Paedophile randomly phones victim years after abuse, sparking call centre sting
EXCLUSIVE: A WOMAN abused as a child by a former fencing coach has told how she — by pure chance — answered a phone call from the paedophile years later, sparking a secret call centre sting.
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A SECRET call centre sting has outed a former Olympic fencing coach as a paedophile, after his victim recorded his confession.
Predator Michael O’Brien phoned an insurance company about his policy and, by pure chance, the operator who answered the call was a woman he had abused decades ago.
Petra Whitehouse realised she was speaking to her abuser after asking for his name, date of birth and email.
“I asked him if he used to teach fencing in Melbourne and he said: ‘Yes’.
When I told him who I was, he said: ‘Oh you are the bubbly little girl from the German club’,” she said.
“I just freaked and I hung up the phone.”
Ms Whitehouse told police of the conversation and they helped her trap O’Brien in a phone call months later that would give her justice 40 years after the attack.
During a follow-up call about his insurance — which helped police pin O’Brien for the crime — he told his victim that she was the only one.
But, shockingly, he tried to argue about just how old she was at the time, claiming she was nine, when she was just seven years old.
“It was so hard making that phone call. I remember my heart was beating. I remember saying to him: ‘How could you have done this to me?’,” Ms Whitehouse told the Herald Sun.
“He didn’t deny anything. He told me I was the only one and he apologised to me.
“But during that phone call, we argued over how old I was. I ended up saying: ‘Who gives a s--- how old I was, whether I was seven or nine? What you did was bull---- and you shouldn’t have done it’.”
As a result of the 10-minute call, O’Brien, 90, and still coaching children in Queensland until recently, was on Wednesday sentenced to a suspended four-month jail term and put on the sex offenders register for life.
Ms Whitehouse, now 46, knew without the evidence O’Brien would never have pleaded guilty to gross indecency with a child under 16 in the Victorian County Court this week.
The court heard that O’Brien, then 49 and a fencing coach at the German Club in Richmond, made Ms Whitehouse touch him indecently at his Balwyn North home in Melbourne’s east during a private lesson.
He also showed her an anatomy book and opened it to a page showing female and male genitalia and made her massage him.
Ms Whitehouse first reported the matter to Victoria Police when she was 22 but she was too scared to proceed with charges unless other victims came forward.
She said when O’Brien stood and pleaded guilty, a mighty weight was lifted from her shoulders.
“For me, it was never about seeing him locked up. My major thing is that he was found guilty, to be exposed so that other people know the predator that he is,” she said.
Ms Whitehouse has broken her silence to give other victims of child sex abuse the courage to come forward, no matter how much time has passed.
“These predators need to realise that their victim might have been this quiet little child back then, but they do grow up and come forward and they will come for you,” she said.
In sentencing, Judge Damian Murphy said the fact O’Brien would now be ostracised from the sport he had built his life around would be punishment in itself.
The Australian Fencing Federation, of which O’Brien was a life member, said it was “shocked and disappointed” by his conduct.
“The AFF board will be taking all necessary steps to implement appropriate disciplinary action,” it said.