The 15-year fight to bring an accused childcare paedophile to justice has left Sydney parents Jacqui* and Rachel* bankrupt, their children retraumatised and the families distrustful of the judicial system.
The childcare centre hired its own investigator and child protection teams closed the reports, while criminal charges were dropped at the eleventh hour. Later, a successful civil lawsuit was overturned on appeal, leaving the women and their children still fighting for justice.
“It was death by a thousand cuts. There was so much that just beggars belief,” Jacqui said.
Now, with the support of Greens MP Sue Higginson, they’re seeking government recognition for systemic failures, as well as ex gratia payments from the government, which are made in special circumstances.
Jacqui and Rachel’s daughters Julia* and Rose* were allegedly sexually assaulted at Footprints childcare centre in Sydney’s south by volunteer Rodney Raymond Bird, who co-owned the facility with his daughter, who was the director. The centre has since been sold, and the families cannot be identified for legal reasons.
The worst fears of Jacqui and Rachel were confirmed when their children made disclosures of sexual abuse. Both Julia and Rose gave statements to police in what the parents say was a traumatising process.
“It was as if the rug had been pulled from under us as a family,” Jacqui said.
Julia began having violent meltdowns and exhibiting sexualised behaviour. Both children became convinced their parents would die.
Bird was charged with child sex offences and indecently assaulting four children between 2008 and 2010 at Footprints, and made admissions to police in 2010 that he massaged children, kissed them on the lips, patted their bottoms and touched them under their clothes. Bird has since died.
Julia’s allegation resulted in a criminal charge against the then 68-year-old; however, Rose, who was interviewed without her mother Rachel present, did not disclose her experience to police. Rachel was due to give evidence as a witness at the trial. Jacqui said police told her it was an “open and shut” case.
But nothing about the case was open and shut. The centre director unenrolled Julia. Newsletters distributed to parents by the centre director, sighted by this masthead, thanked parents for the outpouring of support for Bird. In an email to Jacqui, the director defended her father, labelling him an “easy victim”.
Meanwhile, the Joint Child Protection Response Program, operated by the health and child protection departments, closed its investigation into Julia’s allegation despite the pending criminal charges.
Then, after 18 months of counselling, police interviews and trial preparation, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) dropped all charges in May 2012, a week before the trial.
In an email in August 2012 to Jacqui following her request for an explanation, the DPP noted that Julia was having “difficulty focusing on issues” and that, for a child of her “tender age”, providing evidence would have been “exceptionally difficult”.
The ombudsman ordered the centre to pay for an independent investigation. The families and children weren’t interviewed and their allegations were not substantiated.
The investigation, seen by the Herald, stated Bird wouldn’t have made admissions to police about “patting” a child’s bottom had he “knowingly engaged in sexually inappropriate behaviour”.
The report also noted some parents viewed Bird as posing a risk to children. “There is a perception in our society, rightly or wrongly, that men pose a greater risk of sexually offending against children,” the report states.
The parents’ formal request for a new investigation went unanswered, and the Ombudsman told them to direct their complaints to the centre director, despite her father being the accused.
“He was still a part-owner, so he was still profiting from the childcare centre,” Rachel said. “It was devastating.”
In 2015, the families lodged a civil claim, suing the centre for negligence and vicarious liability. They were awarded a total of $2 million in damages in 2020, with the court finding, on the balance of probabilities, the two girls were abused by Bird.
However, two years later, that ruling was overturned on appeal; Rachel was forced back into mediation, while Jacqui was advised to seek another trial and ordered to pay the centre’s legal costs.
“The perpetrator’s legal firm sent us a bill for almost a million dollars,” Jacqui said.
“How do you explain to your teenage daughter that she might lose her home to the man who sexually assaulted her?”
In yet another blow, the families learnt this year from questions lodged in parliament by Higginson that Bird’s electronic devices were never seized or investigated, video from the childcare centre was never obtained and that the only evidence police had relied upon was the children’s testimony.
Police declined to reopen the investigation due to the lack of new evidence, the passage of time and Bird’s death.
The mothers have never stopped fighting for change. They gave extensive evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which led to legislative reform. They have advocated to the Ombudsman, leading to increase rights for complainants, and appeared as keynote speakers at the NSW Department of Education’s Child Safety in Childcare 2021 seminar.
On Wednesday, Higginson is expected to introduce a notice of motion calling on the government to acknowledge the failings of the institutions and systems that let them down; recognise the damage of denying justice to the children; and provide the families with ex gratia payments.
Both daughters, now adults, are doing well. Julia was described by her mother as a “force to be reckoned with”, while Rose has “healed and grown” and was on a “good, powerful path in life”, her mother said.
Rachel said that while Bird’s death means they can’t achieve criminal justice for their daughters, the pair hope to continue educating others and placing the shame with perpetrators, not survivors.
“If we have an opportunity still to tell our story through any avenue, we will do it because I know that our story has power.”
NSW Attorney General Michael Daley said the government had introduced “significant changes” to the way child sexual offences were investigated and prosecuted since 2010, including greater protections for complainants and prosecution witnesses, and expanding the Child Sexual Offence Evidence Program statewide.
“I am grateful for [the parents’] advocacy on this incredibly important matter,” he said.
A spokesperson for NSW Minister for Police and Counter-terrorism Yasmin Catley said the parents had “experienced what no parent should”, adding police had made significant changes to the way child sexual abuse matters are handled, including using Child Abuse Squad investigators, who are trained in trauma-informed practice.
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Amber Schultz is a crime and justice reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.