Sad trail of exploitation
Texts show breach of trust as mum’s friend sexually abuses teenage son
TEXT, January 17, 2016: “Love your gorgeous face so much.”
Text, January 16, 2017: “Miss you already. Kiss.”
Text, January 2, 2016: “I don’t understand how this has happened. One minute we were great and then we aren’t. I do feel heartbroken right now … I wish none of this happened. You mean so much to me and I am scared I have lost you now. Kiss, kiss.”
IT would be easy to think these messages were from one consenting adult to another.
But that is just a sample of what a 35-year-old woman sent the 13-year-old son of her best friend.
She would go on to sexually abuse him, coercing him into sexual acts including intercourse and oral sex while he stayed in her Gold Coast home for about a month.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed she did nothing wrong.
A jury disagreed and this month convicted her of three counts of indecent treatment of a child and one count of carnal knowledge with a child.
When the verdict was handed down after a five-day trial in the Southport District Court, the woman – a mum of two – did not cry. She was silent.
Just minutes earlier she was seen crying while talking to a friend as they waited for the verdict.
“I just love my children so much,” she sobbed.
Her shoulder-length, brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and held in place by a silver-and-black headband.
After the verdict the bags underneath her eyes appeared to become more pronounced and her already pale skin whitened further.
When the jury left the courtroom, she removed pieces of jewellery and her headband to give to a friend. The items would not be allowed in the watchhouse.
Their goodbyes were subscared dued but practical, working out last-minute logistics such as what to do with her phone and arranging cash in prison.
The woman is of average height and build and at first glance looks like a regular mother – well presented, neatly dressed and well spoken.
There is nothing in her demeanour to suggest she would treat a teenage boy so monstrously.
Her dark motives were unveiled by a slew of text messages the woman sent the boy.
“Just wanted to say sorry again for everything, I just love you so much, just between us, you will always be my friend. Kiss, kiss, kiss,” she wrote on January 16, 2017.
“Miss you already, kiss.” The next day, after sending dozens of text messages, the woman wrote: “I’m watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Freaky as a mofo. Cuddle me.”
She would repeatedly tell the boy how much she loved him and send him kisses. Photos were also common. One picture was of her in a singlet and g-string with the caption: “Thought I would be kind and give you sweet dreams since you can’t see my stories any more.”
In another photo she posed in a nightie with lace on the bottom wearing a hat she bought for the boy.
Other photos included her using filters to alter selfies and asking the boy to comment.
The boy’s answers to most of the texts were often single words, or noncommittal.
The woman would often force adult responsibilities on the boy.
“You are probably asleep but I just found out that lady who stepped in front of a truck last week, we knew her well,” the woman sent one day.
On another occasion she complained of being “hurt” because the boy had been asked to de-friend her on a social media platform.
“My childhood has permanently scarred me of being rejected or abandoned. I wish none of this happened. I am I will lose you now. Kiss, kiss,” she said.
When the boy was angry about an incident with a teenage girl he had a crush on, the woman fired a series of heated texts at him.
“Just delete my number, I will learn to be fine without you. I am just p**sed because you take everything out on me,” she wrote.
“As I said, if you need consoling, text (girl).
“You only need me when things are s**t for you. You only text me off your own back when you are angry with your mother.”
Throughout the relationship, the woman offered to buy the boy clothes, including a hat and pants valued about $75.
“I may have to become a whore to pay for your high style. LOL,” the woman texted.
The boy replied: “Please don’t.”
The woman would also tell the boy she “loved” his gorgeous face, professed her affection for him and would send him kisses.
If the boy did not show enough affection, she would tell him she was hurt or cut off contact.
The boy was already struggling with his relationships with adults.
His parents had split up years earlier, meaning he and his younger brother were living between the pair.
In the months leading up to the boy staying with the woman, he and his father had a physical fight. At the time of the abuse, the boy refused to speak to his father at all.
The boy’s mother was struggling to deal with her eldest child’s Asperger’s syndrome and she would often call relatives and friends asking them to stay over to help her cope with the boy. In February 2017 things turned even more sour.
The mum, unable to cope, agreed to let the boy stay with her best friend – believing they both needed time to cool off.
For a month the boy refused to come home.
The court was told he would agree to return, but would change his mind after speaking with the woman.
On one occasion when the boy agreed to come home, the woman ran from the room crying.
On March 18, the boy’s father decided to confront him at a soccer match, asking the boy to return home.
The boy refused and threatened suicide if he was forced to go with his father.
An ambulance was called and after a trip to the hospital the boy was released into his mother’s care. That was when the boy’s parents discovered the hundreds of messages the woman had sent him.
Police were contacted and the boy declined to say what happened.
Weeks passed and the woman began to contact the boy’s friends on Instagram, asking if he was OK.
He told one of those friends the woman was “crazy and that she had seduced and raped him”.
The boy would eventually tell his parents, referring to the woman as a “bitch” and “thing”.
When police investigated, there was no physical evidence about what happened.
But there was the boy’s phone, with the hundreds of messages between the pair.
The last message, sent just after the boy was returned home, read: “You OK, hun.”
The woman will be sentenced at a later date.