Recently, I wrote a little bit about how, in late 2010, my brother and I drove from Adelaide to Darwin. I stayed in Darwin for a few days, and my dad wanted me to go to the Gold Coast to study law at Bond University — but I ended up in Sydney instead.
At the time, I felt passionately about the abolition of the death penalty and the campaign to save the then three members of the Bali Nine who were on death row in Bali: Scott Rush, Myuran Sukumaran, and Andrew Chan. Scott Rush later had his death sentence commuted to life in prison.
My plan was to volunteer at Amnesty International during the day, work on the campaign, and get a night job in a call centre. When I first arrived in Sydney, I rented a room in a large, boarding house–type place. It wasn’t a boarding house in the way I now understand them — it had a lot of professionals living there who were looking for more permanent housing.
I started my job search straight away. I signed up with a few temp agencies, and I also spent a lot of time trying to convince Amnesty International to do more about the three men on death row. I spoke to Scott’s parents a few times about how I could help, and I wrote letters to Andrew and Myuran — I developed a bit of a pen-pal–type relationship with them.
I wasn’t having much luck getting a night job, and there wasn’t really a role for me at Amnesty International apart from being my own private human rights defender. So I checked to see if there were any seats available at the Centrelink Call Centre in Liverpool, Sydney — unfortunately, there weren’t.
I decided to get a temp job while I worked out what to do next. I signed up with an agency called Randstad. I’d never temped with them before, but I knew they did big government contracts, and I was excited to see where I’d end up.
Not long after signing up, I got a call from Randstad telling me they had a job for me at the Downing Centre District Court as a court officer. They described the role to me — it was totally different to anything I’d ever done before, and I actually thought it was quite serendipitous, given I’d been regretting not going to Bond University on the Gold Coast.
To give you a bit of a picture of myself: I was used to working in call centre and secretarial-type roles. I wore — and still wear — very feminine clothes like skirt suits, colourful tops, and jackets. I don’t wear designer clothes as such, but they’re generally in line with what’s current. I also used to wear a lot of heels, though I haven’t worn them much in the last ten years or so. I think I’ve always made a real effort with what I wear — and that’s because of the whole “unconventional looks” scenario I find myself in.
On my first day at the courts, I wore a suit with heels and made my way down to the Sheriffs’ area. There was a group of maybe six of us all starting together. I remember we were taken into a room and given the rundown of our responsibilities — and it was all so new and exciting. We had to enter the courtroom before the judge and their associate, knock twice, and say “All rise.” We were to act as intermediaries, collecting papers from the bar and taking them to the judge’s associate.
Another part of our role was to bring in witnesses, then read the oath or affirmation to them and swear them in. On the first day, we were told that in order to administer oaths, we ourselves had to be sworn in by the Chief Justice — something they were going to arrange. We also had to empanel juries and look after the jury throughout the trial. It was a very diverse and interesting job.
I looked completely out of place. I had a face full of makeup and was dressed like I was the CEO of Coles Myer. We were introduced to the current court officers — all ex-army types, a couple of very masculine women who were beautiful in their own way, and some older men and women. I was one of the youngest.
We got stuck right into it. We were each paired with a current court officer, and straight away they started their jobs while we shadowed them. I didn’t know for the life of me how I was going to bring myself to take someone’s oath, but the court officer showing me around made it look so easy.
It was fun seeing the skeleton of the Downing Centre — the judges’ chambers, the ante-rooms between the courtrooms, and the large network of elevators. We shadowed court officers for the next few days. I was still wearing skirts, suits, makeup, and heels, and I did look a bit ridiculous — but honestly, I didn’t have anything else.
One day, I was in the ante-room between two courtrooms with my court officer trainer. The elevator door opened, and right before my eyes stood the most beautiful man I think I had ever seen. He was a judge who looked about sixty years old, and he could have been an identical twin to the man who exposed himself to me when I was younger. He looked exactly like him — so much so that my initial instinct was to ask if he was related to the man.
You know how sometimes two people seem to be cut from the same cloth? There’s an Adelaide journalist, Rex Jory, who I think is the spitting image of Pat Rafter — well, this judge was a dead ringer for the exposer. But somewhere, somehow, I felt like my DNA had rearranged itself and I was now put on this earth to admire and cater to the every need of the man standing before me.
I think until then, I had never been sexually attracted to someone. Yes, I'd had boyfriends and partners, but I had never felt my body physically react in the presence of a man. Not only was I caught up in the midst of a feverish, passionate lust-fest — on an emotional level, I felt that not only did I love him, but if he didn’t love me back, I would die.
He had piercing blue eyes, and I thought that he blushed when he was introduced to me. I sort of curtseyed as I shook his hand, and I could feel my pupils dilating as I made eye contact with him. He was like a Greek god — the kind I could imagine a whole group of young wood nymphs congregating around in a display of communal desire.
Next to him was his gruff-looking male associate, who had a shaved head and some facial hair. I was introduced to him too, but he was entirely irrelevant to the moment — a moment where, for the first time in my life, I was rendered speechless by the magnificence of the creature before me.
Our meeting was brief, and then the judge had to go and sit in court. My court officer trainer walked him in, and I followed. For the duration of the session, my eyes were fixed on him — and I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but I thought he seemed to be looking at me too.
While we were in training, if our court session finished for the day, we were encouraged to go and sit in another courtroom and watch the proceedings. I went to this judge’s courtroom a few times — and I interpreted it that he started staring at me. And he seemed to be doing it in front of everybody. I perceived some of his remarks about a court case as having a sexual undertone, especially because he would sometimes look directly at me afterward — though I can’t be sure that was his intention.
He talked a lot about how he was sixty years old. He would sometimes begin a session with something like, “I’m sixty, but I still have young friends.” He often spoke poetically, saying things like “At first blush” and “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
I was a smoker at the time, and most of the court officers smoked too. I remember saying to one of them while we were having a cigarette that this particular judge reminded me of Dracula — or Aslan from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I think both characters have a kind of heightened wisdom, which is something you’d expect from a judge. Well, most judges. I think we’ve had the odd dickhead here in Adelaide.
A couple of weeks in, we were given uniforms. I was issued a medium-length navy blue skirt, and we had a few options for the top. We had to wear a white shirt, but then someone gave me this little criss-cross tie thingy, which reminded me of what I used to wear at school at Scotch College. I didn’t have to wear it, but I chose to. It made my uniform look like a cross between a correctional services officer and a Virgin Airlines flight attendant.
In those first few weeks at the courts, I moved from the boarding house to my brother’s best friend’s place. I’d known him since we were children, and he was living in central Sydney with his wife. They said I could stay with them for a while, so I moved all my stuff over. It was nice and close to the courts — I just caught the bus or a taxi to work.
Once we were ready to go it alone on the job, I got assigned to this judge pretty much every day. It was such an adult situation to be in. He appeared to be showing me a lot of attention, and I thought about the types of women I imagined he’d been with before. I didn’t know how to express myself to him without looking like a complete idiot.
The other thing is — because I’m conscious of the fact that I’m not a very good looking woman — I can never tell if a man likes me or not. At first, it could have gone either way. He was married, and his daughters used to come into his courtroom and sit up the back. They would’ve been in their early to mid-twenties. The first day they came in, he appeared to look at them lovingly — and then look at me.
I didn’t know they were his daughters. I felt a little jealous, so I turned to see who he was looking at — and then it seemed like he glanced back at me and started laughing. It was moments like that. Based on what I thought he was doing, I just couldn’t believe it.
The judge used to share little thoughts and stories from his life. Once, in reference to a depressed witness, he remarked that “judges can get depressed too.” But something else he said really struck me. He told the courtroom—who I always thought of as his “audience”—not to underestimate how high his shock threshold was.
That made me want to be near him, for no other reason than the hope that he might not think too much of all the mistakes I’d made in life so far. Things like my hyper-sexualised school days, and my time in Africa.
The moment I really kind of fell for him, though, was when he was talking to an accused man who was being held in custody. He asked the accused if he was being treated well, if he was getting enough food and water, and whether he had access to showers. At the time, I was so impressed by that.
The accused had a newborn baby he’d never physically met. The baby was in the gallery with its mother, and the judge asked if he wanted to kiss the baby on the head. The man said yes. After he kissed the baby’s head, the judge looked around the courtroom and I viewed it that he thought he’d just orchestrated this incredible moment — and at the time, I thought he had.
But now, I think it was just a typical politician’s move. And it involved kissing babies, too.
It was often just me and the judge in the ante-room. I would walk in front of him, knock twice, and say “All rise.” I sometimes experienced his hand on my lower back and interpreted it as guiding me forward, though I don’t know what he intended. It then appeared he spent most of the time we were in court together looking at me — or I sometimes perceived he was looking at other women, and then checking to see if I was watching.
As all of this was happening, I became quite close to his associate. He was a smoker, and we would go out for cigarettes together. They started getting me to do extra things, like go to the registry, and sometimes I hung out in the judge’s chambers with him.
As time went on, I moved house again — this time into a place in Woollahra with another of my brother’s female friends. The place was still central Sydney. My housemate, Lucy, spent most of her time living with her boyfriend, so I pretty much had the apartment to myself. When she was around, I’d tell her about the judge — the way I thought he would touch me, the things I perceived he said, the way it appeared he stared at me — and she just said he sounded from my interpretation he was a dirty old man. She didn’t understand why I liked that.
We talked about it and came to the decision that the only way something would ever happen between me and the judge was if I initiated it. He would be too smart to ever do something like that himself.
But the problem was — I would literally never, ever, ever initiate something like that with a judge.
I didn’t have the confidence.
I used to leave little post-it notes on the associate’s desk and the judge’s bench with quotes like, “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I’m possible” — Audrey Hepburn. I’d leave a Ferrero Rocher or a bag of M&Ms with the note. I did that all the time. I also gave chocolates to a friend of mine — an older man and a fellow court officer.
I made origami Easter presents for the judge, the associate, and another associate I’d come to know. One day, another court officer saw me carrying the little boxes and asked who they were for. I told her, and I think she told my boss — I wasn’t supposed to do that.
I also got in trouble once because the toilet in one of the ante-rooms was filthy — it had flies all around the base, and it wasn’t just a case of flushing. I called my boss and told her. She told me to call maintenance, which I did, but they just said to flush it and not worry about it. I went back to my boss — and it kept going around in circles. So, on my lunch break, I went out and bought some Harpic and toilet-cleaning supplies. I scrubbed the toilet myself. Another court officer saw me doing it, and dobbed on me. I got in trouble for that too.
The most serious thing I got in trouble for was probably what happened with a Crown Prosecutor I got along really well with. One afternoon after court, he had too many suitcases to take back to his office — which was just next door to the courts — so I carried them for him. I then hung out in the office with him for a bit. He told me how good life was now that he was on his second marriage, and we had a look at all the photography on the walls, which had been taken by one of the lawyers.
Things became difficult for me when another court officer came up to me and asked, point blank, if there was something going on between me and the judge. I said no, but she said people had started to talk.
Then, one day in the bathroom, a lawyer came up to me and asked if the judge had taken me away on circuit with him. I said no. He invited me to go on circuit — or at least, that’s how I understood his words at the time, though I may have misread them.
It wasn’t one thing in particular that he was doing — but when he did do something, he appeared to do it in front of everyone. One day, after court had finished, I went to grab the door for him, and I interpreted that he came right up to me — face to face — and just stared at me or that’s how I experienced it in the moment. In front of all the lawyers. It felt like he was trying to say something. But again, I just didn’t know what to do.
I remember him and his associate walking toward court one day. The judge asked his associate, “How old do you think she is?” His associate said he didn’t know. The judge looked at me and said, “I think she’s about 22.”
That day in court happened to be a rape case — a 60 year-old man and a 22 year old woman.
What are the fucking odds of that?
It was disturbing. The judge said things like, “What would a 22-year-old woman want with a 60 year-old man?” — and I thought he looked right at me while saying it, but I could have just been imagining it.
After court finished that day, his associate ran off. I opened the door for the judge. He started walking away, and I called out, “Your Honour.”
He turned and looked at me and gave me his full attention.
And I just said, “Never mind.”
I was 29 when I was working at the courts. But honestly, I was behaving like a 12 year old.
In life, I can honestly say that only a handful of men have actually been attracted to me. As I said before, I was involved with men throughout most of my twenties, but I don’t think any of them ever sat down and thought to themselves, I want to be with that woman.
I also have no clue when someone is attracted to me. I generally assume they’re not, rather than believe they are. I sometimes felt there might have been an attraction with the Judge, but I could never be sure.
I was finding my time at the courts electrifying. I was on such a high, being with the judge every day. I could have listened to him for hours. In my opinion he was extremely arrogant — but he was wise, and there was a gentleness to him.
My desire for this judge was the powerful force I have ever experienced. And to this day, I haven’t experienced it since.
It was a celebration of all the good feelings life has to offer — but it’s also a very disturbing tale. It’s a tale about the power of power.
This is how I experienced it at the time — what I noticed, what I felt, and what I interpreted. I can’t speak for anyone else’s intentions; I can only share my own perceptions.
To be continued.....
