Something awful happened: nan’s secret
In the search for answers about brilliant young vet Alexandra Tapp’s untimely death, new podcast My Sister’s Secrets discovers a long-hidden family secret.
It was a hot summer’s day and Nerida Gourley had just been for a swim at the beach.
She came inside, ready to dry off and get changed, when a man she knew appeared in her home and pinned her against the wall, towering over her.
The man was her best friend’s husband, Bruce Tout, and there was little doubt what he was after.
Ms Gourley pushed him aside, slammed the door on his back and, in her practical country way, got on with her day.
This is a decades-old memory, and Ms Gourley wouldn’t have much cause for recounting it, except she has bravely agreed to be interviewed for The Australian’s new podcast, My Sister’s Secrets – and the man who attacked her is an important part of the story.
The podcast is a gripping examination of what led Virginia Tapscott’s older sister, Alexandra Tapp, to an untimely death by overdose in 2020, aged just 32.
Alex Tapp was the victim of two sexual predators, one of whom was her step-grandfather, Tout.
He abused Alex and Virginia when they were little girls.
And he abused a string of other victims, including Ms Gourley.
For Alex, the abuse triggered a lifetime of suffering and vulnerability that would lead to substance abuse, self-loathing and the advances of other predators.
The podcast, created with the support of the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas, is an exploration of how abusers operate within families, creating secrets and lies to hide their crimes – and the emotional and societal pressures that keep survivors quiet.
In the wake of her sister’s death, Tapscott has vowed to get justice – and this podcast is the first step, bringing scrutiny to Alex’s abusers and exposing flaws in a justice system that failed to help her.
Family members, friends and colleagues of Alex Tapp have agreed to break their silence for the podcast in a bid to help get justice for her.
“We had a little house, very little house … and he always seemed to pick the time when I was there by myself,” Ms Gourley says in today’s episode of the podcast.
“I didn’t want him around … I was an adult (but) he spooked me a bit.
“He always seemed sleazy to me. You know, the way he looked at you … that’s my impression of Bruce Tout.
“He would come down and pin me to the wall in my house. I would knee him in the groin a few times and just say ‘Get out!’
“There was no way to flee. It was a little room and there was one door. So … I fought. (But) it didn’t seem to register. He just took every opportunity.
“He seemed to have no conscience about it.”
Despite the ongoing assaults and the threat of more to come, she was unable to tell her best friend, Beverley, she was being attacked by her new husband.
“I couldn’t. I just wanted to spare her,” she says. “I didn’t want her to know. And I was big enough and strong enough to look after myself.”
It is a decision, she says, she will forever regret.
Ms Gourley agrees it is time for the truth to come out.
She says she had been burdened with carrying the secret of what Tout did to the girls for decades after Beverley first caught him in the act in the early 1990s.
“She came (to my place) and was quite upset. I gave her a cup of tea and we sat down and she said: ‘Something awful has happened.’
“I said ‘What?’ And she said that Bruce Tout had interfered with the girls.”
Outraged, Ms Gourley says she did her best to convince Beverley to leave Tout and report him to the authorities.
“I was definitely hoping she’d leave him because I’d had my other problems with him,” she says. “But as time went on, I could see (her demeanour) change. I could see that she was starting to think that perhaps it didn’t happen or perhaps it wasn’t so bad, that ‘I want to sleep in my bed, so I’ll go back (to him)’.”
In the end, Ms Gourley says she agreed to keep quiet about what her best friend had told her for the girls’ sake but only on the condition the family would allow them to see a counsellor.
Like the few others with intimate knowledge of what had occurred, Ms Gourley was certain she had made the right decision.
It was only last year the full, confronting truth of what had happened to Alex began to come out – and by then, it was too late.
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My Sister’s Secrets is the new investigative podcast from The Australian, available now in the podcasts section of our app or at mysisterssecrets.com.au
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