Furious family pleads for victims to speak up
The family of Alexandra Tapp have one hope: the man they believe raped their daughter will finally face justice for his crimes against Alex — and other women now coming forward.
The family of deceased veterinarian Alexandra Tapp are optimistic the man they believe raped and abused the beloved young woman more than a decade ago will finally face justice after learning of other victims he allegedly assaulted.
Since going public with Alex’s story in The Australian’s new podcast My Sister’s Secrets, the Tapp family say they have been approached by a number of women who claim they have either been assaulted by the alleged rapist or know of someone who has.
Episode Two of the podcast will be published on Friday afternoon, exclusively for subscribers to The Australian, on our app and at mysisterssecrets.com.au.
The podcast — which is already at the top of the Australian charts — is an exploration of the deception and shame that allows family and sexual violence to thrive in silence.
Alexandra Tapp was just 32 when she died of an overdose in a lonely motel room.
Before her death she had disclosed that she had been raped by a male relative when she was 21 — adding to the childhood trauma she had suffered when sexually abused for years by her step-grandfather, now deceased.
Her sister Virginia Tapscott, a journalist, has vowed to seek justice for Alex and to bring the rapist, who is still alive, to justice.
The women’s mother, Lynne Tapp, says other women are now coming forward with allegations about the same man — giving her hope for the first time he will be held to account.
She is now encouraging other women who may have had encounters with the alleged rapist to come forward and share their stories in the hope their disclosures will help support Alex’s own historic sexual assault claims against a man who was once one of the most trusted members of their extended family.
“The police warned me very early in the piece that this is extremely hard to get a conviction with a dead witness and I have been reminded of that a couple of times,”
“I totally understand why when it becomes a “he said, she said” and you haven’t even got one of the parties alive. I offered affidavits (from people to whom Alex disclosed the alleged raped) and the police just said that doesn’t mean anything. You need a live witness or somebody who can verify what has happened.”
While Ms Tapp’s family has been buoyed by the support she had received from the public, she says it was distressing to learn the alleged rapist had had such a devastating impact on so many lives.
“The messages have just kept coming to us,” she says. “People have rung letting us know of their experiences with him. I’ve got a list written down.
“There’s different degrees of sexual assault in that list from rape down to unwanted sexual contact, grubby things.
“We’ve been given the names of a lot of women we’ve been told he assaulted but we haven’t contacted them, we want it to be their choice to come forward … (and) we live in hope that one of the other women that were affected by him, assaulted by him, will come forward and verify that he is capable of this and has done it before.”
Despite the challenges posed by her daughter’s death, Ms Tapp says she is now urging police to launch a full investigation into Alex’s rape allegations in light of the information about the man’s other alleged victims.
“I’m just so sorry he’s done this to so many … (but) I’m also just so sorry that she never knew that she wasn’t the only one because she blamed herself for drinking too much (the night it happened),” she says.
“That was the very first thing she said after she said she’d been raped by him: ‘It was my fault I was so drunk I couldn’t fight him off.’
“In a perfect world, we would have enough evidence for him to be charged, for him to have some kind of rehabilitation happen, for him to have a whole new understanding of what he did and why, no matter how he tries to explain it, it’s actually not OK.”
My Sister’s Secrets is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.
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My Sister’s Secrets is the new investigative podcast from The Australian. Episode two will be released on Friday afternoon in the podcasts section of our app or at mysisterssecrets.com.au
Get the app at the App Store or Google Play
Subscribers hear episodes first and get access to all Virginia Tapscott and Steve Jackson’s groundbreaking journalism on this topic, plus much more. To check out our subscription packages, visit theaustralian.com.au/subscribe
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