By David Estcourt
With the court lectern turned to address her rapist – former ultra-Orthodox school principal Malka Leifer – Elly Sapper stood up, gathered her courage and revealed that just six days before her abuser was convicted, she lost her unborn child.
She didn’t know whether it was linked to her abuse, or the stress she had endured at the trial, but it was part of a story of exploitation and loss that began two decades ago and continued in the Melbourne County Court on Wednesday.
“What can I do? Nothing,” Sapper told the court. “Because this trauma was done to me, and I am forced to inherit its pain and consequences for the rest of my life.”
The miscarriage of her little girl is another cost that forms part of the decades-long fight that has cost three sisters – Sapper, Dassi Erlich and Nicole Meyer – an impossible toll for seeking justice, and one they are still paying.
On Wednesday, Erlich and Sapper finally confronted Leifer – who was found guilty of rape and sexual assault in April – saying her abuse and subsequent absconding overseas meant they were constantly and unexpectedly seized by intrusive thoughts and struggled with intimacy for years after.
Leifer, 56, appeared from the Murray Unit at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre and listened intently, seated slightly sideways in blue prison clothing and not reacting to their statements. Leifer spoke briefly, confirming her name, age and that she did not have an occupation due to custody.
Sisters Elly Sapper, Nicole Meyer and Dassi Erlich gave victim impact statements on Wednesday.Credit: Justin McManus
Erlich, who spoke first, told the court she believed Leifer would be a source of safety from the traumatic household she grew up in. Instead, her former teacher became the architect of her pain.
“Malka Leifer stole my body, I was forced to sever the connection with my physical self. I did not know how to protect myself, abuse became my norm,” she told the court.
“I dream sometimes of the future I could have had. A future that didn’t revolve around her abuse or the fear that she was hurting other vulnerable girls in the way she did me. The way I know she hurt my sisters.
“Malka Leifer, you shattered my trust, stole my body, and altered my life’s course, but you could not break my spirit.”
She admitted that, even to this day, Erlich worries about the influence Leifer still holds over her, but said she has chosen to “focus on the light within herself” and the “power of [her] own voice”.
“I am resilient, I am powerful, and I am so much more than the limitations you imposed on me.”
Sapper, who spoke next, told the court that Leifer was the first person to tell Sapper that she loved her, a feeling alien to her after growing up in a household where she was denied love by her parents.
“She was the first person who said to me she loved me,” Sapper said. “It was a feeling that I had never felt before.”
“When confronted with the painful truth that her love wasn’t real, it was a betrayal of such magnitude, it left me utterly broken.”
Sapper said intrusive thoughts would ambush her, paralysing her, she said, and the abuse had changed the way she perceived physical affection. She spoke about the loss of her unborn child during the trial.
“Sitting there in court and reliving some of the most awful times in my life, I knew that I needed to be strong as I was holding a future life. It gave me the courage and strength to get up and face every day in court.
“And six days before the verdict, we lost our little girl. Her heart stopped beating. There were no concrete answers,” she said.
“I refuse to let the broken fragments within me define me entirely … every day forward, I will learn to be more free to laugh, to cry, and to love with an open, genuine heart.”
The sisters have granted The Age permission to use their names.
After a six-week trial, a jury found Leifer guilty in April of 18 charges, including rape, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a child aged 16 or 17 against two sisters. They cleared her of all charges relating to Meyer.
Nicole Meyer also gave a statement outside court, saying that even though a jury did not find Leifer guilty of abusing her, she wanted to speak on behalf of victims who feel like they did not receive justice.
Meyer spoke because, she said, even though the verdicts had denied her validation for the pain she suffers, they did “not erase the fear and anxiety and profound impact on my mental health”.
Meyer said Leifer was a person she trusted, turned to and looked up to. A role model, teacher, principal and boss.
“She was supposed to be my safe person to whom I trusted with horrifying details of the abuse I endured at home,” she said.
“She took all that pure innocent trust and twisted it to suit her own evil desires. Every part of my life from the day she arrived here in Australia until the day she fled to Israel has been tarnished by her abuse.
Meyer said part of the reason she gave a statement was to speak for the “countless survivors who endure these battles silently, their voices silenced by a legal system that often falls short of delivering justice”.
“I see you and I feel for you and I believe you.”
The court heard that in prison Leifer was fearful all the time, had nightmares and hallucinations, thinks the guards want to kill her, and reacts strongly to loud noises inside the prison.
Defence barrister Ian Hill, KC, said Leifer had been prescribed various antipsychotic medications, that her imprisonment is onerous because of her strict religious beliefs, and that he expected her to be sent to immigration detention and deported to Israel as soon as her prison term ended.
Hill said the offences were committed 15 to 19 years ago when Leifer was a respected educator, administrator and community leader.
“Today, all these years later, she is a truly lonely and isolated and broken woman held in protective custody in a maximum security prison, far from her culture, far from her religion, and significantly, far from her family, all of whom live overseas,” Hill said.
“That includes her husband of many years, her eight children and her 17 grandchildren, whose ages range between a couple of weeks and 15 years.
“As a maximum security prisoner, in protection, convicted of offences against children of a sexual nature, she is not allowed to have in her possession photographs of her grandchildren, or for that matter any child.”
Hill said that when considering what Leifer is losing, “the celebrations and the events by way of birthdays, weddings and other matters that she is missing out on, one appreciated the enormity of her position or hardship”.
The former principal’s prosecution became an international scandal when she was rushed out of the country in the middle of the night in March 2008, as allegations of her sexual abuse against students began to mount. She would not return to Victoria to face justice for more than 10 years.
Earlier this month, police reopened their investigation into board members from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish school who in 2008 may have assisted Leifer in fleeing to Israel.
The jury was told Leifer had travelled between Israel and Australia but given no context about what prompted the travel, or whether it related to the allegations.
If you need support, call the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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