Mum reveals heartbreaking moment she discovered daughters were being abused
One morning, Michelle’s little girl said she had something to say. The words that came out of her mouth made her physically sick. WARNING: GRAPHIC
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Warning: This article discusses the issue of child sexual abuse and might be triggering for some readers
It was a typical Sunday morning back in October 2013 when Michelle Milthorpe’s five-year-old daughter uttered seven words that would change her life forever.
After crawling into her bed overnight, little Rose Milthorpe gently woke her mum up and said there was something important she needed to tell her.
She had no idea that what she said next would see their world come crashing down.
“Mummy, I don’t like Leon* licking [me]...”
Michelle and her daughters Rose and Pippa exclusively broke their traumatic story in news.com.au and Nina Funnell’s #JusticeShouldn’tHurt campaign.
Now, speaking to Gary Jubelin on True Crime Australia's I Catch Killers podcast, Michelle explained how her whole body went into shock after being told the unthinkable news.
“I went into professional mode and asked her if there was anything else he does that she didn't like,” Michelle, a teacher from Albury, NSW, explained.
“She went on to tell me a few other things that were going on that we had no knowledge of.
“I went downstairs to talk to my husband. I couldn’t even speak, it was like someone had just died.
“I actually vomited. I couldn’t speak.”
When Michelle spoke to Rose further about what had happened, the little girl said something that made her heart sink.
Her older sister Pippa, who was eight at the time, told Rose that Leon “shouldn’t do that”.
The mum decided to talk to her older daughter about what was said and before long, the horrifying truth was revealed.
“I told her that Rose had told me that something was happening that she didn’t like,” she said.
“Her entire demeanour changed. I hadn’t used names or any information, just that. She withdrew into herself and got her pillow and put it over her face.
“I got the pillow and she had a tear rolling down.”
The mum said that Pippa wasn’t comfortable talking about her feelings, but asked her to write down if something was happening that she did not like.
“She wrote ‘yes’,” Michelle recalled.
“She acknowledged that things were happening to her as well. This was all on the Sunday morning.”
Michelle also has a conversation with her older daughter, Maggie, who was 10 at the time, who said she had no knowledge of what she was talking about.
Leon* and his wife had been good family friends for a number of years.
“They were essentially like grandparents,” Michelle said.
Upon confronting him, he denied all allegations against him, blasting them as “ridiculous”.
The first police interview took place in November 2013 and Leon was charged later that month.
“We naively thought that once charges were laid, we would then be headed to court,,” Michelle previously told award-winning journalist Nina Funnell.
“But it took us two and a half years to get our day in court.
“That is a really long period for anyone but especially when you’re five or eight years old.”
During that holding pattern the sisters couldn’t lean on each other, or speak to each other about their evidence and both parents had to be careful in what they said as all were expected to be called as witnesses.
“It’s a long time to spend stuck in a victim state where you have no control over anything and you can’t move on and heal,” Michelle added.
“You’re expected to keep reliving the memory to hold on to the details for court, but you can’t share it.”
After a distressing, dragged out court case, Leon was eventually convicted of six counts of aggravated indecent assault against Pippa Milthorpe. He was acquitted of four charges of aggravated indecent assault in relation to Rose Milthorpe.
To this day, the entire family are still traumatised by what happened during court.
“For days my children were victimised by bully men in wigs who demonstrated further to my kids that men in positions of power should not be trusted,” Michelle said.
“I was so naive as to what could be said and done to our children. They were harassed, intimidated and called liars.
“It was bully behaviour. There was a point during the trial where I actually turned to the detective and I said, ‘I want that judge and that defence barrister charged with the emotional abuse of my children’.”
Five months later, in September that year, Leon was sentenced to three years nine months jail but released after two years and six months and returned back to the same town the girls continue to live in.
Michelle said that looking back, there were some subtle signs that something was not quite right and hopes that by sharing her family’s story, it can make others more aware.
“One of the first things was repeat UTIs,” she said.
“I remember the pediatrician saying to me if there was any chance something had happened to the girls.
“I was like no, I couldn't think of anyone who would do this.
“One of the girls got very quiet and shy. They didn’t want to stay over there anymore.
“There was some incontinence and inappropriate touching that happened once.
“I was always the parent that made sure they knew that touching wasn’t allowed, that your body is private.”
In another heartbreaking instance, the mum recalled how little Rose wanted a “superhero cape”.
“She wanted her superpower to be invisible,” she said.
“We made one, and it was a fabulous cape. She wore it to their house one day.
“When she came home, she put it on the ground and stomped on it.
“She said it doesn’t work. I said what do you mean? She said, he still found me.
“And I said who? She said Leon. I assumed they had been playing hide and seek.
“Did not even give it a thought.”
She said that she and her husband Brent never particularly liked Leon, but they were very fond of his wife, Jen*.
“I didn’t particularly like him. I really liked Jen. Like, the minute I met her, I really liked her, she said.
“He was very confident, a bit smug, a bit of a ‘know it all’.
“I know that people around the town liked Jen, but tolerated him.
“He was nice enough and he was great with the kids.
“We didn’t realise how much time he had with him on his own, we thought our kids were being looked after by Jen.”
In September 2022, Rose became the youngest ever sexual abuse survivor in Australia to win court approval to tell her story under her own name.
Two months later, she and Pippa both waived their right to anonymity, speaking out exclusively as they fronted news.com.au’s Justice Shouldn’t Hurt campaign, demanding the expansion of a program designed to make court less traumatic for children involved in sexual abuse matters.
In February 2023, after less than three months of campaigning, news.com.au revealed that the NSW Government would invest $64.3 million over four years to expand the Child Sexual Offence Evidence program from July 1 to every District Court in the state.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said he was compelled to make the change after hearing what Pippa and Rose endured as they navigated the justice system.
*Names have been changed for legal reasons
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