After years of abuse, Sarah came forward. Now, the system is ‘silencing’ her

After years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband, then a NSW Police officer, Sarah decided she could endure no more. At the end of her tether, she went to police; she finally felt strong enough to come forward.

More than two years later, though, she is trapped in the relationship she tried so desperately to escape. A non-publication order imposed shortly after her now ex-husband’s arrest in late 2024 and still in place prohibits Sarah from identifying herself as a victim of his abuse and sharing her story.

The order, put in place to protect the now former senior officer’s mental health, prohibits publication of his name and image and has left Sarah, to whom the Herald has given a pseudonym to comply with the court order, feeling powerless.

“I’m silenced,” she told this masthead.

“It just prolongs the trauma. It feels as though the system that’s designed to protect people is also not allowing a person to acknowledge their own experiences and what they’ve been through so that as a society we can learn from those to be able to do better.”

Under NSW law, sexual assault victims can consent to being identified. Sarah’s children, who witnessed attacks on her mother, also want to share their stories.

“It still feels like you’re stuck in some sort of domestic violence because you’re trapped in a system that is not allowing you to acknowledge what happened to you fully,” Sarah said.

‘You’re trapped in a system that is not allowing you to acknowledge what happened to you fully.’

Sarah

Sarah’s ex-husband – who can be legally known only as “MZ” – was in July found guilty of 11 charges, including two counts of rape or sexual intercourse without consent, one count of sexual touching without consent, and one count of intentionally choking a person without consent.

He was also found guilty of five counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and two counts of common assault. MZ was found not guilty of eight charges, including one count of sexually touching without consent and two intimidation charges.

“He’s still being enabled in some way because he’s not getting the same treatment as any other alleged offender or [convicted] offender,” Sarah said.

During MZ’s trial, the jury heard details about his sustained abuse, including three sexual assaults on one day that culminated in him locking the bedroom door and sexually assaulting Sarah.

“You took the best parts of who I was and used them to control, exploit and violate me. Those qualities were never weaknesses. They were strengths you chose to abuse with your offending,” Sarah said in a victim impact statement read in the NSW District Court on Thursday.

On one occasion, Sarah said, MZ assaulted her while she recovered from complications caused by a caesarean section.

“I was physically weak, caring for our newborn and trying to meet the needs of my other children. That was a time when a father should have protected and supported his family. Instead, you chose violence,” she said.

“I felt like a prisoner in my own life.”

At times, Sarah said, she feared she would not survive the abuse and slept with her children to protect them and herself. On another occasion, one of Sarah’s children had to intervene as MZ choked her.

“I genuinely feared for my life when you did that to me. I will never forget that my child was forced into the position of protecting me from you while I was trying to breathe,” Sarah said.

Sarah said MZ’s sexual offending was the “ultimate abuse of power and control”.

‘The blue shirt you hid behind was meant to represent safety … Instead, it became the same blue shirt I learned to fear.’

Sarah

“You disregarded my boundaries, my dignity and my right to my own body. You took advantage of me and left me carrying humiliation and a profound violation that no words can adequately express. It was acts of hatred, power and domination with no regard for me asking you to stop,” she said.

Sarah said she felt her ex-husband was protected by his role as a senior police officer and that speaking out against him was “standing not only against you, but against your authority, your knowledge and the organisation behind you”.

“The blue shirt you hid behind was meant to represent safety, not only to me, but to the community. Instead, it became the same blue shirt I learned to fear,” she told the court.

Sarah’s children told the court they had developed post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety after being exposed to MZ’s offending.

“He wore a uniform that represented safety, trust and protection, however the events in which I had to intervene changed what that uniform represents to me,” one said in a victim impact statement read in court.

Crown prosecutor Rohan Cooley said MZ had shown no remorse for his offending and that his denials of wrongdoing “verges … on victim blaming”.

MZ’s barrister, Arjun Chhabra, told the court that the former officer should be sentenced to less than 10 years’ imprisonment and questioned whether his post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis had contributed to some of his offending.

MZ is expected to be sentenced on December 10.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

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