#LetUsSpeak: Man sexually assaults, rapes girl, 13, after camping trip | Exclusive

When she was just 13, Ashleigh went through something unimaginable. Now she’s found the strength to share her story.

EXCLUSIVE

Ashleigh Rae Cooper was just 13 years old when a man she met on a family camping trip began grooming her. Within weeks, Michael Johnson, 18, would sexually molest and repeatedly rape the year 8 schoolgirl.

“He would drive me to an area where I had no idea where I was. There would be no houses or street lights. If I got out of his Jeep I had no mobile, and no way of getting home,” says Ashleigh, from Belgrave, Victoria.

“It involved oral, digital, and penile rape.”

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Ashleigh Rae Cooper was raped when she was 13. Picture: Supplied.

Ashleigh first tried to report the assaults to police in 2014 but no action was taken.

“It was crushing. It takes a lot for any person to walk into a police station to ask for help, but with sexual assault it’s even harder, especially when you haven’t worked through all the issues of shame. So to be dismissed like that, well, I don’t have a word for it.”

By 2017, Ashleigh’s mental health had significantly deteriorated: she had difficulty working, was diagnosed with Complex PTSD, and was suffering from flashbacks, night terrors, dissociation, and anxiety.

“I came home one day after I’d had a huge panic attack and instead of falling apart on the couch, I found myself in a police station again, asking for help,” says Ashleigh.

This time charges were laid, and on January 20 this year Michael Johnson, 34, of Kilsyth, Victoria, pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16, and one count of an indecent act with a child, for the 2004 and 2005 offences.

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Michael Johnson was convicted of abusing Ashleigh but never spent a night in jail for his crimes. Picture: Supplied.

But despite admitting to repeatedly raping the year 8 student, Johnson wouldn’t spend a single night in jail.

“When the sentence was handed down in May, I found out that even though each charge carried up to 10 years jail, all he would get was 200 hours of community work, 50 of which could be spent on his own treatment,” says Ashleigh.

“That’s less than 20 days community work for repeatedly raping me as a child.

“The only thing that made me feel that I got any justice at all, was that the judge ruled that he was to be placed on the sex offender registry for life.

“That meant that he would have to face what he did – not in the same way that I’ve had to face it and live with it every single day – but at a minimum, he would have to check in with police every 12 months for the rest of his life. That let me know that he’d have to think about what he did to me at least once a year.”

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Ashleigh, now 29, has been left with anxiety and flashbacks. Picture: Supplied.

But as it would turn out, even that relief would be short lived.

In July, just two months after the sentence was handed down, Ashleigh was informed that due to recent changes to Victoria’s Sex Offender Registry Act, certain convicted sex offenders can now apply to be exempted from the Registry.

Under the new legislation introduced in 2018, an exemption can be made in certain cases where a convicted sex offender claims they were in a “relationship” with the child, and the child was 14 years or older at the time of the abuse.

While Ashleigh was only 13 when the sexual abuse began – a point conceded by the judge at sentencing – Johnson had been charged by police as though she had been 14.

By August, his exemption had been granted.

“I was so shocked and taken aback that I screamed. I cried and shouted. I was furious and I didn’t really believe it,” says Ashleigh.

“Any justice I got had been undone. At a personal level it felt like the courts were saying the rapes didn’t happen at all.”

Ashleigh says that outcomes like these will only “deter other victims from going through the system” and cause the public to lose faith in the sex offender registry: “Why did I go through any of this? Why would any victim put themselves through this?”

‘HE WON’T GO TO JAIL, BUT I COULD’

Ashleigh turned to news.com.au hoping to tell her story. It was only then that she learned that in the same time frame, the Victorian government had relaxed the sex offender registration laws and tightened other laws around if and when sexual assault survivors can tell their own stories.

Not only would the man who raped Ashleigh never see the inside of a jail cell, but under the new victim gag laws Ashleigh could face heavy fines or up to four months jail if she were to speak out about the crime using her real name.

“I was horrified that suddenly the tables had turned and I was suddenly criminalised. It genuinely made me feel like the government had done a masterful job of gaslighting me.

“I’d always planned to speak out, but throughout the case I’d been told to say nothing. It was only after sentencing, when my fiance and I were just beginning to grapple with the trauma of what we had been going through for years, and easing into the fact that we weren’t beholden by the courts anymore, that we started to rebuild our lives together.

“But that’s when I was told I couldn’t speak out after all. It was absolutely gutting.”

#LetUsSpeak: ASHLEIGH RAE COOPER WINS A COURT ORDER

Ashleigh is now one of 10 sexual assault survivors who are supported by the #LetUsSpeak campaign (previously known as Let Her Speak).

In August, a GoFundMe was established to raise $20,000 to help cover the legal fees of three sexual assault survivors who want the right to speak out under their real names.

That goal amount was quickly achieved, and now more than $60,000 has been raised which has enabled ten survivors to lodge applications for court orders lodged so far.

Of those 10 applications, three survivors have secured court orders, including Ashleigh and two other Victorian women, aged 33 and 41, who will also be sharing their stories.

“I am so deeply thankful for the work done in restoring my voice,” says Ashleigh. “If I had to go through this alone I wouldn’t have had the means. Not many survivors have spare money just sitting around, especially not now during COVID-19”.

But the process has been far from straightforward, with numerous court delays, and seven of the applications remain stalled.

Michael Bradley, managing partner of Marque Lawyers, who has lodged all 10 applications says that the process has exacerbated trauma.

“From the survivors’ perspective it has been anything but streamlined, partly because the courts have been scrambling to catch up with legislation they didn’t know about and a lot of mistakes have been made and obstacles put in our clients’ way. That has made the process difficult and traumatic for them,” says Michael.

The courts also initially told survivors they would need to seek their offenders’ consent in order to use their own name as a victim. When one survivor Maggie (not her real name) objected, the court forwarded her application to her offender regardless. (The offender in that case was her father: a man who raped her from age eight, and later murdered her older stepsister when she threatened to expose the abuse).

A complaint was lodged against the court officer who had forwarded the application and it was agreed that no other offender would be contacted or informed of an application, without at least notifying the victim first.

However, when Ashleigh’s court order was granted, it became apparent that her offender had been notified without her consent.

“I don’t understand why he needed to be notified that I wanted to speak or why he was involved at all. I’m still waiting for anyone in the courts to give me any reason why they thought it was a good idea to contact him,” says Ashleigh.

“Why do offenders get any kind of vote in this?”

Ashleigh says she is relieved she now she has her court order but remains frustrated that so many others don’t.

“I didn’t know what I would have done if my application had been declined. The laws still haven’t been changed and the government has only offered pretty words. At every turn this has been a despicable process.

“I feel very much that the government holds survivors in contempt.”

In August, the Attorney-General announced the government would review the gag laws by the end of the year, after concerns were first raised with her office in April.

“We will keep fighting for the right to speak. We will keep fighting until survivors have the fundamental right to their name and voice. We will not be silenced”.

Nina Funnell is the creator of the #LetUsSpeak campaign in partnership with news.com.au, Marque Lawyers, End Rape On Campus Australia and Rape & Sexual Assault Research & Advocacy.

This reporting was funded by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas and the Walkley Public Fund

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