Former anti-domestic violence ambassador Jon Seccull convicted of raping wife

A former anti-domestic violence campaigner found guilty of multiple rapes against his wife can now be unmasked as Ballarat’s Jon Seccull.

Michelle and Jon on their wedding day. Picture: Noel Hutchins

A former anti-domestic violence campaigner found guilty of multiple rapes against his wife can now be unmasked as Ballarat’s Jon Seccull.

The 43-year-old, once a prison system ambassador for White Ribbon, will be sentenced next month after he was found guilty of nine counts of rape, two counts of assault and one count of threatening to inflict serious injury.

Seccull’s identity can now be revealed after a suppression order was lifted.

The Wallace man was well known in his community as a high-profile campaigner for organ donation after his three-year-old toddler, Ethan, was clipped by a train and killed metres from home in 2011.

Seccull’s wife, Michelle Skewes, described being so traumatised by his abuse that an “intense wave of fear washes over me” when her own kids put their arms around her.

“I feel that when anything touches me around my neck, because my brain is instantly transported back to those moments when his hands were around my throat,” Ms Skewes said.

Seccull, dialling in from Hopkins Correctional Centre and dressed in prison greens, sat with his arms crossed and head bowed for the duration of a County Court plea hearing on Monday.

The court heard Seccull had been targeted in prison because of the nature of the charges.

Seccull with David Koch after starting a foundation in his son’s name.

His time in jail was “more burdensome” because he used to work as a prison guard, where he championed women’s rights to inmates.

But at home, his wife reported that he made her feel “like an absolute piece of shit”, with abuse that spanned four and a half years from 2011 to 2015.

She described her daily struggle not to “curl up in a ball and sob” after years of his “ongoing, persistent, and consistent abuse, rape, coercion and violence”.

“Every day I fight those poisonous words that were yelled at me,” she said in a victim impact statement.

“The words that told me I was nothing, told me I was useless, too fat, too stupid, too ugly, no good and a waste of oxygen. That I was lucky that he would have me because no one else would want me.”

Ms Skewes, who has given the Herald Sun permission to identify her by name and image, said she was relieved the gag order had been lifted so she could expose her husband for what he really was.

Seccull and Skewes had four children together.

“Everyone thought he was this big teddy bear, a good guy, but what happened behind closed doors was very different,” she said.

“I really wanted to share my story for so long now to let other victims know they are not alone and that the shame is not theirs.

“The shame lies with the perpetrator.”

She said by going public with what happened to her, she feels she is a step closer to regaining her life back, and is no longer under her former husband’s control.

“I’m starting to feel like myself - it is empowering,” Ms Skewes said.

But she knew she had a long road ahead and that her life will “never be the same”.

Judge Frank Gucciardo said Seccull told the jury his sexual relationship with his wife was “completely consensual and devoid of any depravity”.

“It’s the fact he was prepared to give that evidence on oath and maintain that position, something which the jury must have utterly rejected,” Judge Gucciardo said.

“It goes hand in hand with his lack of remorse.”

In arguing against a prosecution application that Seccull should be registered as a sex offender for life, defence lawyer Chris Pearson said it was an “overreach” being used “simply as a tool of punishment”.

“There’s just no basis … that this man poses a risk to the sexual safety of anybody once he is released,” he said.

Judge Gucciardo will sentence Seccull on October 18.