A Mother's Story (17 page)

So it never occurred to me to go to a women's shelter. I had a house, it was mine, Greg didn't live there nor have any right now to come anywhere near it. I still felt that if I kept firm boundaries and made sure he kept to the terms of the IVO without allowing for any breaches, as I had done in the past, the law would catch up with Greg.

Oddly enough, I also felt really sorry for Greg. I felt strangely responsible for his feelings, aware of how devastated he would feel to not be able to see Luke anymore. At the end of the day he was homeless, he had no prospects, and he was about to be forcibly estranged from the one person in the world who made sense of his mess of a life. He was to be pitied.

Or maybe I was, for being too generous and forgiving. Greg knew that I was generous by nature and had taken advantage of that generosity for over a decade. Why would he stop now?

The heat from the day is still hanging in the air. There's a heaviness – it's one of those baking Victorian summer afternoons. I call out to Luke to get his things. We're running late, as usual, for cricket training.

‘Do I have to go?' Luke asks me plaintively, from the couch where he is engrossed in the television.

‘Yes, you have to go,' I reply wearily, trying to make it sound like I mean it. ‘You're part of a team, you've made a commitment, you have to follow through on it.'

It feels like the responsible thing to say, alluring as the prospect is of not having to run him up the road and drop him off, then turn around and come home to snatch a precious forty-five minutes of extra work time, before rushing back up to the oval to collect him.

‘But I don't feel like going,' Luke replies.

‘Well, life is full of doing things we don't feel like doing,' I say, reaching for one of those platitudes that parents everywhere perfect without knowing how or why. ‘Come on, grab your things.'

It's getting to the end of the cricket season. There's only one more match left to play. Following through on a commitment and being a
part of a team: those are the lessons we will learn today. Even if I want nothing more than to close the door, curl up on the lounge and let the world pass us by.

As we pull out of the driveway and make our way down the street towards the Tyabb Cricket Club, I notice Luke is distracted. He's quieter than he usually is. There's something playing on his mind.

‘Are you okay?' I ask.

‘I'm fine,' Luke replies, looking distractedly out the car window.

‘Are you a bit nervous about seeing your dad again?' I venture.

There is silence. Then Luke replies, ‘Oh, a little bit.'

He's doing his best to sound nonchalant about it. I can't help but feel he's putting on a brave face, and most likely for my benefit – I feel a pang. My little boy. When did he become my protector?

‘Do you want me to hang around?' I ask. ‘Do you want me to stay?' I knew Luke wasn't frightened of his dad – otherwise I would never have left him with Greg. He might have feared his dad's anger but he didn't fear for his safety.

‘No, Mum,' Luke replies. ‘I'll be right.'

I know that there's been a shift in the way he looks at his dad. It was probably happening before we went to England, but it is more pronounced now we are back. Luke doesn't want to spend time with his dad anymore. He's embarrassed by him – embarrassed that he lives in his car. Luke is getting older, becoming his own young man – he is pulling away. Whether it's because he is growing up and becoming more mature or because Greg is sliding further into madness, I can't say. Most likely it's a combination of the two. Either way, Luke appears to have woken up to his dad. And the worst part is, Greg cannot have failed to notice it.

I pull into the driveway at the Tyabb Cricket Club, and we bump along the dirt access road. Past the tennis courts where kids are being coached, past the paddocks that surround the sporting grounds. The grass brown and brittle under the summer sun.

As I park the car between the clubhouse and the oval, I see Greg in the distance. He's sitting on the fence around the perimeter of the oval, a good 200 metres away, slightly separate from the other parents. It's daylight. There are kids and parents everywhere. I tell myself that, as long as there are people around, as long as Greg is not alone with Luke, things will be fine. As he clambers from the car, lugging his cricket gear, I tell Luke I will be back before training has finished.

Upon spying Luke getting out of the car, Greg stands up – I can just make out a big smile and a wave. Luke meets his dad with a smile and a hug before making a beeline for his teammates, gathering now just outside the cricket nets.

I drive home to finish off some emails and prepare a few things for dinner. I bustle about the house, but the whole time I watch the clock to make sure I am back at the oval in plenty of time before training finishes. I don't want Luke to be left there alone with Greg.

They say that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will hop out straight away. But if you place a frog in a pot of tepid water and gradually increase the heat, it will not move – but rather slowly boil to death.

For the past ten years, Greg had been gradually turning up the heat, and like a frog in a pot, I couldn't tell anymore how hot the water had become.

A week after I had been to court and Magistrate Goldsborough had altered the IVO to prevent Greg from having any contact with Luke, I drove Luke to his football match at Dromana to see Greg waiting there. I was alarmed, unable to understand why he hadn't been served with the new IVO – and, more importantly, why he hadn't been arrested.

Noting my distress, a friend took me aside and told me to call the police. So I dialled the number for Hastings police station and a young constable answered the phone. ‘Look, I have just been in court, there's a warrant for the arrest for Greg Anderson and he is here now,' I said.

The constable asked me to hold while he checked the LEAP system. Before long he came back on the line. ‘No, I'm sorry, ma'am, there's no warrant. I don't know what you are talking about.'

‘But I have just been in court,' I retorted.

‘There's no record in our system,' he replied. He looked further in the LEAP database. ‘Oh hang on,' he said, after a while. ‘Are you talking about the incident in January?'

‘I don't know about that incident,' I answered, suddenly alarmed. ‘I don't know what you are talking about.'

‘Oh,' the constable said. ‘Then I'm not at liberty to discuss it, ma'am.'

I was immediately alert. What incident in January? What more could Greg have done, and to whom? Suddenly it occurred to me that I had no idea what Greg was getting up to in the times he was not haranguing me. What more could the police possibly have to hang on him? And why hadn't it been done?

Greg stayed at the football match, careful to keep his distance on the other side of the oval. He watched Luke play, then at half-time, swept in to where the team were having their drinks, chatted with Luke and left. Whether he was aware of the new IVO, I didn't know. Until the papers were physically served on him, they were not legally binding. And how do you serve papers on a transient who lives out of his car? Greg knew that – and was quite happy to continue to exist in ignorance of the court orders.

When I got home that afternoon I again phoned Hastings Police Station and this time spoke to Constable Topham. ‘I think your colleague maybe spoke out of school this morning,' I said. ‘I think he may have made a mistake, but he alerted me to the fact there is some other investigation that involves Greg. What can you tell me about it?'

‘Leave it with me, Rosie,' Constable Topham replied. ‘I can't tell you but, if it were me, I'd want to know. Let me check with my superior.' A minute later he was back on the line explaining that for ‘privacy reasons' he was not allowed to elaborate.

I assumed it was yet another incidence of violence, a petty altercation between Greg and someone else. Then I said to Constable Topham, ‘I was in court the other day when warrants were issued for Greg's arrest. Why didn't your colleague know about these when I phoned this afternoon?'

Constable Topham went on to explain how there was a black hole in the police IT system meaning it sometimes took up to three weeks for a warrant issued in court to be entered into the LEAP database. As I understood it, the warrant would go to the issuing police officer (in this case, Constable Anderson) who would then seek to find the perpetrator and arrest them. If the arrest could not be made, the warrant papers were sent (sometimes even faxed) to a central office where someone had to manually enter the data into the LEAP system, whereupon it was accessible for every police officer in the force. It was not unusual for the whole process to take up to a month. If the issuing officer was on holidays, the whole thing was held up until they returned. If the perpetrator was elusive, the whole thing was held up again.

Meanwhile, the victim is left in no-man's-land, unprotected by the orders the court has made and unprotected by the police. I began, once again, to feel incredibly vulnerable. When you go to court, you have the support of the police officers on the day, and you feel emboldened. There are people in your corner. But once the matter has been heard, they dissipate. And with this dissolving of my ‘team', the continuity of my story was shattered. My protectors were called to tend to myriad other victims and matters. I felt like I had been cast aside.

And then there was the horrible realisation that this course of action I had chosen might only serve to make things worse. I had gone to court and pressed my case because I felt that with the courts and police on my side, I could safely stand up to Greg, knowing that someone had my back. But now I was beginning to realise that I had poked an angry bear and turned to look at the army behind me, only to discover I was on my own.

I once again steeled myself: for the sake of Luke and for the sake of self-preservation. As macabre as it was, I came to accept that because Greg was a transient, Luke and I were the only constants in his life. We were the only honey trap to which he was vulnerable. If he was going to be arrested, we would necessarily be implicated.

On 7 May 2013, I received an email out of the blue from DSC Andrew Cocking, introducing himself and asking if I might know how to locate Greg. He didn't mention for which matter specifically he was pursuing Greg, saying only it was serious but he couldn't be more specific than that. I phoned him back and started sharing with him how he might locate Greg – places in St Kilda I knew he had frequented in the past: the Hare Krishna temple, the Mormon Church.

In the course of our conversation, DSC Cocking said he was someone I could trust. He made it clear that he was on my side, that he worked in the city and could be relied on. It also seemed to me that he was suggesting that the best way to draw Greg out was to use Luke as bait.

I hung up the phone feeling faintly reassured. The police in the big smoke were now involved and there would be an upping of the ante in terms of finding Greg and arresting him.

Constable Topham also phoned me. Upon establishing that I was expecting Greg to show up at Luke's footy training the following afternoon, instructed me to call triple zero the minute
I spotted him. I did not know, but multiple warrants were out for his arrest – including for threats to kill and child porn charges.

The following morning I received an email from DSC Cocking. ‘I have informed all the police with an interest in your husband to get their paperwork ready in anticipation,' he wrote.

To which I fired back, ‘
Thanks Andrew, but he is NOT my husband.
' I added a smiley face emoticon.

A minute later, DSC Cocking replied, ‘Appreciate that. That's what happens when you start typing too early in the morning.'

Around lunchtime, I sent another email to DSC Cocking. ‘I would just LOVE to know what else he's done. Somehow it gives me comfort that it's not just myself that he has directed his anger toward.'

I didn't receive a reply.

That afternoon, feeling anxious and frightened, I bundled Luke into the car and headed to Tyabb oval for footy practice. I didn't let Luke know what I hoped would take place, nor had I spoken to any of the other parents. The only thing I wanted more fervently than to see Greg finally arrested was for it to be done discreetly – without other parents being implicated, if possible, and certainly without Luke having to bear witness to it. I didn't want him to see it, and I didn't want him to suffer the humiliation of his friends seeing it.

Many knew of the problems I had been having with Greg. Some of them knew the full extent of it, others knew enough to know that ours was a strained relationship and the police were involved.

The AFL oval is set back off the main road, 300 metres down a gravel drive, past a set of tennis courts. As we pulled into the car park next to the oval, sure enough, there was Greg: standing at the fence around the oval's perimeter, a little apart from the other
parents, taking in the boys as they practised. I made a mental note of his outfit to pass on to police then had a quiet word with the manager of Luke's team, asking her to keep an eye on Luke while I called the police and retreated to the main road to wait for them to arrive.

As instructed, I called triple zero from the driveway entrance, explained who I was and why I was phoning, and was told the matter would be taken in hand. I stood on the roadside, expecting the police would be along at any moment. I watched the road anxiously, waiting for the sight of a police vehicle, nervously glancing back over my shoulder at regular intervals, fearing Greg would catch me in the act.

Thirty minutes later, I was still standing at the driveway, almost mad with panic. I rang triple zero a second time and explained all over again who I was and why I was phoning. My voice by now was shrill, my patience all but drained. Football training would soon be over, and Greg would disappear back into the ether. The whole enterprise would have been a stressful waste of time. All day and most of the previous night I had worked myself into a state anticipating this moment – and now it was not even happening.

‘I just need to know if anyone is coming,' I pleaded with the triple-zero telephone operator on the end of the line. ‘He is going to leave at any moment.'

The voice at the end of the phone line assured me everything was in hand.

After forty-five minutes, I was distraught. I rang Hastings Police Station directly and spoke to a police officer. He told me if I wanted him to help me, I needed to calm down.

‘I have been stood here waiting for forty-five minutes,' I screamed down the line. ‘My violent ex-partner who has threatened to kill me on several occasions is just metres away, he's
threatened my son with a knife and you are telling me to calm down?'

‘You just need to calm down, Rosie,' came the reply. ‘We've had police there all night.'

‘You what?' I couldn't believe what I was hearing. ‘What do you mean you've had police here all night? I haven't seen a single police car.'

‘They're undercover police,' the constable explained. ‘They're in an unmarked car.'

I was incredulous. ‘You mean to tell me there have been police here all this time, but they haven't made an attempt to arrest Greg?'

‘Rosie, there's a problem,' the constable said. ‘We can't do anything tonight because the paperwork hasn't arrived. We haven't received the warrants to arrest him.'

I thought I must have been hearing things. Nothing made sense. I was at once confused, scared and very, very angry.

‘But I arranged all this with Detective Cocking this morning. He emailed me to tell me everything was in place for an arrest. I don't understand. Why would he say that? Why would he put me through all of this? Why are the police even here if they can't arrest Greg? I don't understand.' I was becoming hysterical. ‘Why the fuck are they here!?'

There was a moment's silence, then the officer replied, ‘To make sure you are okay.'

I hung up the phone, tears streaming down my face, and in a blind panic, I jumped into the car and sped down the dirt track back to the oval car park. Parents turned from watching the footy as I skidded to a halt on the gravel.

I leaped out of the car, crying uncontrollably, screaming for the police to reveal themselves. ‘Where are you?' I yelled between sobs. ‘Where are you?'

Overwhelmed, I collapsed on the grass, sobbing into the ground. I felt defeated, exhausted, beaten down. What did I have to do to get this man arrested? What was it going to take to get Greg out of my life? Why, when I had placed my faith in the police to follow through on a promise, had they let me down in the most spectacularly cruel fashion? My wails echoed out across the empty paddocks.

I must have lain there crying for a good three minutes before a car pulled up alongside me. A window was wound down and a man identified himself as a police officer. As I pulled myself up off the ground, still racking with sobs, the undercover policeman explained they had come with the intention of arresting Greg, but because the paperwork had not been received, they were powerless to do anything.

As they spoke, I watched helplessly – and with a rising sense of panic – as Greg walked calmly down the driveway before being swallowed up by the darkness.

The drive home with Luke that night was a blur. I was emotionally drained. I felt so embarrassed that I had made such a spectacle of myself in front of fellow parents. I was supposed to attend a football social club event that Saturday night, but my friend advised I shouldn't go. People had apparently been so appalled by my behaviour, it was better if I kept a low profile for a while. From that point on, I was never sure how welcome I was at the club, and so I distanced myself from them all, believing it was probably best if I simply withdrew.

I don't know how much Luke saw or heard. He knew afterwards that I was really upset with his dad, but I certainly didn't want him thinking that I was conspiring with police to get his dad arrested.

I rang the police station the following day, disturbed about the night before and keen to get some kind of explanation. It was only at the insistence of DSC Cocking, after all, that I had agreed to take part (and allow Luke to take part) in their scheme to finally arrest Greg. I wanted some explanation as to why it hadn't happened. I got the same policeman who had answered my call the night before. He wasn't able to explain what had gone wrong. He did add though – rather unhelpfully – that my getting upset ‘didn't help matters'.

‘Can I please speak to the person in charge?' I asked.

He wouldn't put me through to anyone. Tired of being stonewalled, I eventually hung up the phone.