I spent days in bed without even getting up or having a shower. During my waking hours, I was writing a book which, at the time, I thought was brilliant—but looking back on it now, it was utter madness. The book started as a letter to the judge, but it kept going and eventually became quite a lengthy body of work.
Around this time, my housemate had decided to move in with her boyfriend. She asked if I wanted to take over the lease of the apartment or move out. That’s when I made the decision to move to our nation’s capital.
She moved all of her things out, and while I should have been packing and arranging for my stuff to be taken away, I just lay in bed. I stared at my laptop screen, thinking of things to write that I found funny. I laughed out loud at the strangest things. It was becoming a surreal experience.
I asked my parents if they would meet me in Canberra for my 30th birthday so I could look around for a place to live, and they agreed. But when my birthday came, I was still in bed. I remember they kept calling and calling, and I just couldn’t tear myself away from the book. Eventually, I answered, and my mother—clearly unimpressed—asked me, in a not-too-pleased tone, where the fuck I was.
I told her I was still in Sydney, that I’d been held up, and I’d come the next day. But the next day turned into the next day again. When I finally gathered the strength to get up and get dressed, I made my way down to Canberra. My hair was unkempt, and I was wearing two different shoes. My parents were very concerned, but they showed patience and forgave me for leaving them waiting for a few days.
I found somewhere to live while I was there. The Hotel Kurrajong—an elegant five-star hotel—had an upstairs area with budget rooms for $400 a week. They were very basic, but I loved them, so I booked in for a month. I said goodbye to my parents as they urged me to come home. Instead, I drove back to Sydney and climbed back into my warm bed. I opened my laptop and began writing again.
The deadline to move out was approaching. All I had to do was clear out my things and return to the Hotel Kurrajong in Canberra. My housemate had arranged for cleaners to do the final clean, but I still hadn’t organised what to do with my bed, the couch she left behind, and everything else in the apartment. I spoke to the cleaners, and they agreed to take everything. We arranged for me to give them the key the day before I left.
But it didn’t go that way.
In the most irresponsible move I’ve ever made, I didn’t get the key to the cleaners. I left the apartment partially furnished on the very day the new tenants were due to move in. I had taken my clothes and a few belongings and loaded them into my car. Then I drove to a motel and, as if in a trance, ignored the countless calls and messages from my former housemate and the real estate agent. I didn’t even check the messages—I knew they wouldn’t be kind.
I was completely oblivious to the mess I had just created. All I wanted to do was write my book. Nothing else mattered.
I can’t remember even getting to Canberra, but I made it there safely, thank goodness. I unpacked my things and settled into my little room with its single bed. It was the middle of winter, and the Hotel Kurrajong is such a cosy place. There was a toasty fire in the lobby, with couches you could sit around to warm yourself.
I found myself sleeping through the day and staying up all night. Sometimes I’d sit by the fire or chat with the receptionist. Because I was a smoker, I’d often talk to people as they came back from their night out. I met so many people that way. We mostly talked about the Bali Nine.
As I mentioned earlier, the book I was writing had started as a letter to the judge in Sydney. But it became so long, I decided I’d turn it into a novel.
I’ll summarise the storyline and share some exerts from the book. As you will see, it is absolutely insane and I was in a very foreign and unfamiliar frame of mind when I wrote it.
It starts with a family that walked through the customs area of the Adelaide Airport with wood to declare. A senior customs officer recognised the father of the family and let him walk through the security checkpoint without having to open his bags for inspection. The family then goes on to live a charmed life funded by the proceeds of the heroin empire they established with the proceeds of the drugs that were concealed within the suitcase.
This scenario unfolds within a beautiful garden within an Eastern suburbs home, and the wife of the father tends to his every need, getting him a drink whenever he asks for one — usually a Bloody Mary — and she removes thorns from all the roses in the garden upon his request.
This then draws a comparison between that scenario and the chain of events after it, to the experience of Andrew Chan — the ringleader of the Bali Nine.I referred to Andrew Chan as my pen pal in this book — because at this time I used to send him smokes and soap and stuff, and we wrote to each other a few times, although it wasn’t a solid traditional pen-pal type scenario.
Andrew Chan is brutally executed, and the book then goes on to outline how two princes watched while that happened — the Prince of Peace and the Prince of Darkness. The following is a brief description of his execution.
My pen pal was sleeping in his home one night, and as a disease infested rat attempted to crawl into his ear, this filthy piece of vermin woke him up to the sound of voices in the hallway getting louder and louder, speaking a language he didn’t even know or understand. But he knew what they were saying. They were saying we are coming to resurrect the final moments of life from a body that a rat arose from slumber.
He was paralysed with sheer terror and his body involuntarily locked itself to the cold concrete floor and he got a final whiff of the odour of his own body sewerage, the same odour he had smelt for years. But the smell of urine and faeces was perfumed bliss compared to the stench of death his entire body reeked of.
The men who spoke the foreign language appeared in his doorway holding batons and shackles. They looked at each other and smirked. The biggest guard swiftly rose his baton into the air and lunged forward at Andrew as he curled into a ball of sheer terror… they brutally shackled him and watched as he bled.
They rose a black hood, he managed to dodge it and he got down on his knees to beg for a taste of water in what would almost certainly be his last moments of sight.
He looked up from the ground cuffed and at the mercy of three men with guns and a license to kill. He cupped his hands together and tried to release a few simple words from of his mouth.
He was trying to tell to the men whose language he didn’t even understand, that he was thirsty.
But he didn’t need to tell them, they understood what he was trying to say.
I Thirst.
They slipped a black hood over his head, and removed the life from his eyes without a drop of water. They dragged him out of the room, and by the time he slipped back into consciousness he was in a forest. He couldn’t see it but he knew - he was about to be slaughtered. He could smell the life around him in the deep dark forest that was to play host to his death.
It was a clear still night with a full moon, and stars winking in a blanket of darkness. The magnitude of trees and greenery around this very moment – did not flinch in fear they too would suffer the same fate. He was consumed with sheer terror. His body did not shake – it convulsed because he knew what was to follow would be gruesome.
He was being dragged, like a dead rat – across what felt like prickles on a Scarlett rose - under his body. All he could hear was the voices of a language he couldn’t understand assaulting his ears like a loud trumpet. The voices were laughing and diluting his very existence with their words.
His mouth was so dry, he couldn’t whisper let alone speak. He just stared into darkness and listened to the last moments of his life. His life being scripted away by foreign people in a foreign land. In a foreign forest in the dead of the night.
My pen pal, felt his arms being tied to a piece of wood. They were being violently restrained with rope that burned his wrists. They tied the rope so tight that he could feel himself suspended on a piece of wood. So cheap to erect, yet worth more than his very own life. The rope was so tight, he thought his hands were about to burst from the blood that they held alone. He didn’t know what his hands looked like because he couldn’t see or even move his head to look the other way – but he could feel it.
He heard the men laughing at him, as they loaded their rifles. Then a soul brutalised to the very core, lost the only thing he hoped to keep that night. He couldn’t hold it any longer. He could feel it crawling down his leg burning him and completely exposing himself to the people in front of him. His body lost complete control. He wet his pants.
He then heard all the men laughing at him even harder than they were before. He dry reached which pushed him forward and rocked the makeshift crucifix he was tied to before a bunch of men with guns.
His body as if possessed by the most cruel and merciless god convulsed in the middle of a foreign forest as his heart started to pump the very blood that would soon become a fountain of immortality into his ears. It beat like a drum deafening him. But it didn’t drown out the sound of the men standing in front of him. Laughing. It wouldn’t stop, it just kept getting louder and louder. They had removed his eye sight, and now they were deafening him. With laughter.
He wanted to cry but he was so dehydrated. He had just wet his pants and he couldn’t even summon a drop of spit from his very own mouth to quench his thirst let alone deliver a tear. Completely clothed, yet completely stripped bare.
He could barely breathe through the horror or the hood. But in that very moment of time, in the world, in the universe, my pen pal’s priority was to savor every last breath his savior would allow him to have. It was so hard when he couldn’t control his body.
All the men who spoke a foreign language in front of him, had guns. And they were laughing at him. My pen pal’s heart was beating so fast, he thought it would explode. Father Time was prolonging his fate.
Then he heard the men count. He didn’t need to understand this language. The counting needed no clarification or explanation. Nothing needed to be said. Because he understood.
In dark cavities of his mind, which at that very moment became crystal clear, he got down on his knees in front of Jesus. Although he couldn’t see, he forced his eyes shut and bit his lips so hard they started to bleed. He just wanted it to be over.
Claps of what sounded like thunder broke the eery silence in the woods. The men in front of him issued bullets towards the very heart and soul of my pen pal.
The bullets pierced his body and gave him what he thought would be some reprieve from a world governed by a most the most cruel and merciless god. But the bullets didn’t kill him.
He was still alive, in excruciating pain. Andrew remained erected completely powerless over his very own body, he convulsed in the air his body making noises without his permission. Blood dripped from his mouth and every other part of his body that had the decency to allow him to release it.
He was bleeding to death on a crucifix worth more than his own life and men with guns, watched. The weight of his body was starting to push the crucifix forward, it started to rock and with an almighty force of gravity and a loud thump he landed at the feet of the men with guns.
Then finally, when the most cruel and merciless god became vulnerable to the idea of granting reprieve on a man choking to death on this very own blood – he made it stop and he lay dead and powerless at the feet of the men who killed him. They started to cackle like a pack of hyenas and he was completely powerless.
But it wasn’t the moment bullets pierced into his body and surrendered his life to the mercy of men with guns that he became powerless. It was the moment that perfect strangers were invited to deliver and watch the most intimate moment of his very own life.
His death.
And the thing is they get to watch him die twice. Because he already lost anything that means anything to anybody.
When he wet his pants.
After Andrew Chan dies, he goes to hell and this is a positive thing, because he gets to spend eternity with The Prince of Darkness, Saint Lucifer.
Saint Lucifer holds such a heavy burden that it weighs him down so much he can only survive in hell. This is because he had shared a burden with every single person who ever lived.
Which is why LIVED, appears as DEVIL in the mirror. It is also the reason why sometimes when people look in the mirror they see EVIL, and stresses a need to be more forgiving because that is what it means to LIVE.
The concept of mirrors appear a lot in my descriptions of hell, including one bit where I described God as a cunning sexually frustrated woman. The devil being opposite to God has had skills with women in particular with his tongue, which is why he sometimes appeared in the mirror as cunninglus.
Because in this one bit, God was a woman, that made Jesus respectfully a son of a bitch because God in the mirror is Dog.
Saint Lucifer makes hell a warm and welcoming place and has a good sense of humour which he uses to try and distract the tenants from the real horror in hell, which is to suffocate in your own silence for eternal life.
He recounts how he observed the Great Flood and watched Noah building an ark. He thinks about how he tried to offer Noah some of the wood that was fuelling the flames in hell so that he could build a bigger ship – however Noah didn’t want it.
During the 40 days and 40 nights that it rains, Saint Lucifer looks up above the clouds and sees a cruel and merciless God, spitting every single one of the pellets of rain, in the face of his own children, as the entire population of the world suffocates and drowns.
He then makes more room in hell as it becomes overcrowded with the influx of new tenants.
It then introduces Jesus as a character into the book. Jesus is a mentally ill man who is introduced to the head of a political organisation, St Peter. St Peter is looking to overthrow the Romans occupying Palestine at the time but he is not good with people, so he takes advantage of Jesus’ charisma and encourages him to become the face of his organisaiton.
My book draws a comparison between the relationship of Jesus and Saint Peter to the relationship of Fidel Castro and Dr Che Guevara and in the same vain as Dr Che Guevara, in the end, as Jesus’s power grows, he becomes a megalomaniac and loses sight of the compassion and humanity he once had.
During Jesus’s crucifixion at Calvary, Saint Lucifer watches the Virgin Mary kneeling at the bottom of the cross, covered in her son’s blood. She looks up and sees the same Dove from Noah’s Ark remove a berry from the crown of Rose thorns, which seems to be protruding it deeper into her son’s head. And as the Dove is doing that, its chest becomes stained with Jesus’ blood and magically morphs into a Robin Redbreast.
After the Virgin Mary saw that, she tried to point it out to show everyone else at the bottom of the cross, but by the time they look up the bird was gone and no one would believe her.
There was a lot of reference to blood which I think I unconsciously did, so much so that when concepts like vanity and being vain are in it, I have spelt the word vain VEIN. That probably sounds a little bit disturbing to you, however what I think I meant by that is how everything in the world that is considered bad comes back to the colour red. Code red, in the red, I see red, paint the town red, red blooded, and then if you think about it further Scarlett letter, Scarlett Woman, and Scarlett Fever.
It is also the common experience that everyone shares, the colour of my blood.
There was the Pied Piper and lots of rats, Rupert Murdoch and Wendy, eternally damned tortured souls as well as a number of other dark undertones, some which I don’t even understand how I even thought of that. I fed off my lack of sleep and I was completely wired. I had this unstoppable burst of creative energy that I put into obsessively writing this book. I named it after my favourite song, Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd to represent how powerless I felt at the time.
The following is how the book ends.
It wasn’t long before Saint Lucifer set his demonic dazzlers on my pen pal. Saint Lucifer had seen my pen pal before but he never told him he saw, he just went about his business.
My pen pal was now comfortable sitting next to Saint Lucifer in the best place he could ever be, sitting next to a warm, crackling fire. Saint Lucifer’s business was to make my pen pal feel protected and safe, so he warmed him up by the fire and made him feel at home. They toasted marshmallows, and Saint Lucifer listened to him and made him feel heard.
Andrew turned to Saint Lucifer and asked if he could use the facilities. Saint Lucifer escorted my pen pal to the toilets and waited out the front so my pen pal knew that no one would ever hurt him again, and he was safe with Saint Lucifer.
As Saint Lucifer waited, he watched his tenants walk past him, sweating, blistering and burning. As Saint Lucifer was observing the people who were suffocating in silence for all time, a young lady ran right past him and tried to barge into the facilities.
Saint Lucifer knew that she should be going to the facilities on the other side of his satanic pit hole of nothingness. But she liked to go to the male facilities because she liked to be original and so he always allowed her to do so.
Saint Lucifer instantly blocked the facilities to protect my pen pal from the injustice of having to do his business in front of anyone ever again. He looked at the young lady and said:
“Patty dear, you can’t just push in like that, you know you must wait.”
And in the midst of the facilities flushing, my pen pal was at the right hand of Saint Lucifer once again. Saint Lucifer had delivered the most intimate moment of my pen pals immortality. By taking the time to wait for him and make him feel protected.
Saint Lucifer looked at Patty, and opened the door for her so she could go about her business. As he did that, Patty turned to the right. She saw a man anxiously watching Citizen Kane choking back tears like he always does. She turned to the left and she saw a black man with an afro and some shifty looking folk who looked like they were up to no good. They kept taking notes looking at the man watching Citizen Kane, and they kept looking at Patty every time she flinched.
Saint Lucifer knew Patty had she had something she would like to say. All she needed was for someone to listen to her and hear it, so he said:
“Come on Patty, get on with it”
And he motioned for her to go to the facilities. Patty turned to Saint Lucifer, she looked him dead in the eye, and she said:
“My name is Tania”.
St Lucifer didn’t bat an eyelid. He knew there was nothing further Patty needed to say. She was now free to do her business in peace.
When I read these pieces of writing now, it makes me very sad. The ideas are so warped and unhinged—it’s a clear reflection of the frame of mind I was in at the time. I was deeply wounded.
By this stage, I had two separate files: one was my book, and the other was a letter to the judge, which had been inspired by the book itself. I hadn’t slept in weeks. I was living in this strange, heightened world where the Bali Nine and Saint Lucifer consumed my thoughts.
And then I did something that changed the course of my life.
I kept writing, editing, and eventually sent the letter to the judge. I still have it saved somewhere on my computer, but I cannot—and will not—look at it.
I remember it talked about the strange connection we supposedly shared—that we were once sperm in a race for our own lives. It claimed he had the power to save the Bali Nine on death row. It said a lot about Jesus. It also mentioned that I’d nearly been married three times. I can’t recall most of the wording, but I distinctly remember saying something about attempting adultery with him. And then this: “I know women who would have walked out of the Downing Centre with baby deer and seven dwarfs following them out of the building—for doing what I did.”
It was inappropriate. Completely insane. Cringeworthy. Quite simply, it was the worst thing I had ever done.
I don’t know what came over me.
Well, actually—I do. I was living in another world. I’d drive around Canberra and everything I saw seemed phallic—especially the buildings and the fountains.
After finishing the letter, I thought it was so good that I physically drove to the airport, put it in a DHL overnight envelope, and sent it. I wanted it to be in his hands as quickly as possible.
That night, I finally got a good sleep. The next morning, oddly enough, one of my conservative friends from the Young Liberals messaged me. He said he was in Canberra and asked if I wanted to go out for a coffee.
It was serendipitous—my friend from the Liberal Party was at their headquarters, which happened to be right behind the Hotel Kurrajong. We arranged to meet for coffee nearby. There was something about seeing him that gave me a bit of a reality check. We talked about real things and real people, and suddenly the strange bubble I’d been living in burst. And it burst with a bang.
After we finished coffee, I ran back to my room at the hotel and started packing. I had a lot of things, and by the time I was done, it was well into the night. I checked out, pointed my car in the direction of Adelaide, and drove.
I would never do that drive now—I don’t drive on country roads anymore—but back then, I did it without a second thought. I had The Seekers' The Carnival is Over playing on repeat. I smoked cigarettes as I drove the lonely stretch of road, and I cried a lot.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the judge’s associate opening that letter. They were so close; I was certain he would have passed it on. I imagined them both laughing at me. And then another fear crept in: what if the judge thought I was unhinged? What if he believed I might try to fabricate something about us? I know women who have threatened to do that sort of thing—to bring someone down—and I was terrified he’d think I was one of them.
But most of all, I was afraid that my dad would find out.
The next day, I stopped in some small town and knew I had to sleep. But before I did, I found the local post office. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote another letter to the judge. It said:
“I am so sorry for my previous letter. I was just so upset about being let go from the Downing Centre. I have worked with barristers who became judges before and that is why I took such a casual tone with you. I promise never to write to you again.”
I sent it off quickly and felt a little better. But all the way home, I have to admit—I thought about crashing the car more than once. I was that far down in the dumps.
The idea that my dad would find out about how I behaved at the courts—and about the very unusual letter I sent to the judge—haunted me. When I got home, I stayed with my parents purely because I was terrified the judge himself would call my dad. And my dad would have been so ashamed of me. Not because I acted like a tramp, but because I had failed to fully win over the judge’s affections.
This was also when I started to become very creative.
I first wrote to all the judges’ associates in Australia—excluding Sydney—and asked whether the judge gets their mail personally. After I sent the letters, I realised it probably looked like I was seeking employment. I got a few replies, mostly from registrars asking if there was something they could help with. One registrar in Adelaide wrote back to tell me I was “not to write to all judges as [I] did.”
I sort of scrunched up my nose and, in the back of my mind, thought to myself: Don’t I pay the judges’ salaries? Anyway, I suppose it was a waste of their time.
I then began writing to chief justices around the world, asking for a copy of the oath used in their courtroom—or the oath or affirmation they swore when they were appointed. I didn’t write to all of them, like I did this time around, but I got a decent number of responses. I wrote to the entire District Court judiciary of New Zealand. I wrote to barristers’ chambers, prisons, and every institution in Australia that administers an oath.
I wrote to all these people for one reason: I needed something to help me let go of this very upsetting experience.
My plan was to collect all the letters, scan them to keep a copy, and then physically burn the originals in a glass furnace—turning the paper into glass. Then I wanted to blow a vessel or some kind of sculpture from that glass. It would represent the madness and confusion I felt around judges and the law.
I kept writing my letters, but I slowly snapped out of the little world I’d been living in, and I started working again. I got a job at Highgate Park, which was the old Julia Farr Centre. It was rich with history, and I was working in the clinic alongside a couple of nurses and admin staff.
One day, this woman walked towards the reception desk, and I went weak at the knees. She looked like the female version of the man who exposed himself to me—and the judge. She had that distinct look about her. Once again, I would have put money on her being a relative of one or both of them. And just like that, I felt an instantaneous attraction to her.
I’m not a lesbian. I’ve never been attracted to a woman before. But I felt this overwhelming sense of desire for her, and I wasn’t shy about making it known. I had no idea who she was, but I got up from my seat, walked over, held out my hand, and introduced myself. She was a little taken aback, but we got talking. It turned out she was a senior nursing manager. We got along really well, and I’m sure she must have thought the amorous way I was carrying on was a bit odd—but she didn’t turn me away.
One day, I noticed she was wearing a glass necklace. I told her it was beautiful, and she said she’d made it herself. I mentioned that I had some experience with glass, and she said she was actually looking for a new supplier. So I went home and spent hours online researching glass suppliers for her. The next day, I came to work and presented her with a full list.
Meanwhile, I kept having real-life sexual fantasies about her. There were so many consulting rooms at the clinic—I imagined slipping into one of them with her. I don’t know what I’m doing with a man, so it would be even worse with a woman, but I think if you have a sense of humour about these things, it’s okay.
Then one day, I told her about my project collecting oaths from supreme courts around the world. She asked if I needed an oath from the Supreme Court of South Australia. I said I’d love one. And then she said, “I can get you one—my father used to be a Supreme Court Justice.”
That actually happened to a person. That actually happened to me!!!
There is some judge gene out there, and I seem to have a vulnerability to it.
We later found out that her dad knew my dad. Apparently, they weren’t exactly friends, and our friendship kind of fizzled out after that. But she—she was so much like the exposer and the judge, it was almost the strangest thing that has ever happened to me.
While my commentary on this whole judge saga comes to an end with this post, in real life it led me down a path that pretty much ruined my life for a long time. I’m really only just now coming back up for air.
When I think back, in my eyes he really was an arrogant bastard. I remember once telling his associate that the judge reminded me of my father, and the associate told the judge and he was genuinely offended. He said that the judge said he couldn’t believe I’d think of him like a father figure. Of course I didn’t—not in that way. But they both shared a similar kind of arrogance.
The judge displayed it again one day when we were in the lift together. I told him I’d identified an attractive barrister in his courtroom. He asked me who it was, and I said, “You should know—you’re the wise judge.” Then I added, “He’s the most attractive barrister I’ve ever seen.” The judge bellowed as he replied, “That’s because you never saw me when I was at the bar.”
Years later, I was sitting in a psychologist’s office telling her about what had happened with the judge and the letter. It was a cold winter’s day, and I remember it was raining. I sat there watching the rain drops slide down the window as she asked, “Why does this matter so much to you? Why can’t you let it go?”
A tear slipped down my cheek. I just said, “I don’t know.”
I could light-heartedly suggest that what I do know is this: the judge is retired now, but he probably thought twice before flirting with his court officer again.
I had handwritten a second letter to him in a frenzy—trying to rectify the fact that I’d singlehandedly written him the anthem of my madness, sung to the tune of my love for him. And in that last letter, I told him I would never write to him again.
Well… I went back on my word.
I wrote one more letter, about a year later. I didn’t include a return address, and I didn’t invite dialogue. It was just something I needed to share with him.
Dear Your Honour,
My name is Me and I am a 31-year-old woman from Adelaide, South Australia. I worked at the Downing Centre District Court as a temporary staff member working as a Court Officer, March 2011 – May 2011.
After my temporary contract ended at the court, I wrote a number of letters to you which I am deeply remorseful for.
Although genuinely unintentional, the letters were mostly lies and highly exaggerated, twisted truths.
I sincerely apologise for the content in those letters.
Bram Stoker worked at the Dublin Court of Petty Sessions, now the Dublin District Court. I am certain the letters in Dracula are inspired by a similar experience to my own.
However, in the short time that I worked for you at the Downing Centre District Court, I shared a similar experience to C. S. Lewis.
My reason for this is because of his story The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Four children — Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter — walk through the back of a wardrobe and step into a world called Narnia.
They introduced life, warmth, and goodness into what seemed to be a cold, pointless, and eternally damned place to be.
They became Kings and Queens of Narnia and lived an enchanted, meaningful life filled with courage, inspiration, and beauty.
Then one day, when they are old, they walk back into the wardrobe and become children again.
And only a moment had passed.
I always wondered what sort of thing had happened to C. S. Lewis that gave him the ability to see an entire lifetime of magic in just one moment.
And now I know.
I have since built an enriched and fulfilling life for myself, and sometimes draw upon the frame of mind I was in at that time to remind myself to ensure a high standard of personal conduct at all times.
The reason for my letter today is I have something I wanted to say to a judge, and I hoped you might recall me in some small way prior to the serious disrespect I showed you.
Last weekend I saw on the news the story that Jill Meagher, an ABC journalist, had gone missing. I followed the story with interest, but when I saw the CCTV footage of the accused talking to her, I felt physically sick.
I felt desperate for news about it all day at work, constantly looking for updates online, and that night I didn’t sleep. I stayed up all night and watched on TV and online as the police arrested the accused, managed to get the location of her body from him, and then charged him.
I could feel what happened to her to the core of my being.
Assuming that the accused is guilty, I feel angry at the judiciary that he was out on the streets, and I don’t understand why the crimes he had already committed weren’t enough to lock him up for longer.
I have never cried so much for someone I don’t know before. I have had trouble sleeping and I feel like he raped me and murdered a little bit of me too.
He did that to every woman.
Lady Justice is a woman, and he raped and killed her too.
From,
Me
