Sister reveals childhood abuse at hands of Labor staffer brother, Kent Rowe

Aussie woman Laura Rowe is speaking out about the unimaginable abuse she suffered at the hands of her own brother. Warning: Distressing.

EXCLUSIVE

Growing up, Laura Rowe didn’t realise that what her older brother Kent Rowe did to her wasn’t normal. She had no clue that it was in fact sexual abuse.

Laura and Kent grew up in Darwin, in a comfortable middle class neighbourhood. Her parents worked as professionals in the health field and Laura was part of a close knit community.

But behind closed doors, Laura was suffering horrific sexual abuse at the hands of her oldest brother. Kent, at 18, was an adult, while Laura was a pre-pubescent child in primary school aged just 10.

“It is amongst my first memories and I just grew up having that happen to me,” says Laura, now 33, and a lawyer in Canberra.

“Early on I didn’t understand it. There was no context for it. So at the time I just grew up thinking that maybe everyone had an older brother who did this.

“It wasn’t until years later when I was in sex ed, I went ‘oh that’s what’s been happening to me’.’’

Laura Rowe grew up thinking what her brother did to her was normal. Picture: Supplied

She later understood that he had raped her. Picture: Supplied

Tragically, at the time of the abuse Laura received no formal education that what her brother was doing was a serious crime.

“It was the 90s, it was all ‘stranger danger’ awareness, and I didn't think it counted,” Laura says.

“Years later when I confronted him he would make me feel as though it had been equally my fault, as though we were equal players who had done this thing and had this shared history together.”

Meanwhile, Kent Rowe rose to prominence in the Labor Party in the NT, becoming party secretary and leading several election campaigns.

Kent Rowe, circled far left, on stage as Australian NT Labor Party leader Michael Gunner gives his first speech as Chief Minister in 2016. Picture: Ivan Rachman

As she got older, Laura began to understand the significance of the age and power difference, especially once she had children herself – a process she found triggering – as she confronted her own vulnerability as a child.

But she had no framework to make sense of her own experiences.

“The media [now] talk about sexual abuse within families way more than they did back then, but the focus is still on adult relatives who abuse children from a younger generation – I never saw sibling abuse discussed,” Laura said.

“We culturally minimise offending within the same generation as ‘experimental’.

“I think that’s part of why it took me so long to understand I had been sexually assaulted. I thought of what happened to me as something outside of that. In fact I felt really bad for people who had been sexually assaulted, not realising that was me.”

Laura Rowe was in primary school when she was abused by her older brother. Picture: Supplied

Laura says that experiences like hers are still so stigmatised that survivors often only see the subject discussed via incest jokes – where victims are treated as the punchline – or worse, in pornography, where sibling sexual abuse is fetishised.

“It revolts me,” she says. “I’m sure if you went to [a mainstream porn website] you could probably find incest [themes] on the front page. It’s f*cked up,” she said.

After Laura completed a law degree, she began considering her reporting options and she began researching the subject online.

“At first I wasn’t sure if it was something even worth investigating or putting resources into.

“One night I was on the Australian Institute of Criminology website and I read [a paper which explained] that the impact of being sexually abused by an older brother was virtually the same as a father. That really affected me, it was the first time I really started to acknowledge [how bad] what happened to me was.”

Laura Rowe has obtained a special court order allowing only authorised media to name her. Picture: Supplied

Having her own children made Laura realise the significance of what had happened to her. Picture: Supplied

Over the years Laura had suffered flashbacks, panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. Triggers were everywhere.

“I remember at one point living next door to a family with a son and daughter. I would hear them in the yard and find myself sobbing in my living room,” she said.

“One day I heard the little girl yelling ‘No! Stop, stop, stop!’ and I ran to the window in terror. But the children were just playing on the trampoline and he was bouncing close to her. “It makes me so sad that those things even enter my head as a possibility.”

As Laura read more about the profile of sibling sex offenders – discovering that many are opportunistic offenders – she began to have concerns for the safety of other people in Kent’s life.

“I stopped feeling like a victim, and started feeling like an accomplice, like I was hiding something that could endanger someone else,” Laura said.

“I was so morally distressed. I thought ‘I have to go to the police’. The risk was too big and I couldn’t make that evaluation on my own anymore.”

Staffer Kent Rowe celebrating Labor's Luke Gosling’s win.

At first Laura wasn’t sure action would be taken.

“There was no CCTV footage or anything like that and you hear in the media how hard it is to get a conviction and that police never do anything,” she said.

“But it turned out my case was really strong and without realising it, I had been gathering evidence my whole life.”

There was the story she had written for a teacher in primary school that referenced her brother’s bedroom. Disclosures she had made to friends and partners.

All breadcrumbs which could later be used to recreate a trail.

“It meant the world to the little girl inside me that the police took it seriously. They investigated and did exactly what they were meant to do.”

Most damning of all, in 2018, Laura had lawfully audio recorded a family conference where she had disclosed to her family – including her brother Kent, what had happened.

“He didn’t speak. He just put his head down,” said Laura. “At the time, all I really wanted was for him to get help.”

Laura’s family thanked her, but then decided to keep the matter “in house” – a choice which invalidated the seriousness of what she had suffered.

Laura Rowe’s family decided to deal with the abuse she suffered “in house”. Picture: Supplied

“It’s hard because I have compassion for them too,” Laura said. “People may want to vilify my family. But it’s hard to find out that your son, your husband, someone close to you is a rapist, and that’s why offenders in families go undetected for so long.

“None of them behaved perfectly, and they are each on their own path, which is a different path to me.

“He was also very good at charming people and reframing it as ‘just a couple of kids mucking around’.”

Kent would also say things to Laura like “this was something we shared”, implying she was an equal player.

“It was very insidious,” Laura said. “And it was very difficult, because by the time I told my family, I was a full grown adult, and so the age gap between my brother and me didn’t seem so great to them,” Laura said.

“They would say things like ‘I don’t judge either of you’ or ‘we love you both equally’ as though we both had equal power and size in the situation.”

At other times, Laura heard comments such as “he must have been hurting too” or “do you think he was also abused?”

“I would think to myself, ‘well I don’t know if he was abused, but I was, and I certainly didn’t do anything like that to anyone else ever’.”

Laura Rowe was determined to try to stop her brother abusing anyone else. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Laura says that like many victims of sibling-sexual-abuse, she struggled with the idea that by reporting to police, her family might hate her.

“What I would say to other victims, is tell someone outside the family as you will get a more balanced understanding of how the world views it,” she said.

“It’s hard because I have a lot of compassion for my family members – and while they have made mistakes and not always said the right things – I also know there are no services or help for them in this process either.

“That’s why I want to share my story. Because I want people to understand this crime and I want family units to rethink how they respond.”

‘I thought I would die with this still on my chest’

Laura’s decision to report the abuse to police during Covid-19 set in motion a domino effect and in 2022, she took the stand in her own brother’s trial.

A mere screen sat between them, shielding Laura so she didn’t have to see her rapist.

By then the media had got wind of the story and the Darwin gossip mill was in overdrive.

Kent Rowe, a senior Labor Staffer was an infamous public figure in the Northern Territory, having acted as Campaign Director for the party over several elections.

In 2021, he resigned in disgrace after his role in a sordid sex scandal involving a local bondage mistress was exposed. He was married at the time.

When news hit that Kent Rowe had been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault against a family member, local media went into a frenzy.

While Laura wasn’t named in the initial coverage, Darwin is a small community and it wasn’t hard for people to reverse engineer the puzzle.

“It’s ironic. My biggest fear my whole life was that someone would find out what happened to me, who I didn’t directly tell myself,” Laura said.

“I’d always felt so anxious that once people knew, they would think poorly of me and think I’m disgusting or gross.”

But when Darwin media reported that Kent Rowe was charged with sexually assaulting a family member, Laura’s phone “blew up” with text messages of support from friends and colleagues all over the country.

“It was so overwhelming as it was my worst fear realised, and yet it was also the best day of my life,” she said.

“It came from everywhere, including a lot of people I wasn’t expecting. And it was the first time I had heard what happened to me discussed outside our family unit, and people were using words like ‘abhorrent’ and no one was blaming me or thinking ill of me.”

For Laura, who had endured years of minimising comments, it was revelatory.

“Up until that point, I thought I would die an old woman with this still on my chest,” she said. “On that day, it just felt like I had been bathed in sunlight.”

Laura Rowe was heartened by the response after her brother was exposed as her abuser. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The trial – and cross examination in particular – would prove far less empowering, which Laura as written about here. But eventually, in September 2022, the 12 person jury unanimously found Kent Rowe guilty of six counts of sexual intercourse without consent against a child and sentenced to five years jail – to be suspended after two and a half years.

“When the verdict came out, I closed my eyes and put my head on my husband’s shoulder. I heard the words guilty guilty guilty. I was so relieved,” said Laura.

Let Her Speak: More education needed on sibling sexual abuse

Today, with help of the #LetHerSpeak campaign, Laura is speaking out under her real name to reclaim a sense of ownership of her story. With campaign support she obtained a court order which allows her to waive her right to anonymity and control which media name her. (Donate towards Laura’s legal fees or the other legal fees of survivors supported by the Let Her Speak campaign here.)

There has already been intense political interest in her story given Kent Rowe’s positions within the NT Labor Party – and the fact that character references were supplied by people connected with the party.

Kent Rowe leaves Darwin Supreme Court during his rape case trial. Picture: Amanda Parkinson

But Laura does not want her story used as a political football and, having been admitted as a lawyer in her own right this year, she is determined to use her story to educate the public on sibling abuse, while also assisting other survivors to better understand their rights when navigating the legal system.

Under Northern Territory law, sexual assault victims can only speak out under their real names once all proceedings are finalised, including any appeals. But these can drag on endlessly for years.

In 2021, not wanting to be held up by any potential appeals or ongoing proceedings, Laura contacted the #LetHerSpeak campaign who obtained a court order on her behalf, using donations from campaign GoFundMe.

“I wanted the option to speak about my case on my own terms,” she said.

Laura Rowe on the day she was admitted as a lawyer. Picture: Supplied

Laura is the 21st victim-survivor to receive legal work provided by Marque Lawyers and funded through the #LetHerSpeak campaign, which was created by Nina Funnell in partnership with news.com.au, Marque Lawyers and End Rape On Campus Australia.

“The really brutal truth is that there are a lot of Australian families covering up their own histories of sexual abuse saying ‘shh don’t talk about it’,” said Laura.

“In the community people also avoid talking about the subject because of the stigma associated with it or because the real honest truth is that maybe they even made their own excuses in their own families about certain things.

“But the problem is that there are lots of people feeling like they have to go and spend family Christmas or lunch sitting next to the person that abused them and feeling like they can’t rock the boat.

“I attended so many family events with him, even in the years after it came out.”

Laura’s brother was even at her wedding.

Laura Rowe on her wedding day, an event which her abuser brother attended. Picture: Supplied

“Families that ask a survivor to keep quiet in order to keep the peace don’t know the damage they are causing,” Laura said.

“You wanting [a survivor to be quiet so you can have] your family Christmas together, is killing someone’s spirit. That’s the price I was paying.”

Laura says she doesn’t want her family to be vilified. Instead she wants more discussion and education surrounding support for families dealing with these situations.

“I feel like in speaking out I have broken a cycle” she said. “The power has shifted.

“I always felt there would be light at the end of the tunnel and I am beginning to see that light.”

Laura Rowe has found peace after speaking out about her childhood abuse. Picture: Supplied

As Laura looks at photos of herself as a young girl she says she feels a sense of pride.

“I talk to her. I feel like I’m protecting my little self, like I’m a mother and I look at her with such compassion,” she said.

“Each part of my journey has been so different. The Laura who went to police is different to the Laura who went to court, and that’s different to Laura now.

“During those dark periods, I knew there would be a Laura at the end of all this who would tell me ‘you are going to be all right one day’.

“And I’m her now.”

This reporting was made possible with the support of the LetHerSpeak campaign. Click here to contribute to Laura’s legal fees or to donate to support the vital legal work of other sexual assault survivors still impacted by gag laws.

Nina Funnell, the author of this piece is a Walkley Award winning freelance journalist and the creator of the LetHerSpeak campaign, which contributed towards Laura’s court order.