:Sexually interested in you because of your age?

38:05Speaker 1:So that Yeah, I've been struggling with that. You know, there's is it a case of you know, look, she's a child sex offender. Whether she is pedophilic in her affiliation, I'm not one hundred percent sure. There's an element that has been raised of my stepmother wanted sort of an insurance policy to be with my dad so she could get because my dad was very wealthy, she could have access to the money. So she needed a child to be a sort of anchor for her to be there.

38:42Speaker 1:And obviously my dad had a eseected me after my youngest sibling, My actual sibling was born with your mom, with my mom, So that's weirder as to why he didn't pick up on Yeah, if he just was really strange. Yeah, essentially, So, whether my mother actually was a pedophile, I'm not one hundred percent sure, but she was a child sex offender. Was she attracted to me because of my age, or because she liked the power. I don't know. I don't know. All I know is what happened to me, and it was awful and I'm still dealing with the ramifications of it to this day.

39:21Speaker 2:How could you not be when you so you're very close to your daughter, who the world believes to be your sister at that time. You don't tell anyone anything at any point?

39:36Speaker 1:No, Ok, I didn't go to house parties like a normal sixteen year old. I didn't go. I hardly hung out with my friends. I didn't want to do that because I knew if anyone got too close to me, yes, they'd be Susan something.

39:49Speaker 2:Yes, and that you might if you were you had a dream.

39:53Speaker 1:Or you go slip sink yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I avoided all of that because.

39:59Speaker 2:You looked after you your daughter, Oh yeah, quite a lot. Yeah, and even after you moved out.

40:04Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah. So I ended up once my stepmother pointed the finger and said I was cheating on her, I ended up moving out of the.

40:11Speaker 2:House, right, because how was it when after that that's very hard to come back from.

40:19Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it is. So I moved out and ended up living with my maternal grandmother.

40:24Speaker 2:And were you heartbroken, because of course I was. She you believed her, I thought I broke up with the love of my life. Yeah, I broke up with the mother of my child. And how was she towards you at that time?

40:36Speaker 1:Quite quite resentful and bitter. I think she wanted to create that distance on purpose. But I would go over just to be with my daughter, So it was like we were co parenting in a way, and I would go there. I'd take my daughter for ice cream and I'd take her for fish and chips, or we go down to the beach near where my where the apartment was where we lived.

40:58Speaker 2:Did you ever tell her like even when when she was a baby, Oh.

41:05Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd say things like but like it wasn't in it at a stage where she was able to comprehend.

41:12Speaker 2:No, that's what I made. You could tell her any truth thing when she was, you know, any.

41:19Speaker 1:Effant, but there was you know, won't than anything. The thing that I treasured and cherished was that time with her, that one on one time because in those moments where it was just me and my daughter and we would go out ice cream or whatever it was, you know, it was just pure bliss. There was no facade, There was no upkeep of Avasad, just her and I in the moment at the beach or in the park or pushing her on a swing or whatever.

41:47Speaker 2:Did anyone, I mean, you were still so young, But did anyone ever think you were her dad? Like strangers?

41:54Speaker 1:Oh no, I don't remember.

41:57Speaker 2:You were so young at that.

41:58Speaker 1:Yeah, I was so young. I was sixteen. I was sixteen seventeen eighteen when I was taking care of my daughter like that. But I remember I was working two jobs. I was working at a fish and chip shop and I was working at like a painting place at the entertainment quarter. And I remember using the money to buy nappies. And I would go to school do my work after in the afternoon, and on the weekends while my dad was away or at work or something, I would come over with things for the baby. And you know, I was just committed to being a father. And I think I grew up overnight really because of the abuse I experienced. Sorry, And essentially I knew from the outset that I wanted to be the father that my father wasn't for me.

42:47Speaker 1:And yeah, so that was just a driving factor to one keep the secret, but two also have that consistent sort of contact with my daughter as.

42:58Speaker 2:Well, because you say in the book my father was not a father, he was a sperm doner.

43:06Speaker 1:Yeah, I hope he reads that.

43:08Speaker 2:Do you think he will? Do you know where he is?

43:11Speaker 1:Yeah, I know what he is, but I haven't spoken to him in years. Yeah, look, I think he will. I don't know really how to. I don't know. I think the thing with my father is outside out of mind. Might just ignore it. He tells everyone I'm a liar. Of course, he goes around telling everyone I'm a liar. He'll probably just maintain what he says.

43:36Speaker 2:But it surely must have shaken the foundations of his certainty. No, having the revelations about your daughter.

43:45Speaker 1:He denounces what I've experienced. He doesn't believe me. He still flies to the Philippines.

43:52Speaker 2:To see he must have mother. Okay, so tell me when, which is such a terrible day when you got to the apartment.

44:01Speaker 1:Yes, so at this point I was living in my own apartment. Yeah, and I deliberately chosen apartment around the corner from where my daughter lives. Yes, I was in close contact. Yeah, Yeah, my daughter would come to stay with me. Sometimes I would frame it as, oh, you, you and my stepmother have have a night off, I'll take the baby.

44:19Speaker 2:Yeah.

44:20Speaker 1:I was eighteen at this point. Yeah, living in my own studio apartment in Clovelly. My daughter would come around every now and then. Anyway, there was one day my dad was away for business in Queensland and he said he called me up and he said, there's been some transactions on the credit card and you know, your stepmother's not answering her phone. Can you go around and check on the baby and her. Okay, Sure, walk into the house and it's completely empty. The apartment's completely empty. Drawers have been taken out, you know, doors not even locked or anything. So my stepmother's just taken off with my daughter.

44:57Speaker 1:I had no inclination that was. He sent them in the day before, saw saw my daughter the day before. Yeah, yeah, I picked my daughter up from preschool the evening before, and yeah, they were gone, and I told my dad he was figuring out where they were. Anyway, he eventually found out that they went to the Philippines. And yeah, from that day I haven't seen my daughter since. And that was the day as well, where my stepmother wanted to throw my dad's focus off her leave in the country, and she sent an email to my dad saying that I raped her. And then that's when my dad forwarded it to me. I read it fell on the floor.

45:38Speaker 1:He's obviously forwarded it to my biological mother as well, and she's called me saying what's happening? And I went like I couldn't breathe, and I was crying into the phone. Mom's come and picked me up, and I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. My mum was driving, and she said, Harry, do you want to tell me what's going on? Like, what's what's happened? And that's when I came forward and said, for all these years I've been in a relationship with my stepmother, the words you use, yes, yeah, because I didn't know it.

46:07Speaker 2:Could you look at her now?

46:09Speaker 1:I couldn't look at her. I was straight on in the past sea.

46:13Speaker 2:And how is was she driving or.

46:15Speaker 1:She I probably should have in hindsight, Yeah, but I remember my mother's face dropped. Yeah, and the silence sort of just wrapped around us.

46:31Speaker 2:And what did she say?

46:33Speaker 1:She believed me, She's she said, right, you're not going to stay in that apartment by yourself. You're going to come stay with me, and mum gave me my own bedroom, and yeah, wow, my mum is an amazing human being. She is an amazing human being. I mean when push came to shove and she was confronted with this for the first time, she was just action, you know, just straight onto it. You stay with me, don't worry about your father. I'll deal with him. Teed me up to go to a mental health facility, just like put me into therapists and stuff like that, like mental My mum's superstar. Yeah, the mental health thing was interesting. So, as I talked about in the book as well, I came up with a plan to in my life because you know, as a nineteen year old kid, I was falsely accused of rape.

47:23Speaker 1:My daughter's been taken from me, and sort of after seeing a handful of therapist, they're telling me that I've experienced sexual abuse. So I'm dealing with all of that as well. It's not an easy run. Did that come as It was a real shock to me? Yeah, a real shop.

47:37Speaker 2:I didn't Who was the therapist that said it to you?

47:39Speaker 1:Can you remember, well, I can't remember the specific therapist. I remember who it was. I don't remember his name or anything, but he was He was quite like one of the best in Sydney that we could see because my mum spared no expense of wanting to get me help and I'm very lucky for that. I remember telling him what I went through and even his face dropped and he couldn't comprehend it. He went like he was shocked. He was taken back. This bloke's probably heard the worst story.

48:03Speaker 1:He's imaginable. Yeah, and yeah, he was just taken aback by it, didn't he It was, yeah, befuddled by it really. But eventually I ended up going to a mental health clinic, like a facility in patient yeah, in patient facility where I spent about a month and a half, almost two months, and that was where you know, there was every day it was individual psychologists, group therapy with other patients in there and stuff like that. And that was sort of where I came to the realization that this was actually abuse.

48:38Speaker 1:I was groomed and a victim and all this.

48:41Speaker 2:How interesting that because your own mirror was so clouded that when you would say it to people, it was from seeing their reactions that you realize, Yes, the enormity of what had happened.

48:59Speaker 1:Well, that's how that's how groomed. And I was so, I was in deep with it. I was so yeah, conditioned to feel as though I wash the problem.

49:13Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, that's that's what predators rely on.

49:21Speaker 1:They rely on. They rely on the assurance that the victim will stay complicit, that they'll stay silent, they can get away with it. And for all those years she did.

49:32Speaker 2:Okay, but you haven't stayed silent. No, stay with us. My conversation with Harrison continues after this break. You know you were saying earlier, the twenty one years is normally how long it takes a victim survivor of sexual abuse to come out and speak about it. Why do you think your emergence and your voice has not to be silenced for that long?

50:02Speaker 1:Well, I think when I was in hospital the Mental Health Faciety, I came out and that sort of started. The next year after that is when Grace came won the Australia of the Year and I remember seeing her on stage arguably the nation's biggest stage, saying child sexual abuse. Oh my god, that's like really took me back, and I think I've always had this, you know, this notion instilled within me that you know from the hospital that it's not my fault what happened to me, but it is my responsibility to do something great with it. And I think I've always had this drive to want to help other people I've had. I think what I've experienced has instilled a real sense of empathy within me to want to understand that, you know, this really is an injustice and stemic thing as well that we need to fix because you know, in Australia, child sexual abuse is rife.

51:06Speaker 1:Twenty eight point five percent of the population has experienced it. It's one in three girls, one in five boys will experience child sexual abuse before.

51:13Speaker 2:Do you think that is Why do you think it's so prevalent.

51:17Speaker 1:I think I think there's a myriad of things. I think it's you know, there's hardly any consequences for it.

51:26Speaker 2:Very hard to prose existing.

51:30Speaker 1:Yeah, it's you know, survivors. Some I'd argue that a lot of survivors, you know, can't comprehend that what they've experienced is abuse. And I know that firsthand. You know, I was like that for.

51:43Speaker 2:Many years, internalized.

51:47Speaker 1:All of that but the fact of the matter is, there's just it is rife, and we do need to take it seriously and start having really genuine conversations about why we're why. And I think also, okay, sorry I'm rambling on a bit, but I think it's so difficult when people are faced with that concept, with those statistics, because it's so awful to actually think about and fathom. People sort of need your responses to turn away from it and ignore it, yes, and go that no, that doesn't happen, because if you're saying those numbers, then people actually have to reflect on who they know in their lives.

52:30Speaker 1:And no one wants to think that they've come across a child sex offender. It's you know, the boogeyman, and that doesn't exist. It's easier to turn a blind eye to these things for most people. And I just think we've got to get to a point where these conversations, you know, where we get comfortable with the uncomfortable and we acknowledge it head on and we do the work too well.

52:54Speaker 2:You've had to do some really deep digging as well, and also to shine light in your own dark places. Like I find it very interesting and important that you acknowledge the pleasurable aspects of what happened and why that muddies the waters so much as well. It's there are many ways of making someone a victim.

53:22Speaker 1:Yes, yes there's there's there's many ways of predator can perpetrate as well, Yes there's not it. But while whilst there is a playbook of predation, and you know there usually is, there's a lot of similarities in a lot of the stories that you hear about child sex offenders and survivors and our experiences and stuff. But you know, the most devastating thing about child sexual abuse or abuse in general, violence in general is that it doesn't discriminate.

53:55Speaker 1:It can happen to anyone and come from anyone as well.

54:00Speaker 2:Are you worried about your daughter being with your step mother in the Philippines?

54:06Speaker 1:See, that's a question I get a lot, and I think, look, so many options have been laid out to me about bringing my daughter back to Australia, for example, there's so many international you know, loopholes and things. But my stepmother before she fled the country, she ensured that my daughter had a Filipino passport as well. I remember going to the Filipino Embassy in Sydney with them so my daughter could get her photo taken for the passport. And I thought, oh, I was just a symbolic thing, you know, she wanted her daughter to be a Filipino citizen because she's proud of her heritage in her country. But no, it was all part of the plan to get out of Dodge.

54:51Speaker 1:And look, my daughter's over there, her mother, my stepmother. Whilst she is an awful human being, I think there's also my stepmother's family there who aren't awful people. And I think my daughter she's a victim in all of this as well. I'm not here to speak for my daughter, but I think I can objectively say that that's the truth. She was a victim in this, as I was a victim in this too. And the one thing that my daughter needs right now is an adult to put her needs before their own. And that's what I'm trying to do with the decision that I've taken to not pursue that right now, because she turns eleven this year, my daughter, and last time she was in Australia, she was three years old. Now imagine me going over there. She probably has no memory of who I am and I say, oh, remember me, that guy you thought was your brother, Well, I'm actually a father. It's just such a corruption of that little girl's child or she doesn't deserve any of that.

55:54Speaker 1:So whilst there's there's that aspect that I'm concerned about as well, what what do I do, Like I don't want to, you know, like, what do I actually do practically? I do I corrupt a child's life?

56:12Speaker 2:Is your feeling about it that she's safe?

56:16Speaker 1:I hope?

56:16Speaker 2:So?

56:17Speaker 1:You know, I don't get any information back because i'd have to go through my stepmother.

56:21Speaker 2:But what you know about your step mother?

56:22Speaker 1:Yeah? And my dad flies over there, and look, my dad's not a great person. I would never rely on his assessment of what's coming on over there. But from what I hear, you know through my siblings and stuff like that, who still have interactions with my father? Yeah, they've been on FaceTime with my daughter and stuff.

56:43Speaker 2:And your siblings know this is your daughter?

56:46Speaker 1:Well now they do, Yeah, because I'm very public about what's happened, but they you know, they you know, there's just such it's so complex, and I think the thing that I'm trying to do, Kate is just book my daughter's knees before my own, and I hope more than anything that will be able to reconnect and make up for the lost time that was so heinless heinously taken from us. But that's got to be a bridge that we cross when she's a lot older and able to comprehend the complexity of it, because you can't instill that into a ten year old girl. No, No, it's not fair.

57:21Speaker 2:No, and nor would you have any chance of, you know, yeah, procuring her or being out.

57:29Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'm in between a rock and a hard place really when it comes to that, because I'd love nothing more than my daughter to be here with me right now, but it's just not a reality at the moment. And I think it's easy for people on Instagram and social media to write comments calling me a deadbeat dad and I don't go find my daughter and stuff like that. Yeah, people say that all the time, really, But I fight the urge every single morning to get on a plane to the Philippines. The father and the parent in me wants to cot to Tellbraine and get an airplane to the Philippines and pick up my daughter and bring it to safety. But I can't do that because there's so many you know, I can't bring it back. I'd be done for kidnapping or something properly.

58:14Speaker 2:So when you had had this time with your mum and really started to pay attention to your mental health, yes, and you were coming out the other side, was it a sense that you were coming out into some clarish clear clearer, air clearer thinking.

58:34Speaker 1:I think the thing with healing, like, there's no there's People like to frame a healing journey as a beginning, middle, and end, but really the thing with healing journeys, there is no end. You just I understand full well that I'll be dealing with this for the rest of my life. You don't. You don't reach a point of like total prosperity where you're over it. You just garner the tools to be able to manage life with it.

59:00Speaker 2:Other times that unexpected things throw.

59:03Speaker 1:Course for you, of course, Like you know, I have a beautiful fiance, Bella, and she's pregnant at the moment, and she's you know, baby's jew in September. Yeah, little girl in September, which I'm incredibly thrilled about. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shooting myself as well. Like all these triggers have come up and I've had to acknowledge them. And I think, as a survivor of child sexual abuse, who's becoming a father again? You know, you don't, you don't. There's a fear, not a fear that you'll become your abuser in any way, but a fear that you'll unintentionally pass on trauma that hasn't actually been dealt with you.

59:43Speaker 2:But you almost need to stand visual on yourself almost too.

59:47Speaker 1:So I speak with therapist about that to this day.

59:50Speaker 2:And you know, cruel too, isn't it. They like that about yourself?

59:55Speaker 1:Yeah, because that's that's that's what I was trying to get at before with my whole experience of fatherhood was corrupted as well, my sexuality, my my experience with fatherhood, my life. So many aspects of my life have been affected by the sexual abuse I in Jewett And you know, fatherhood's one example. Sexual relationships obviously, dating, all these everyday sort of normal things that the.

1:00:23Speaker 2:Rights of passage were all taken corrupted. Yea. When you met Bella, Yeah, so she's in Australian but you met her when she was overseas.

1:00:34Speaker 1:Yeah, I flew to Italy to be with her. She was dming me. She was on the Bachelor, she was a contestant on the Bachelor, and she started dming me when I sort of got into advocacy and started to make a bit of a name for myself in the in the campaigning world. And she saw a newspaper article about the Good Character Reference Reform, which we talk about it. She put it on her story and someone replied to her story saying, oh, Harrison James runs that campaign. You should reach out to him. So she reached out, and I thought, oh, it's lovely, ladies just reaching out to say thank you for all your campaigning. I went and cheers, And because of the position I'm in as a survivor advocate, I didn't think much more of it. I didn't pick up on her flirting with me or anything like that.

1:01:24Speaker 1:And then she just kept she Yeah, she was like a dog with a bone. She just didn't let up and kept messaging me, kept messaging me. And then I sort of finally picked up on I think this woman's yeah interested in me. And then we talked for three months online and I said, when are you coming back? To Australia because I'd love to meet you, And she said, I'm not planning on coming back, and I said, well, I guess I'll have to come meet you. So I got a plane to a plane ticket to Italy and we had our first date in Rome for three weeks.

1:01:56Speaker 2:And then how do you So she knew enough about you? But still when you say there are hurdles that present themselves? Is that trust? Is it physical?

1:02:10Speaker 1:Like?

1:02:10Speaker 2:How does it? How does it manifest itself when you're trying.

1:02:14Speaker 1:To Actually because Bello knew who I was and knew my story, all that sort of melted away because she accepted me even with that, she saw beyond the story. I remember before Bella when I was dating Kate, like there was all these barriers that they say, what do you do for work? I work in political reform or what do you do there? Well, I'm trying to change this law, what law wants to do with character references for child sex offenders? What inspired you to do that? Well, I am a survivor of child sexual people. Off from wanting to engage with me at all, and dating was very difficult for me because I was in that position of advocacy and I didn't want to overstep the market anyway.

1:03:04Speaker 1:I think I was apprehensive to sort of engage with dating as well, and there was this reservation for me. And I think when Bella saw me for the human being I was beyond my story and wanted to get to know me, that sort of initial hurdle of having to explain who I was and what I did was obliterated.

1:03:24Speaker 2:You know, well, the advocacy is extraordinary, thank you, also in its simplicity.

1:03:31Speaker 1:Yes, And.

1:03:34Speaker 2:I guess it's like out of the mouths of babes, isn't it really, Because you saw with your innocence and your innocence that have been destroyed. When court cases would come around, you saw just the most grievous injustice being perpetrated against victim survivors again, which was what they would have to stand in court, And when someone had been convicted, Yep, they would still have to sit there and listen to someone else come in and attest to what great character they were.

1:04:11Speaker 1:Yes, and this was a part of my lived experience, not my personal story, because my stepmother never went to court in the traditional sense, but when my father assaulted my mother, that went to court and he had a parade of good character references. And I remember being like sixteen seventeen year old boy when my mother first told me that he had those references, and it just stuck with me and it's never left me.

1:04:42Speaker 2:And it is an extraordinary thing.

1:04:44Speaker 1:It's an injustice.

1:04:47Speaker 2:Piled on more injustice. Yes, but that you went, I'm going to see if I can change that. Yes, And along your way, and you met Jared Grice, who's all I worked for the same cause. And you say something in your book that is so like true and brilliant, but it seems like it should be so apparent. So one of the main problems with particularly in cases of child sexual abuse, is it says it's talking about the predatory nature of the crime, how grooming and manipulation are baked into the offense, and argued that so called good character is not separate from the harm, but often a tool used to commit it. And I thought when I read that, I thought of just the amount of cases that I know, some of them personally, of teachers, of you know, people who have taken advantage of their position and their good name. They've cultivated the good name to perpetrate the crime.

1:06:00Speaker 1:It is a part of the crime. It's a tactic that perpetrators utilize what you've mentioned there, People of out a good standing utilize that good character to ingratiate children or victims into their care, to facilitate the abuse, to get parents to trust. My stepmother used it. My stepmother used her a good character to form my mother, my grandmother, even my father to some extent that she was a safe person for me being the care of Yeah, and that's why she was able to, you know, sexually abused me for all those years. So I knew full well as a victim survivor that good character references these letters that people that perpetrators utilized to sort of mitigate their sentence.

1:06:44Speaker 1:So it's postconviction, as.

1:06:45Speaker 2:You say, so the facts have been established.

1:06:49Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they've been found unequivocally guilty of the crime.

1:06:53Speaker 2:So this was always just to so someone would get time off these scenes.

1:06:58Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, So yeah, it's mitigating fact. And it's been an established mitigating factor since you know, this eighteenth and nineteenth century in England when sort of the justice system in the way we see it today in modern justice system was sort of established. It's been a trope ever since then. Men of good character. So yeah, and essentially Jared Grice who you mentioned, and we started a campaign called your Reference Aint Relevant. And essentially we lobbied the New South Wales government first to abolish the provision of good character references for convicted child sex offenders because that was our lived experience and we knew that child sex offenders specifically groom and use that good character to cultivate this image of their trustworthy and say for kids to be in the care of And essentially we lobbied in New South Wales for four years and we extended that too of the state's entirety.

1:08:02Speaker 2:Not very long, no is it, And I'm sure to you it felt long. But in the and it may think that you have some whatever at the time, you were working jobs to.

1:08:14Speaker 1:Pay for Yeah, I was working in uber eats. I took out a bank loan to start the campaign. Yeah, I worked uber Eats. I poured beers behind the bar till midnight. I what else did I do? Yeah, I was cleaning, scrubbing toilets, all of it, just to be able to pay off the loan so I could continue to advocate.

1:08:34Speaker 2:And then in was it Canberra where the law got changed first.

1:08:40Speaker 1:Yes, so yeah, so we extended our campaign to the Act. So from New South Wales we went to the Act. Then South Australia, then WA and all the other states followed eventually. And yeah, in December of twenty twenty five, the Australian Capital Territory introduced legislation abolishing the provision of good character references for child sex offenders, which was such a great thing. And then as of recording this, only last week New South Wales introduced past legislation, so it's all done, it's now law. They abolished the provision of good character references for all offenses, so for domestic violence murderers, more than I ever asked for, which is very rare in legislative change. In campaigning for example, when you see, like as you said, four years is a very short time in this sort of world, people advocate for changes for a lifetime and.

1:09:42Speaker 2:Yeah, no longer.

1:09:43Speaker 1:Yeah, don't even see half of the reform that we saw. For example, you know, there's been a big discussion about around the banning of gambling ads in federal politics, and the government introduced sort of these measures that would were sort of half measures. They were gambling ads could only be banned between a certain period of time and stuff like that. So that's sort of an example of what people push for, but they only end up going getting half measures. We push for a very specific thing, ended up getting more than what we asked for in New South Wales and now it's set sort of a precedent for the rest of the country to be able to do it.

1:10:23Speaker 2:What do you hope what's your wish for your unborn daughter.

1:10:31Speaker 1:I wish for my unborn daughter. Well, all I know is that she's going to have the best mother and father duo in the world. Bella is an individual like me who hates injustice and advocates to leave the better the world a better place than when she entered it, as do I, and I think our daughter is going to have that instilled in her from the get go as well. She's going to be surrounded by love, I hope my daughter. My wish for my daughter is a childhood and a life of abundance and prosperity, a house full of warmth and love and safety and choice and individuality and autonomy, things that I never had. I want to ensure that my daughter has that environment around her.

1:11:30Speaker 1:And look, my daughter is not an extension of you know, she's not a tool for healing for me. That's not to be put on her. It's not her role. But she will heal so many things in me just by nature of who she is, her existence. I'm so excited for her to be part of the world. I'm so excited to hold her.

1:11:57Speaker 2:The beauty of innocence.

1:11:59Speaker 1:Oh so God. And we did, my partner and I we had an ultrasound, our twenty week scan. Oh yeah, only two days ago. And you can see the profiles. She's got my nose and everything. Yeah, it's so exciting.

1:12:14Speaker 2:I'm very sorry that your innocence was tarnished, but I'm very thankful for your contribution.

1:12:27Speaker 1:To the Thank you, and I really appreciate it. And also the thing that I wanted to do with the advocacy, and I think more than you know, sure, changing laws and writing a book, all these wonderful things that have come from my pain and I have turned it into purpose and it's lovely. But to any victim survivor that sees this or reads the book, I never want them to feel as though that they have to do these stravagant sort of things of making a difference in their lives in order to be deemed worthy. I think inherently by who you are and the nature of what you survived, you are worthy and you deserve a life that is abundant and prosperous and full of love and safety. Every victim survived, everyone deserves that. So don't feel as though that you have to strive to make a statement about your pain. Purpose is definable in whatever way you see fit, and that's a beautiful thing of purpose. We're all seeking.

1:13:36Speaker 1:It's part of the human condition to want to seek purpose, but it's totally up to you how that's defined. So trust your inst your gut instinct. Go for what you love. Because now that I've achieved advocacy, it's great to be able to do it, but there's a lot of pain and strife that comes with it, a lot of backlash that comes.

1:13:55Speaker 2:Almost you need to recognize that that has played its role. Yes, and and move on.

1:14:02Speaker 1:Yes, because there's no point in being a victim survivor and then feeling as though for the rest of your life that you have to Yes. Yes, you have to fight to prove what you went through, what it wasn't in vain. You didn't ask for what happened to you. You have to come to terms with that. And you know, my goal now, after all this, is to be able to sit down at my kitchen table each morning and feel a sense of peace. I want victim survivors to strive for that. I hope that they'll strive for that, because advocacy. It's nice to have all these lovely things and be on covers and stuff, but it's not that's not that's not being content. That's not what a life is.

1:14:46Speaker 1:A life is filled with family and love and whatever you defind.

1:14:50Speaker 2:Because that's still defining your life, isn't it. By if you could go back to yourself, that little Harrison in the mailstream, maybe when he was teen and and you know, witnessing violence, or maybe when he was thirteen, what would you say to yourself? Then?

1:15:15Speaker 1:Funny, I don't think i'd say anything. I do what no one did at the time, and listen. I have listened. I'd listened to that little boy what he has to say, and I would tell him that I would nurture sort of who he is. I wouldn't drown him in. You know, I think what I'm getting at is the adults in my life aside from my mother and my grandmother, but the adults that were in my life, my stepmother and my father, put their own interests ahead of.

1:15:48Speaker 2:Mine, and they didn't see they didn't see me. Just what would they have seen? What should they have seen?

1:15:56Speaker 1:Oh, they should have seen a kid that was just expressive. They should have seen a kid that was right and loving and gentle, intelligent. I mean, they should have seen a child basically. I mean, I don't know what human being sees a child and wants to inflict violence on them. Maybe I just got delt a rough hand, but I know that's not the case because it's a prevalent thing. A lot of people experience it. And I think, now what I see is I have a responsibility to pay forward to my daughter on the way, you know, a childhood that I never received. And I look forward to doing that because I've done a lot of hard work to be able to do that now, and I think I'll be pretty good. Yeah, exactly. It's incredibly exciting.

1:16:52Speaker 2:Thank you so much so, Harrison, because the statistics are horrifying because of a lot of the listeners to this podcast are women, and women have been entrusted in many ways to beat the eyes and the ears and the beating heart of you know, loving children, not exclusively, but what should what should we be looking out for?

1:17:29Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a myriad of things that we can be looking at for. I think I think as well, it's not solely the responsibility of women or girls to be able to point out the signs, but I think we all have a responsibility to be able to do that. Of course, pick up on things. And also I just want to acknowledge that as a male survivor who you know, experienced female perpetrated sexual abuse, I think it's very easy for people to turn around and say, oh, you went through that as a man. Women keep saying they went through all this, but your evidence that it happens to men too. And sure you know, the statistic show that abuse disproportionately occurs to women and girls. So we can acknowledge the exceptions without discounting the problem that is presented in front of us, without discountying the truth. And I just want to tell you a story that picks up on that, because I remember I spoke at a New South Wales police conference and I was in a room full of you know, head constables from every police station in the state. And I was on a panel with two other women, and I spoke about my experience of

1:18:49Speaker 1:going to the police station and how I was instantly believed because I was this you know, I was twenty at the time. Part of me was over six foot, walked in and told told what happened to me, and I was believed straight away. The two women who spoke on the panel with me talked about the disbelief that they experienced and that they faced from police. And when we got off the stage, obviously, you know, the police come up and say, oh, thanks for speaking, really appreciate it and stuff. There was this head constable who came up to me. He was a man, and he said, ah, it's just so difficult because you're a bloke, so when you walk into a police station, it's just so much more believable. And my stomach dropped, and I thought, it's that the culture that women and girls are up against, is that the systemic sort of dismissal of the violence that women and girls experienced.

1:19:40Speaker 2:Why did he think that? Did he elucidate or.

1:19:44Speaker 1:No, he didn't. He just said it and he was so fun.

1:19:47Speaker 2:Yes, like it was just it was just a statement of facts.

1:19:50Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's just it was so baffling for me to have to hear that, and it just stated not only what victim the sort of walls and hurdles that victim survivors are up against, but what women and girls are up against with our system. There's so many changes that we have to see. We've spoken about good character references. That's one, that's what I've you know, pushed to change. Is only one out of a million things that need to be changed within the system.

1:20:24Speaker 2:If you want to be vigilant with children that you love, whatever they may be to you, you know, nieces, nephews, your children. What are the signs that something is amiss with a child?

1:20:43Speaker 1:Look, I think I think stereotypically people's first sort of idea would be, oh, the quiet, shy kid in the corner that doesn't speak out. But that's not necessarily the case. I think, you know, what parents and carers and people who have children in their lives can do is create an open and safe space for kids to come forward with anything and believing the child in the moment as well. I think I've got a notion that my partner and I are going to instill with our daughter when she's on the way. And it's this idea of surprises, not secrets.

1:21:23Speaker 1:We don't have secrets. We have surprises because the truth is always going to come out no matter what. Secrets are never meant to be told, but surprises, the truth always unveils itself. So I think just that mindset of creating that environment for your children to be able to come forward with anything, they're not going to be met with, you know, violence or anger for saying something. I know that part of the reason I never came forward with anything was because of the fear, the choke hold fear had over me that if I said something, my dad would would choke me or do something awful to me.

1:22:00Speaker 2:And that you seem like you were so intent on being a good kid.

1:22:04Speaker 1:Yeah, So what incentive did I have to come forward? Because I would have just been met with abuse anyway. So it's better to be quiet. So I think creating that environment where kids know they will be supported and believed when they speak up about anything. It doesn't have to be devastating, but anything. And just remember that kids soak up information like a sponge. And I think once you give them any inclination that it's not safe for them to come forward, they're going to take that and they'll internalize that their antena. Yeah, yeah, thanks Harrison.

1:22:42Speaker 2:I've thought about this conversation a lot since we recorded it, not only because of the extraordinary circumstances of Harrison's story, but because of the honesty he brings to telling it. What stayed with me most wasn't the advocacy or even the lead just live change he's helped create. It was the little boy at the center of the story, a boy who wanted to be loved, who spent years carrying secrets that no child should ever have to carry, and who somehow found the courage to tell the truth. I was also deeply moved by the way Harrison speaks about his daughter, the grief, the longing, the love, and the hope that one day she might understand who he is and what happened. Harrison's book is called Transform Your Pain Into Purpose, and it's out now. We've also included support services in the show notes. If this conversation has brought anything up for you, If you'd like to hear more conversations like this one, follow no Filter wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Lanebrook and I look forward to seeing you next Monday with another incredible conversation