PLEASE LEAVE HIM
My worst fear in the world was one of my girls being abused like me…
Tammy Simpson, 48, Morphettville, SA.
Islipped the red sequin dress over my head and did a little twirl. “Mummy, you look booootiful,” my daughter Eden, ve, sang in awe.
“ank you, darling,” I smiled. “You always know what to say to make someone feel good.”
Eden’s baby sister Charnna-Lee was just one and I was o on a rare night out.
I’d split from both their dads and raised the two of them on my own.
Eden was a kind and caring girl, and she doted on her baby sister. We did everything together, the three of us.
But later, in high school, Eden discovered bad boys and it terri ed me.
I’d been in a violent relationship myself and managed to leave. It was my worst fear for my girls to be abused like me.
“Don’t make the mistakes I made,” I told Eden. “Bad boys are not cool.”
“Oh Mum,” she replied, rolling her eyes.
In her last year of high school in Adelaide, Eden dropped out and went travelling around Australia with a boyfriend.
When she was 23, she went to live in Mount Gambier, SA, near my mum, Coral, and started dating a man called Bradley Trussell.
A few weeks into their relationship, she came home to Adelaide with two black eyes.
“Oh love,” I choked, pulling her into my arms.
“Bradley got jealous because I talked to a male friend on the phone,” she said through tears. “He beat me up.”
History was repeating itself, just like I feared.
Eden was 45kg and 162cm tall. Bradley was much taller and well muscled.
Gutless coward, I thought. After a couple of weeks, Eden said she was returning to Mount Gambier to see friends.
“You’re not going back to him, are you?” I quizzed her.
“No, Mum,” she promised.
But of course she did. It was the start of a pattern.
He’d beat her, she’d come home, then return.
I constantly begged her to leave him but got nowhere.
In June 2018, when they’d been together 18 months, Eden turned up, battered and bruised with a gashed foot.
“He bashed me while I was asleep,” she explained.
But a few weeks later she returned to him.
“He’s promised to change,” she said.
“Eden, he’s going to kill you!” I cried desperately.
In September, she was back home after another bashing. Again, I begged her to leave him, but I couldn’t get through to her.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” she yelled angrily.
e following month, she ed to my mum’s after he bashed and bit her.
en, on December 13, Charnna-Lee and I were out for lunch to celebrate her 21st birthday.
“Eden should be here,” I said. She never missed her sister’s birthday.
Just then, my friend Bonny called.
“Tammy, Eden’s being
She had two black eyes
transferred to hospital in Adelaide. She’s on life support,” she said.
I dropped my phone in shock.
At the hospital, doctors said Eden was brain dead with no chance of survival.
My poor girl, just 25, lay on a bed, tubes coming out of her.
She was breathing, and everything looked normal on the monitors.
Crazy with grief, I thought Eden had a chance.
By the early hours of the following morning though, I came to my senses.
rough hysterical tears, I kissed Eden goodbye.
“I love you so much,” I cried and wheeled her to the operating theatre where her pancreas and heart valves were taken for organ donation.
e surgeon said her heart valves would save children’s lives.
Almost 200 people came to Eden’s funeral.
“We fought like mothers and daughters do, but loved each other regardless,” I said in her eulogy.
I had Eden cremated so that I could look after my girl forever. Bradley Trussell was charged with murder but pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defence. He was too gutless to look at me during his trial. e court heard Eden had over 40 injuries, including a lacerated liver, numerous brain haemorrhages and rib fractures.
Some injuries predated her death by days with bruises suggesting she’d been beaten with a pole. e prosecution said Trussell began beating Eden on December 6 or 7. On December 9, he sent a text message to his sister Chloe. Hey sis can you come and get this dumb sl*t out ov my house iv hurt her anuf and she wont leav, it read. In the early hours of December 13, he attacked Eden again.
While she had a seizure on the kitchen oor, he smoked a cigarette.
To try and wake her up, he put her in the shower.
When she didn’t come around, he took her to hospital, unconscious, bruised from head-to-toe and frothing at the mouth.
Trussell claimed she’d hit herself, pulled out her own hair and he’d dropped her while carrying her to the shower.
He admitted shoving her against a fridge, but only because he thought she was going to kick him in the testicles.
Police said there wasn’t a scratch on him.
Justice Bampton ruled out his ridiculous claims, saying he “frequently contradicted accounts he gave the police.”
Bradley Wayne Trussell, 30, was found guilty of murder and jailed for life with a non-parole period of just 20 years. We need tougher sentences for abusers, male or female, from rst o ence onwards.
My worst fear was one of my girls being abused like me. Tragically, it came true and my bubbly, bright and energetic daughter paid the ultimate price.
If you are experiencing abuse, call 1800 737 732 (Aust) or 0800 456 450 (NZ).
I kissed Eden goodbye
Bella Johnston, 29, Sydney, NSW.
Sitting in the doctor’s o ce, I let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t have an eating disorder,” I insisted. It was 2010, and for months, I’d been su ering from a chronic cough, fatigue and dizziness, and was regularly throwing up.
Doctors could nd no cause, so at 15, diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa.
I knew it wasn’t the case, but nobody would listen.
Over the years, lumps grew on my neck, but
I was told it was glandular fever and was refused a CAT scan and an MRI.
At 18, in 2014, fed up with not being taken seriously by doctors in my small hometown, I moved to Melbourne.
ere, I started searching for alternative remedies.
Scrolling through Instagram one day, I came across Tasmanian wellness in uencer Belle Gibson.
In a post to her 200,000 followers, she’d explained how she’d been healing her severe and malignant brain cancer with natural medicine, Gerson therapy and foods.
If she can heal herself, maybe I can, too, I thought.
I started copying everything Belle did. I ate beetroot soup and bone broth, took Epsom salt baths and tried to massage the lumps out, but none worked.
When I got u, I went to see a GP.
Showing him the lump on my neck, his eyes grew. “I need to send you for an ultrasound,” he said.
ree days later, I got a call. “e lump is a tumour,” a doctor told me. “You have paraganglioma, a rare form of cancer.”
I’d known something was wrong, but hadn’t expected that. By then, I weighed just 43kg and was months away from death.
In tears, I called my parents and they drove to Melbourne to support me.
A week later, I had the tumour removed.
e cancer had spread around the top half of my body, wrapping around major parts of my nervous system. After the 10-hour surgery, my surgeon said it had been growing for years.
“Your insides were like rotten fruit,” he said. “Completely black inside.”
My right arm, half my tongue and vocal cords were also paralysed from the surgery. Due to the risk of the cancer spreading to my brain, I needed radiotherapy.
“I don’t want radiotherapy,” I sobbed to my dad. “Belle says it’s possible to cure cancer naturally.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You need to stop the cancer growing.”
I relented and agreed, but continued to follow Belle and her advice.
When my hair fell out, she was my guiding light.
My aunty Jen was also diagnosed with cancer at the same time as me. She was told it was terminal.
Maybe Belle’s methods can help her, too, I thought.
I bought Belle’s recipe book, e Whole Pantry,
and texted Jen ideas from it.
I tried eating everything Belle suggested, like green smoothies made with raw egg. With a nasal gastric tube and mouth paralysis, it wasn’t easy.
In my bed, gripping a bucket for vomit, I watched Belle at the Cosmopolitan
Women of the Year Awards.
How does she look so glamorous? I sobbed.
I started wearing hair extensions and coating my face in make-up, but I never felt or looked as good as she seemed. It made me feel like a failure.
My cancer had spread
en, one day, I opened my Instagram, and my heart stood still.
I’ve been diagnosed with a third and fourth cancer, Belle had announced, revealing it was terminal.
Tears sprung in my eyes.
She’ll ght this, I told myself.
Meanwhile, I visited my auntie Jen and was shocked by her emaciated frame and yellowing skin.
How does Belle look so healthy when she’s terminal, too? I thought.
at same year, in December 2014, my auntie Jen passed away, aged 52.
en, one morning the following March, I read a news story on my phone.
Belle Gibson is under investigation, it read.
Reports said Belle had never donated the funds she’d raised for a young boy with inoperable cancer.
is can’t be true,I thought. But over the next few weeks, the claims grew even more shocking.
It circulated that Belle had lied about her cancer.
e media claimed she never had cancer at all.
Over the next few weeks, Belle announced she’d been wrongly diagnosed with cancers she’d said she was living with, including blood, spleen, uterus and liver. She maintained that her terminal brain cancer diagnosis was real.
But, in April, she nally admitted it was all a lie.
“None of it is true,” she said, speaking to a magazine.
I was gobsmacked.
“How could someone do that?” I vented to my mum.
She’d taken advantage of vulnerable people, giving them false hope for her own bene t. It was sick!
In 2017, Belle Gibson was found guilty of numerous breaches of consumer law after she’d made a pro t based on a lie, claiming she’d healed cancer through diet and alternative therapies.
She’d also lied about donating money from her Whole Pantry App and book sales to charities.
She escaped any criminal charges, so she was never sent to jail. She was ned $410,000 by the Federal Court. Seven years on, she hasn’t apologised or paid her ne. In some ways, I feel sorry for her.
She must have no support if she needed to pretend to have cancer to feel loved. My cancer has never returned and therapy has improved my partial paralysis.
I joined a female cancer support network and made real friends who understood what I was going through.
I hope people will take note not to believe everything in uencers say.
I also hope my story encourages people to ask for a second opinion if they think a doctor is wrong.
She’d given people false hope
The house was peaceful and quiet as I pulled my doona around me and drifted off to sleep. Suddenly, I was startled awake by my phone ringing.
“Hello...?” I answered groggily.
Hearing a groan of pleasure, my heart sank.
“I know what you’re wearing,” said a breathless male voice. “I can’t stop thinking about you in it.”
He was clearly masturbating, leaving me repulsed.
“Leave me alone,” I yelled, hanging up.
It was 2012, and
I’d received these calls for three years.
At first, I’d thought it was a friend playing a prank, but when the calls turned sexual, I knew it was more sinister.
As a single mum who lived alone with my two children, aged four and three, I felt vulnerable.
I’d tried everything I could to discourage the caller – making fun of him, threatening to call the police – but nothing had worked.
Over time, the calls got more abusive and explicit.
I thought about going to the cops but didn’t think they’d be interested.
Then, one morning, I was chatting about it with a friend at the school gates when one of the local dads, Steve Turner, came over.
“Is that pervert still bothering you?” he asked.
“Unfortunately so,”
I told him.
By now, most of the parents knew about my ordeal. “If you’re ever feeling scared, just call our house,” Steve said, placing his hand on my arm.
“That’s really kind, thank you,” I said, smiling.
Steven was a local dad, and I’d known him and his family for years.
He was very communityminded and was always happy to help anyone.
He’d once fixed my car, saving me a fortune.
Our children were friends, and he and his wife often invited me to theirs for birthday parties and social gatherings.
Yet, there was something about him I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
A couple of weeks later, I received another call.
“I like the blue skirt, white top and pink bra you’re wearing,” the caller said. My blood ran cold.
If he knows what I’m wearing, he must be watching me, I panicked.
I raced around the house, locking all the windows and doors, and drawing all the curtains.
I couldn’t sleep a wink that night, wondering if he was lurking outside.
My backyard was long and led into bushland, so anyone could be hiding out there.
The next day, I bought a gate for the backyard and had security lights installed, too.
Still, I didn’t feel safe. Then, one day, I received a call from a friend.
“I got a call last night like the ones you’ve been describing,” she said.
“It’s got to be someone local then,” I said.
I went to the police station to report it.
“I’m afraid there’s not much we can do,” the officer I spoke to said.
“Why don’t you just change your number and see if that works.”
I left the station feeling let down.
Why should I have to change my number?
I thought angrily.
Besides, it wouldn’t stop whoever it was from watching me.
Every time I left the house, I was anxious someone was following me around, watching me.
Whenever the stalker called, he knew where I was, what I was wearing and what I’d been doing.
I was suspicious of every man I met, which impacted my dating life.
At night, I couldn’t sleep, leaving me exhausted.
“This is ruining my life,” I complained to a friend.
On the school run one day, I bumped into Steve again.
“Any news on your dirty caller?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I went to the police, but they won’t do anything.”
“You know where I am,” he said, leaning in slightly too close.
The calls went on for nearly nine years in total.
Sometimes, there were months in between them, and I’d think my ordeal was finally over, but then he would call again.
Eventually, I moved into a more secure home with an enclosed backyard.
But even that didn’t stop him.
Then, in 2019, I got an out-of-the-blue call from the police.
“Have you been receiving nuisance calls?” asked the officer.
“For about nine years,” I said.
He made an appointment to come see me.
Not long after we’d hung up, a friend called. She’d had a call from the police, too.
“Apparently, my number is in the stalker’s phone,” she said. “But I’ve not had any filthy calls.”
She told me she’d recently got a new number.
“The only people who have called me on it so far are family members and
Steven Turner,” she said.
My whole body went numb.
“Steven Turner?” I stuttered. “As in the dad at the school gates?”
“Yeah, he’s been fixing my car,” she said.
It made perfect sense. I saw Steven on the school run nearly every day so he’d know what I was wearing and my daily routine.
He also lived nearby, so he could easily drive by my house.
“It must be him,” I gasped.
Though a huge shock, in some ways, it was a relief.
I’d built my stalker up into a mythical bogeyman.
Now, I knew it was just a sad pervert who lived up the road.
Steven Turner, 49, was arrested, and the calls stopped immediately.
He was charged with stalking me and another female victim – his niece.
From the age of 15, she’d been bombarded by calls of a sexual nature, like me.
Steven had pretended to show concern for his niece’s welfare, knowing he was responsible for the fear she felt.
His identity was discovered after she downloaded software for $12 to unlock withheld numbers and was horrified by what she found.
He claimed his phone had been hacked and denied all knowledge of the calls, but after a trial, a jury found him guilty of two counts of stalking.
In July 2023, he was sentenced to two years in prison and handed a five-year restraining order to stay away from me and his niece.
For the first time, in a long time, I can sleep at night.
‘I like your blue skirt and pink bra’