Daughter testifies parents' sexual, physical abuse seemed 'normal'

Article content

She was trying to explain that what was “normal” for her was shocking for the outside world.

The woman, now in her 20s, has spent most of the week at the trial of her parents describing some of the most heinous acts she and her siblings endured – countless beatings, sexual assaults, bondage, forcible confinement and more – as “consequences” for perceived bad behaviour.

That all seemed to fly in the face of the teachings of the family’s church that valued purity and modesty, preached no dating until age 16 and absolutely no pre-marital sex.

And it was very different from what they would encounter in the rest of the world.

“What was happening at home, the rules are different. That’s our whole childhood: There’s what happens in the world, there’s what happens at home, like what we are supposed to do,” she said.

“I knew some things were wrong, I knew a lot of things when they hurt… It just was normal in my mind.”

The two people she trusted the most were her mother and father. “I feel like I sound stupid right now, but I just didn’t question a lot of the things,” she said.

The 57-year-old man and 54-year-old woman have pleaded not guilty to 47 charges – some individual counts against them and come involving both of them – that span from 2003 to 2020 at the Superior Court jury trial that began Friday. The identities of the children are protected by court order.

Cross-examination of the first witness, a daughter, began on Wednesday with the accused woman’s defence lawyer, Phillip Millar, suggesting the witness wasn’t telling the truth and she initially went to the police at her father’s urging to talk about her mother’s abuse to help him with a divorce proceeding.

But the witness, who often was emotional, gave lengthy answers about how she and her siblings were conditioned to not trust anyone outside the family, even when they were being assaulted and forced into sex with their parents.

“The church taught that the home was sacred. I prayed when we were in the church and I really believed God will help you get through this. All of it was just normal,” she said.

From the outside, the family appeared to be accomplished and close-knit. They were all involved in extra-curricular activities and the witness was taking online university courses when she was 16, taught music lessons and worked.

She said she and her siblings learned how to avoid questions about their home and how to cover up their wounds and bruises, such as when they were all ordered to wear turtlenecks when child welfare staff made a visit to their home when they were younger.

She described how all the money she earned had to go toward the family and was controlled by her mother. Much of the tension between the parents in the house had to do with money. But the abuse was routine.

“I knew that when someone was crying and screaming that that means they are getting hurt, but there was no option to leave or anything because even worse things would happen,” she said.

She said to Millar she knew the physical violence was bad, “but I didn’t know the sexual stuff was bad. I knew that I didn’t want to do it sometimes, but did I think that every single person had to do that for their mom and dad? Yeah, I thought to some extent.”

The church taught her she could trust her mom and her dad was there to protect her. The children also were warned that if anyone found out what was happening inside their home, they would be separated and placed in foster care.

“In our house, everything was normal. The rules would change but the goal was: Finish your school, make sure Mom and Dad aren’t mad, and try to protect your siblings,” she said.

Their cloistered life was shattered in 2019, when child welfare services began investigating their household. That summer, the witness said her mother was “grounded” for the first time ever by her father and moved out.

That fall, she went to London police for the first of five statements. At first, the siblings were living with their father and he was still speaking to their mother. But he encouraged her to talk to the police about what her mother had done to them with orders not to say anything about him.

“I was scared. I didn’t want Mom hurting any of us anymore, but I also still living at home with Dad,” she said. “I was terrified.”

She described, through tears, how difficult it was to tell strangers, people she had been warned never to trust, what was happening at her home, especially before the siblings fled the home and their father in the middle of the night in the spring of 2020. She would later disclose their father’s abuses as well.

“I’m still terrified of them knowing where I live and I know that you‘re saying time has passed…. But so many things were different,” she said.

“All of this, even this past week is so hard,” she said crying.

The cross-examination continues on Thursday.

jsims@postmedia.com