Sarah Monahan: ‘Now Hughes is gone, I’d love to come home’

In her first interview following the release of Robert Hughes from Sydney’s infamous Long Bay Jail and his deportation to the UK, Monahan opens up about her dream to return home to Australia and an acting role on Home And Away – but wonders whether the industry is ready for her.

When former Hey Dad..! star Sarah Monahan spoke up about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her on-screen father Robert Hughes, she thought she would “probably never work again”. But eight years after watching the 73-year-old be sentenced to jail for the sexual abuse of young girls – including herself – she is ready to move on. In her first interview following the release of Hughes from Sydney’s infamous Long Bay Jail and his deportation to the UK, Monahan opens up about her dream to return home to Australia – and to an acting role on Home And Away – now her abuser is no longer here.

Sarah Monahan is taking back control of her life.

The now 45-year-old is determined to be known as something other than “a former child star, a victim or the star witness” in one of Australia’s highest profile celebrity sex abuse cases.

“I am ready to move on and I would like it if everybody else moves on with me,” Monahan says.

“People are more than one thing. Everybody is multifaceted with layers. Everyone seems to think I am this one angry person and there is so much more to me than that.”

Robert Hughes played Monahan’s TV dad, Martin Kelly, on one of the most popular shows on Australian television in the late 1980s and ’90s, Hey Dad..!

In 2014, he was sentenced to a maximum of 10 years and nine months in prison for the sexual abuse of young girls, including Monahan, throughout a 20-year period. In the show, Monahan played his onscreen daughter, Jenny Kelly.

“I knew when I spoke up that I would probably never work again – and this has been told to me many times – but since I came out there has been a Royal Commission, Me Too, Time’s Up, the Women’s March and I’ve watched [sexual assault survivor] Grace Tame become Australian of the Year,” Monahan says.

“When it has been said we haven’t come far enough, I want to show people how far we’ve come during the past few years,” she tells Stellar.

“You can’t see it when you are in it and change takes time, but now that Robert is out and he is leaving forever,I feel like it is my time to start anew.

“I no longer have the case hanging over my head and I am ready to not just be the girl who sent her co-star to prison. I’ve spent the last however many years living that and I have to move on… I just hope everybody is ready to let me do that.”

Sarah Monahan: “I want to show people how far we’ve come during the past few years.” Picture: Steven Chee.

Hughes, who is married to acting agent Robyn Gardiner, was previously knocked back twice for parole. Monahan has lived in the United States for more than two decades, having escaped to America to shed the pain of her years as a child star.

She and her American husband of 20 years Matt Morris flew from their ranch in Texas to Australia to be here in person for Hughes’ hearing at the NSW State Parole Authority last month. Monahan wanted to look her abuser in the eyes one last time.

“I never got to really be a part of my own case. Everyone else got to watch it, but as a witness you are not allowed to read the news every day and see what is being said. I had my small part. I wanted to come home and actually be a part of my own history on my terms.”

She continues, “I am so glad I did it because I got to see him and got to see how old he is now and what prison has done to him. I got to see that little spark in his eye when he realised I was sitting there. That is empowering.”

Hughes was released from prison on June 14, news Monahan heard while watching breakfast television that morning.She has no idea where Hughes is now, although the plan was for him to be deported to the United Kingdom as he renounced his Australian citizenship in 2019.

“I don’t think I really feel anything anymore,” she says. “I think I have had so many feelings over the years and now I look at him and I am like, ‘I am done with you.’ And that is really it.

“There is no great emotion, which is good because I am no longer filled with anger or sadness. Robert means nothing to me anymore.”

With a renewed sense of freedom, Monahan, along with her husband and their pet pooch Teddy (a cockapoo – a mix of cocker spaniel and poodle), wants to come home to Australia. She wants to work again – on her terms.

“Now he is not here, I would love to come home to Australia. I can move about freely, maybe even return to television, but I am wondering if the industry is ready for me to be me without the Hey Dad..! stuff attached.

“Is the industry still mad that I outed one of their own or do they understand what I did needed to be done and hopefully kids are now safer on sets?

“I want people to see that there is more to jewellery me than just the advocate or the person who talks seriously in interviews. There is a whole other side of me, one full of laughter and black humour.

“I do other things, too – I’ve cooked in restaurants, I’ve been in the military, I’ve owned an IT company, I’ve lived on a boat. We are all more than just one thing, we just have to let people show it.”

Sarah Monahan: “We are all more than just one thing, we just have to let people show it.” Picture: Steven Chee.

Sarah Monahan: “I want to see if I can make it as an actor.” Picture: Steven Chee.

Monahan has unfinished business. Her acting career was cut short. She last acted in 1995 with a guest role lasting a few episodes on TV soap Home And Away.

“I thought that I didn’t want to go back to acting or the industry because while I’d had good experiences, the bad overshadowed it,” she reflects.

“Now, I don’t know what I want to do next, whether it is acting, presenting or even radio. But I know I want to do something. I miss the industry. I miss constantly doing something new and exciting. I miss the people, the parties, meeting new and interesting people. I want to see if I can make it as an actor.

“Everyone has things they did as kids, and I want to do it as an adult, on my own terms without having a sex offender there to ruin the experience.”

In the US, Monahan has worked as a board member for A Minor Consideration – a child protection group started by former Mickey Mouse Club mouseketeer and actor on The Donna Reed Show, Paul Petersen.

Some of her close friends are former child stars including Petersen, Erin Murphy (Bewitched), Scott Schwartz (The Toy) and Alison Arngrim (Little House On The Prairie).She notes that there are many reasons a child actor moves on to other things.

“Some kids never chose acting in the first place, they may have fallen into it and like a kid whose first job was at McDonald’s, they grow up to do something else. Nobody expects that they are going to work at McDonald’s or even work in the restaurant industry forever,” she says.

“Some have crappy parents who stole all of their money and they don’t want to deal with that anymore, while some go into drugs and alcohol and others just want to go to university and be normal people.”

Sarah Monahan features in this Sunday’s Stellar.

Monahan’s traumatic story has been well documented, although she is looking at updating her best-selling memoir, Allegedly. Now she wants a different ending – maybe even a fairytale one.

“I could return to Home And Away,” she says. “I want to be remembered for the work I do, not what happened to me. I feel like one story has ended and this is a new beginning, one full of hope and promise where I am in control of my own narrative.”

Originally published as Sarah Monahan: ‘Now Hughes is gone, I’d love to come home’