‘Tricky, cunning, manipulative’
TWISTED UNCLE’S SINISTER ACTS
KELLY Humphries was having nightmares.
She had been sexually abused as a child.
She had coped, in her own way. But never told anyone. But now the nightmares were back. Her mental torment was too much.
She had to speak out.
For her sister.
A MUCH-LOVED UNCLE. AND A SINISTER SECRET
Uncle Bob was popular. He read the children books, was always playing games. The family looked forward to his visits.
“We all loved him,” Kelly says. “He was a massive support to our family.
“He weaved himself in so much that, you know, the mere thought of me saying something terrible about him, because he was so close to us, I was like, well I can’t break up our family connection.”
But Uncle Bob’s persona masked a dark secret. The family was not being supported. It was being groomed.
Kelly was eight when it first happened. She was at Uncle Bob’s house, when her mum and dad left to go shopping. “I want to teach you how to love, like in the movies,” he told her.
It was to be the start of seven years of abuse.
“Obviously there was a level of trust built between us, and him being my uncle,” Kelly says. “He spent a significant amount of time grooming me.
“Even before the sexual offending started. Which is what they do. They groom the families to have access to the child.
“Everybody’s betrayed.”
ESCAPING A NIGHTMARE
Nobody else knew what Kelly was going through. She didn’t say. She didn’t even want to think about it.
She found her own way to bat away the demons. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped her survive.
“My coping was to get busy,” she says. “I pretty much threw myself into everything.
“... I learned how to manage my mental health and I was very good at sport. I was an athlete who competed for Australia and I was a state soccer player as well. The moment I sat still with my thoughts, that was when things got really difficult.”
Eventually, Kelly ran out of road. She was 19 years old. She had a sister who was 10 years younger than her. And Uncle Bob was still on the scene.
That’s when the nightmares started. Nightmares prompted by the horrible, gut-churning thought that her sister could be next.
TRICKY, CUNNING AND MANIPULATIVE
Kelly could have spoken out earlier. On one occasion, when she was 12, her mum asked her, “Has Uncle Bob ever touched you?”
But she didn’t say. He had made it too difficult.
“Child sexual abuse is a tricky, cunning, manipulative space,” Kelly says.
“They build a really toxic connection with the child, and they exploit that connection. There’s this real bond between the child and the perpetrator that is really difficult for the child, who is completely confused.
“You’re in this space, where there’s this horrific toxic connection and that child just doesn’t understand what role they’re meant to play because they’re a child having to do adult things.
Kelly was 19 when she finally told someone, motivated not by concern for herself, but her sister.
“My little sister, she was 10 years younger than me. I didn’t want anything to happen
to her.
“I felt like I had a duty to protect her.
“... I was having nightmares that he was coming for my sister.”
JAILING A MONSTER
Kelly finally broke her silence, telling a sports coach.
Crucially, she was believed. Her parents were devastated. But they supported her, and she went to the police.
Robert John Griffiths – Uncle Bob – was charged with two counts of indecent treatment of a child under 12, five counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16, one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual assault with a circumstance of aggravation.
In March 2001 he pleaded guilty in court.
It was justice. Of a sort. “He got four years to serve 18 months, but then he got released a bit early,” Kelly says.
“I don’t feel that justice was particularly served. I know it’s a better outcome than most, and I should feel satisfied with that.
“But I don’t feel great about the fact that he only served 18 months out of a four-year sentence.”
SAVING OTHERS
Kelly has found her own justice, in other ways.
Her sister had been spared the same danger.
And now Kelly, a police officer based on the Gold Coast, is working to save others.
“I found my justice in myself through my advocacy work,” she says. “It’s why I wrote my book, Unscathed Beauty.
“... My parents were very supportive when I spoke up. But for many, many families there’s massive veils of secrecy around the reporting, there’s significant shame, and many family members perpetuate the silence by sweeping it aside and being nonsupportive.
“Statistics show that 98 per cent of children who report are found to be telling the truth. It takes so much courage for them to come forward. And then to be told, ‘I don’t believe that person could possibly do something like that’, it’s devastating.”
Since 2017 Kelly has been an ambassador for Bravehearts, whose campaigns aim to break the cycle of child sexual abuse.
Kelly, and Bravehearts, know that the vast majority of perpetrators are known to the victims and their families.
Kelly wants children to know that they have autonomy around their bodies. That there are some behaviours that are simply not acceptable from anyone.
Things parents can help teach them.
“We need to be having hard conversations with kids from an early age,” she says
“... And they need to be believed, they need to know they’re safe and that they’re loved regardless of anything they say.”
GRIEF, ANGER – AND KNOWING WHO TO BLAME
Kelly wishes Bravehearts was around when she was a child.
She wants to make sure their message reaches as many children as possible now.
“They (Bravehearts) are one of the leading organisations in the world for what they do in protecting and empowering kids to speak up,” she says. “That was what was missing for me. That education, a language around what was happening. To be able to powerfully speak up and say what my boundaries are and say this is my body, you can’t touch me.”
Kelly has seen her abuser jailed. She has found her voice.
But she knows not everyone is so lucky.
“Many survivors grieve this person who could have been, should have been, might have been,” she says. “Except for this experience, this horrible thing that’s happened I wonder who I could have been, I wonder what kind of relationships I would have had.
“There’s a lot of grief and anger and loss that survivors carry and it’s not their fault.
“A lot of people will continue to carry that blame their whole life. Without placing it squarely at the feet of the perpetrators where it belongs.”