1 My name is Sam. My life has been ruined by claims that I raped my foster-daughter. Court orders won't allow me to identify myself and most other people involved in the case, so I've asked an actor to play my part. It's his face and his voice, but they're my words. I'm innocent. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 (SINISTER MUSIC) (INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION) (BREATHES HEAVILY) It was just before Christmas in 2006, and I was coming home. I'd been out visiting friends, and I noticed there was a card, you know, like a business card, jammed in the door, and I pulled it out, and it had a detective's phone number and address on it. And on the flipside, um, it` it said, 'Sam, can you please contact me urgently,' and I thought, 'Yeah, I know why.' I got home about, oh, 7, 8 o'clock, and he said, 'There was this card here,' and saying, 'I've gotta go down to the cop shop and they're gonna arrest me for all this... 'paedophile` for being a paedophile.' And we` we just... And I said, 'You're kidding me?' And he said, 'Nah. Nah.' He said, 'She's starting,' and that was it. After I received the card, I went to the police station with my lawyer, and he advised me, you know, don't say anything, and I was charged with 22 counts of sexual assault on my foster-daughter Mandy. Unbelievable. She was 18 at the time that she made the allegations, and we had her in our care from... She was 7, and she left the family home,... I guess, when she was about, uh, 15. Yeah, 15. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) I'd been accused of raping Mandy at one of our relative's birthday parties and at another party. Um, um, she was saying ` basically, was happening on the way to school, every time we were alone, on the weekends, even when we had guests, you know what I mean? Every time I could lay my hands on her. She also said that I'd threatened to shoot her. She said that I'd supplied her with alcohol and I'd given her $20 after one of the rapes. You know? It was just absolute rubbish. We just couldn't believe it. We just thought it was a bit of a joke at the beginning. At the time of my arrest, my new girlfriend ` now wife three ` you know, she was... I'd known her for ages, you know? I-I-I'd known her for donkey's years. She's very, very supportive, you know? She's a strong person and... Yeah, she helped me a lot. She gave me a lot of confidence. I was just really angry. I was really angry when I knew perfectly well there was no way in hell he'd even think about that. When they arrested me, they wanted to take a swab out of my mouth, and I told them no, so they just fingerprinted me and that was that, and my solicitor said, 'Don't say anything to them,' so I didn't say a word. I've known him probably nearly 35 years. Um, when I arrived here as an officer. I would say he was a very responsible person. Sam came and told us just so we knew what was going on, and I was shocked. I said, 'No way. The allegations were farcical.' He was bailed to us, and Sam kept on reporting to us. I pleaded not guilty to all the charges. There was nothing in the papers, but I did tell a local publican that I'd been arrested for rape, you know, and I thought it was just driven by sheer vindictiveness. But, you know, (CHUCKLES) thinking back, if I'd have told the publican, he's in the perfect place to gossip, you know, which he probably did, and it was just` It was just devastating. You know, you'd be out walking, and you know you hadn't done these things, and you` and you could see these people thinking, 'Well, you know, maybe didn't, but maybe did. 'Yeah, maybe did do it.' Anyway, about three weeks after my arrest, I was working with my solicitor. We were getting some information together, and I got a call from him, and he said he couldn't represent me any more due to a conflict of interest. So that meant I had to travel out of town to see this guy Rob Harrison, who was, you know, supposedly an expert in these cases, so that's what I did. When Sam first came in to see me, my initial impression was, 'This was a rough as guts sort of a character.' He was philanderer, never faithful to his first wife, always attracted to the women, liked a drink, but it was equally clear when you spoke to him after a while that he was very genuine in what he was trying to say to me ` that he hadn't touched this girl and that he was not guilty of these offences that he'd been charged with. I walked out of there a totally different guy. After talking to him for an hour or two, I knew I had the right man. Rob Harrison, yup, he was really` Um, he was adamant. He said straight out that he was going to get to the bottom of it. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) One of the troubling aspects for a defence, uh, lawyer was that the description of the events was extremely detailed. It detailed what she was wearing, what he was wearing, the actual date that it occurred, the time that it occurred and what was happened around when it occurred. The detail given was particular and significant. As if that wasn't bad enough, on top of all that, there were historical allegations. Mandy had been staying at a boarding school. Uh, Child, Youth and Family had tried to stop Mandy coming home. Uh, that had been challenged by Sam and his wife, uh, and ultimately Mandy had come home for Christmas. She made up the allegations because a group of girls at school said they'd been raped, you know, so she said she'd been raped, and when she was asked 'had she been raped', she said no. So, obviously, she was just following the other girls, you know what I mean? So, the police came to interview me, and I had a, um, a solicitor ` you know, just like a duty solicitor ` and` and that was that. Then they send me a letter saying there were absolutely no allegations against me whatsoever. You know, had nothing to worry about, end of story. But then I got Mandy, you know, and I said, 'Listen, Mandy. 'You can't make up stories like that about people. It's bloody dangerous, you know? 'It's detrimental. Just... you don't do it.' Well, I think she just... I don't know. I just think she thought it was like water off a duck's back or, you know, there was nothing to it. It was just a bit of fun for her. What we needed to find out was the official version behind what had happened to Mandy. Why has she ended up in foster care? What had happened in her original family? What agencies had been involved with her? And what information they had about her. It was my word against hers. She had all this detail, but the fact of the matter remains that it was still my word against hers, and I didn't do it. 1 Sam was facing a raft of charges, horrendous charges ` rapes, sexual violation. He was adamant that he was innocent of these charges. The problem he had was a tsunami of evidence against him. Before I'd been accused of the rape, you know, life was pretty good. Um, Wife One, my first wife, uh, she was quite young, you know, and we had` we had a baby boy, and we got married quite young, you know? And, uh, I guess we both j-just grew a bit restless, you know, so we decided to part. Uh, and then Wife Two just` she just appeared on the scene, and she was quite hot, you know, attractive. So, I had a business, it was doing OK, and she had a business that was doing pretty well, so together we were comfortable, and the first five years were` were good. And then she decided she wanted to foster two children. I was OK about the whole foster thing, you know, because of my background. As a very young baby, my mum had died, and I was lucky enough to be picked up by, um, by some really nice people, who, uh... They, sort of, brought me through life, you know, and taught me the difference between right and wrong and some morals. So, we went on this course, and we had these two foster-children for about 12 months. And they were` they were good kids. You know, they were smart, you know, clever. They were cheeky` cheeky too, you know; they were quite street-smart, but that was, I guess, you know, just because of where they'd been and the bad habits they'd picked up. But they` yeah, they had foul mouths; they swore a lot. Wife Two, I remember her picking up this bottle of detergent and she` she grabbed the girls around the neck and opened their mouths and squirted detergent in there, and they were` they were screaming and yelling and crying. She said, 'This is what you get if you bloody swear in this house. You don't swear here!' You have dirty mouths. And later on they made allegations to the police and I said, 'No, it didn't happen.' You know, I lied. I made a mistake. That was a mistake I made in my life. You know, I don't` I just` But I did it, I felt` We were still together, and I felt protective of her. I-I felt it was my duty to, sort of, stand up for her. So I told the police it didn't happen, and they took my word for it. That was that. There was also allegations saying that Sam had hugged them inappropriately, that he was, uh, leaving the door open when he was showering, and he was walking around the house naked. I'd never do that. It was a very small house, so I could walk from the bathroom to the bedroom with a towel wrapped around me, and I'd get changed in my bedroom. Child, Youth and Family, of course, had investigated or made preliminary investigations of those allegations, and they weren't taken further, and they were deemed to be unsubstantiated. After the two girls left, I went, 'Phew.' You know, I was quite pleased to see them go in the end. And then she came to me, and she said, 'Look, there's this` this other kid with no parents, you know, 'this` this young girl.' And I said, 'Listen, I don't really want to have any more foster-kids.' You know, I was over it by that time, but she just kept pushing and pushing, you know, just` and` eventually, me being me, I gave in. So she came to stay with us, this` this young girl. Her name was Mandy. She was 7 years old when she moved in. I remember she was like a little puppy, you know? Like a puppy that had been badly beaten. She'd sit in the corner, and she'd just stare at you. Like, she'd cower. She didn't know how to interrelate with adults. She didn't` didn't know how to keep herself clean. She wasn't very well toilet trained. You know, all the natural, normal things that a kid that age could do, she` she couldn't. And, uh, I mean, that's putting it mildly. There were huge files held by the police; by her school; by Child, Youth and Family; by ACC. I don't think she understood a lot of stuff. You know, she was very backward, and she didn't` didn't take a lot of stuff in. She was a very upset child. Very unstable. She needed a lot of help to learn. Once we got access to the files, what became readily apparent was that, uh, Mandy was developmentally delayed. Now, either that was from an accident at birth or because of the horrendous, uh, upbringing she had had. She had been subject to horrific physical abuse ` lifted up by her hair when she was about 4 or 5 years old, placed in drums. I think she'd been tied up, you know, like a dog, actually with a dog and made to eat out of the` the dog bowl. I know she was subjected to... to perform oral sex, masturbate in front of them and stuff like that, and when they found her, every` her clothes and her hair were just so matted, they had to cut it off with a pair of scissors. I mean, bloody hell. She'd been living in an environment that was extremely toxic. The male relative has` was, uh, psychotic, psychopathic even, in the terms of his abuse of her and the other people in the house. That male relative was ultimately convicted of a raft of charges, some of them relating to Mandy. So, from this background, she's eventually uplifted. She goes to stay with some other foster-parents briefly and ultimately ends up with Sam and his wife. What the files then show us is a profound change in Mandy's situation. Basic hygiene is adhered to, starts going to school, starts learning how to behave appropriately around people. All of those things start developing once she moves in with Sam and his wife. I think, you know, that just` just that she was very happy to have people that would talk to her and` and treat her as part of the family. I-I know for a fact that she, sort of, looked up to me as` as a big brother, and thought, you know, he's really cool and he can do this and he can do that. She loved going fishing, eh? She just` She just loved it. She'd ask me all the time, 'Can we go fishing?' She'd just pester me, you know? It was, like, the highlight of her life ` catching a fish. You know, and I-I think out of all the things that she did, you know, that was the best thing she could imagine, was catching a fish with me. But Sam and his wife were not prepared in any way at all to deal with someone with Mandy's background. She used to sit in the lounge and just masturbate herself. I mean, that's wrong. It's not normal for any kid to do that. The stress of looking after her was too much for Sam's wife. Mandy had this habit of staring, you know, like, she would just sit and stare at you, and I remember we were having dinner and my wife said to her, 'Don't you fucking stare at me.' You know, and then she... Mandy got all upset, you know, and she started crying and wouldn't eat her food, and my wife pushed her face into the plate, and she said, 'Now you'll fucking eat it.' Bloody staring at me! Yeah, W-F-two, she spoke to her like she was talking to an animal sometimes. Get out! Which, you know, was horr` was horrible, and she called her stupid, and she called her dumb and things like that. Mandy would have a dumbfounded look on her face, just go down into a little shell and just be very quiet, and, sort of, put her head down, her eyes down, and 'yes' and 'no'. In May of 2001, Sam's wife, she says in front of Mandy, to a Child, Youth and Family worker, that she can't cope because of Mandy's special needs and doesn't want to look after her long-term. This is followed up in 2002, where she packs Mandy's bags, uh, and basically puts her out on the step. You know, 'Come and take this child away. I can't cope.' Mandy called W-F-two 'Mum', and she called Sam 'Dad', and I'd say that would have been really, really freaky for her. She would have been, 'Oh my God. Where do I go now? What's happening to me?' I didn't like some of the things that Wife Two did to her, you know? Like, especially packing up her clothes, but I didn't say anything, you know? I just bit my tongue. But I remember once I actually told her just to bloody well stop it. You know, she was really going at her there. Her` Her sister was visiting at the time, and I remember her sister came out to me and said, 'Look, you've got to get this kid out of here. 'You know, she shouldn't be here.' My second wife, she had a mental illness. She was mentally unstable. You know, I can remember taking her to the mental unit a couple of times just to get her back on her feet. She was cracking up. She was very controlling towards Dad. She really ruled the roost. I'd been knocked out in a game of rugby on the weekend. I remember this vividly because this was the day I left home. She came in and said, 'If you're too ill not to work, you're too ill to lie on the couch and watch TV. 'You can get out to your room.' I sort of argued the point with her a wee bit, where she raised her hand and slapped me probably 10 to a dozen times around the face. I raised my fist, turned, walked out the door, emptied every drawer of my clothes into the boot of my car and drove off, and that was the day I left home. I was 16. The breakdown she had came very suddenly. She just cracked up, so I called the appropriate people, but that meant that I had to take over her business, run her business as` as well as my own, you know, and it was a very, um, stressful time for me. I was under a lot of pressure, had a huge workload. But I got through it. But, you know, after that, the relationship was never the same. I think I'd just given up a bit, and I'd lost all those feelings for her. I'd lost all those deep feelings for her. They just... They just weren't there any more. In 2005, he and his wife were separated; they'd split up. When he told me that he'd left her, I said, 'I'm` I'm so happy for you that you've done that. 'I've tried for 20-plus years to like this woman. 'Hate's a very strong word, but I hate her guts.' She said to him that she would ruin him. That's what he told me; those were his words. She said she's going to ruin me. 1 It was the start of 2009, and I was hoping to clear my name against the allegations of rape and sexual assault made by Mandy, my foster-daughter. This case was taking a long time to get to trial. Because there had been so many state agencies involved in her life, there were files with several different agencies. We had to make application to get access to them. For Sam, what that meant was the file kept growing, so more and more time's needed to present this case. Every time we go to court, that's another cost incurred. So, the whole thing just became a waiting game, and I was completely spinning out. I couldn't find any work, you know, because when you've been arrested, you have to fill in this little box saying, 'Do you have any criminal charges pending?' so that was it ` no job. And the locals were saying things, 'Yeah, well, you didn't do it, mate. You've got nothing to worry about,' but then I'd hear behind my back that they were saying, 'Oh, he's going to prison. 'Yeah, yeah, they're gonna lock him up.' You know, stuff like that. People used to point and say things. You know, 'Why am I still with him, 'and aren't I afraid for my children?' and all this kind of rubbish. We needed to go through that process to be able to present to the jury who Mandy was. Why would this young lass be making all of these sorts of allegations about someone who'd actually done a lot of good for her? They needed to see where these false allegations had arisen, how they had arisen. First, you had a complainant whose first seven years of life were so horrific that she's psychologically damaged. When you're little, um, your brain is still forming and your learning actually comes through as a physiological dendritic growth in the brain. The more that happens, the more stimulation you have as a child, the more you are able to learn. She didn't have that, so it kept her, if you like, almost in the special needs category. The reason why we needed to tell the jury about Mandy's background was because at age 8, she is showing highly sexualised behaviour. She is an excessive masturbator, and she is initiating inappropriate sexual contact with adults. She was exposed to, and she witnessed regularly, sex between the adults, and she was groomed into participating in those sexual behaviours at different times. She was groomed into touching herself vaginally and allowing other people to touch her vaginally. So, the net result of those things is that she normalised what we would think would be abnormal behaviour. Another reason that we, uh, thought we could prove that Mandy's allegations were false was because we'd applied to the police for her complete file. That file showed to us that she had made allegations against other people, and not just one or two, allegations of offending of a sexual nature. What that said to us was that Mandy was a serial complainer. If she has been abused, which we know she has been previously, then she's high-risk of flashbacks ` the typical symptoms, if you like, of trauma. Her memory for events may well have got confused, very likely to have blended together, and the more that she got attention for, and, or, um, felt that she might lose attention, uh, the more she might try to, um, do it the one way that she can, and that would be to behave sexually. So, she's putting herself, unfortunately, into a cycle of abuse or a cycle of alleging abuse as well. It was clear that what Mandy was saying was untrue. There were inconsistencies in her early statements. Mandy made three evidential interviews ` two in 2002, which were video recorded, and one in 2006, which was handwritten. In the first evidential interview, she said she'd been tickled all over and she'd never seen Sam naked. In the second interview, she says that Sam has slipped his hand, uh, inside her bra and touched her chest, uh, but that she has never seen him naked and he has never touched her vagina. Four years later, in the third interview, she talks about Sam kissing her on the mouth, raping her at home, raping her in the bushes, raping her every weekend, raping her when she's got chicken pox, raping her at significant family events and, in fact, raping her every opportunity he had. What had also been occurring in that four-year period is that Mandy had been under a counsellor, so she'd been receiving counselling ` some 280 sessions. Look, she would have agreed to everything they said. You know, 'Did he rape you?' 'Yes.' 'How many times ` 10 times?' 'Yes.' I mean, I could just envisage the whole scenario now. When she was in our care, no matter what we said to her or` or told her, she would always say, 'Yes.' She didn't understand no. She'd never say no. What we knew of her was that she was a young lass with learning difficulties; she had a, uh, slow, basic form of speech, and what we were presented with was an 18-page, typed statement, and what this one provided was a use of language that you would not subscribe to Mandy. It was a significant shift in terms of her abilities. I couldn't believe it. I thought, 'Crikey dick, what's going on here?' The whole thing was mind-blowing. Mandy had suddenly got over all the learning difficulties and disabilities that she had or there were someone else's words on that statement. Very few people are trained to ask questions in a way that won't contaminate the answer. So, the more questions she's asked, the more contaminated, and she would come to believe what has happened. If the therapist is coming from a place of 'I believe everything that you're saying' and uses a therapy that has questions that can be leading and uses a therapy that asks her to use her imagination, then you have a volatile mixture. It's very easy to engender false memories into somebody, let alone somebody who's been abused and somebody who's not articulate and doesn't understand what's being said to them. What we learned about the third police interview is that been conducted with her counsellor present. That led us to believe that this statement was not in her words and not from what she had said. The private investigator spoke with another foster-parent. What we discovered from that foster parent was that Mandy had been given albums of photographs of her childhood. The photographs corresponded exactly with the complaints that she was making. The detail in the photographs was the detail that was provided in the statement. What's more, the foster-mother recalls her sitting down with the photographs, talking about events around the photographs ` not sexual matters ` and then taking the photographs off to counselling. Something that she's shown might elicit those memories. She has been abused, so the elements of that, that she can talk to. If she's shown pictures, for example or if she's shown places, they get mixed up with the questions. Once we had that piece of information, it came as no surprise to us that a number of these complaints related to around significant events where a camera had been present. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) We could also prove that Mandy's allegations were false because Sam had an alibi for at least three of the events. I remember those birthday parties quite clearly. She attended for a while and then she was taken home early by Wife Two. And at those particular parties, the mother-in-law was there as well, and she left with them. She went home and looked after her, Mandy, in the same room. Mandy's allegation was that Sam had taken her home from that party, uh, where there was no one else was there, locked her in her bedroom and raped her. What are you doing in here? Come on, love, come and join the party. Come on. MAN: I can remember one of the parties that we were both at, and he was there right to the bitter end with me. I know, because he was telling me to stop opening the kegs. We hired a private investigator. He interviewed numerous people who had been at that party. We were able to prove that Sam had never left that party. It was also claimed that he had told her if she got pregnant, she wasn't to let anyone know he was the father. I mean, why on Earth would I ask that? I-I was sterilised 25 years ago, for God's sake. Why would somebody that's been sterilised worry about getting somebody pregnant? You know, it doesn't make any sense. So I went to the hospital, and I got the records of my vasectomy from 25 years ago, so` and I was able to give those to my solicitor. There was also the, uh, issue of the second most important witness for the Crown ` his ex-wife. What had precipitated the re-ignition of this particular case was that in 2005, Sam had taken up with, uh, a woman. It was a case of everything was fine until his wife wanted him to go back home, and, uh, he refused. She stood in the middle of the lawn and she started yelling out, 'You get that whore out of there. 'Get her out.' And then she took off in her car and skidded all over the lawn, and then she took off. That was it. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, because a couple of months later as a ` I say as a result of that ` uh, his ex-wife goes down and makes a complaint to the police, which avalanches into this new investigation. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) Look, the whole thing was just driven by pure vindictiveness. Because of my situation with Wife Two, I wouldn't go back home. She said she's... That's it, she's gonna find a way of getting me. 1 By 2006, the case had been cold for four years. What reactivated it was that Sam's ex went to the police, told them that she remembered all sorts of other things, and as a result of that, the police went and interviewed Mandy again. The point was ` they didn't take a statement from Mandy; they waited four more months before they actually spoke to Mandy. Sam's ex-wife also reconnected with Mandy. Despite telling us that she'd had no contact, we were able to show that there were regular phone calls, regular trips to see each other and regular computer contact. So, she was doing her utmost to assist Mandy in making this new complaint. Loading the gun, filling somebody up with a whole lot of ammunition and telling them what to say. My attitude towards Mandy is that she's been a bit simple, been very easily led and she was groomed. Groomed by a very controlling, nasty, vindictive person. Sam's ex-wife was vitriolic. She was reaching for any stick she could find to beat him about the head for having the temerity to move on with his life. Her statement to the police meant Mandy became one of those sticks. What the hell was going on? You know, why would a woman do that just out of vindictiveness? To ruin a man's life is shocking. To strip him completely. She wanted to blame me for anything she could get against me. You know, she wanted me in jail. That was the whole point of the exercise was to have me locked up. End of story. You know, it didn't matter if it was right or wrong, but she'd` and she'd go to any lengths to do it. To make matters worse, whilst he's on remand waiting for trial, there's hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damaged caused on the family home. Sam doesn't live there, but his ex-wife does. She, uh, when the` it's investigated by insurance agencies, points the fingers firmly at Sam that he was responsible for this act and that it was a deliberate act on his behalf. In fact, she swore an affidavit saying that Sam had done this and that he'd done it on purpose. I was nowhere in the area at the time. It would have been an impossibility. I was at work at the police station. I got a call of a motor vehicle accident, and I attended. He was one of the first vehicles that was stopped, and he was there assisting with traffic duty, and he was definitely out with me right through. He had a cast-iron alibi. He was nowhere near the matrimonial home. WIFE THREE: The more it went on, the more Sam went into himself. Just shut down. Hermit, really. Then he couldn't cope. Then he had to go to the doctor to get anti-depressants, and it's like, you know... How does a man's life turn around like that? What with the arrest, you know, and just the whole thing and the gossip, it` it had bashed the confidence out of me. I didn't have much confidence. You know, I started to doubt just about everything I did. And I think my mind started playing tricks on me, you know. Plus the fact that I was on some pretty heavy medication. Still never seen him so... so beaten, so depressed, so down. I mean, he's a strong man. I've never seen him so` so worried about something. Not being able to work, you know, is` is financially crippling. You know, you just struggle, and you struggle to hold on to your` your property, you struggle to hold on to everything you own. Humiliating. Just... humiliating. WIFE THREE: I saw him once leaning on the bench, and he was in bits. You know, I mean, it's really hard... to see him like that. For him to feel that kind of pain, particularly with something that he didn't do, and we knew he didn't do it. Can see how people decide to end it, you know, just finish it. Then I thought, 'Well, if I do that, 'then all I'm really doing is leaving a whole lot of people behind that are gonna be hurt by what I've done,' so... I chose the other way. I-I chose to fight it. It had taken us almost a year to get this case together to a position where we walked into that courtroom able to answer any allegation put to us by the Crown, via their complainant. We had enough ammunition to knock this thing down, you know? We really did. We` We didn't leave one stone unturned, one T uncrossed, one I undotted. And the night before the trial, I took a sleeping tablet, you know, so I managed to sleep through the night, but... You know, I had this tremendous feeling of anxiety. You know, and the thought of spending years and years in prison, I mean, it's bloody scary. You know, I was just freaking out. And especially as a paedophile, I mean... (SIGHS) I mean, I... It was hard. It was hard, and he just` he tried to be all upmarket. Uh, but you could see that he was worried silly, and we didn't know how long the case was gonna go on for either, you know? And, um, so he just said` he said, 'No. Please don't come.' He said, 'You know it's gonna be easier if you're not there.' I didn't want her to come with me. It's something I wanted to face on my own. I didn't want her to` to stress out or suffer with me. And yeah, so he went off, and I went off to work. So, I walked out the door, and I remember saying to myself, 'You'll be coming back here. Yeah. 'You're not gonna be leaving here.' So, I drove into court. I still had feelings of anxiety, and, yeah, quite anxious, but... I had a... I felt` I felt confident, you know, quietly confident. We had child psychologists; we had private investigators; we had everyone set up, ready to go. This was the day that Sam was able to answer all of those allegations and clear his name. Only that didn't happen. 1 1 On the 3rd of August 2009, I went to court to face 22 charges of rape and sexual assault. The charges were read out. I pleaded not guilty. Then they call their first witness ` Mandy. So, Mandy came into the court, sat down, gave her name. She then says, 'I don't want to give evidence.' And the judge says, 'Are you not feeling right? Would you like to come back tomorrow?' And she says, 'Yes,' and so away she goes. So they decided to adjourn until the next morning. The next day, she turns up, walks into court, is sworn in. Then I was taken from the court and put into the lock-up at the back of the courthouse, and I just waited, you know, I waited and I probably waited 15 minutes, and I` of course, I couldn't hear, I didn't know what was going on, and I was just stressed right out. You know, my pulse rate was going through the roof, and the pressure was on. She is asked to say what happened ` doesn't want to say anything. Judge encourages her to try and speak ` she doesn't want to. Case over. I didn't know what was happening, and then this man appeared at the window and he asked me how I was feeling, and I said, 'Yeah, I'm OK,' and it was Rob Harrison, and he said, 'You come with me,' you know, 'Come back into the courtroom with me.' So the warden unlocked the door, and he opened it, and normally he escorted me into the court, but this time he didn't. So, I walked into the court room and the judge said, 'You're free to go.' Whoomph-a. Whoomph-a. It` It just felt like this 10-tonne weight had been lifted off my back. So, Rob and myself, we took off out into the foyer. You know, I remember he gave me my passport back, we had a couple of cigarettes and then we drove to Wife Three's place of work. When he walked into work, it was just an amazing feeling of relief. (CHUCKLES) She was pretty` She was pretty pleased to see me. So, for Sam, he's just had a jury of 12 hearing about 22 horrific accounts. He can't answer it. He can't put any suggestion to her that this is not true. He can't, uh, put to his ex-wife her involvement in all of this. None of that happens, because at that stage, when she doesn't want to give evidence, and that's the only evidence they have, 347 ` discharged. It's deemed an acquittal, but it's not really an acquittal for Sam. I wish that we'd had the whole day in court, and we could have aired this thing out, you know? And people would have seen what a bunch of bullshit, what a pack of lies this was, because we had the proof beyond any doubt whatsoever. We had the proof, and we would have proved it that day in court. So, he walks back out into this close-knit community that he has lived in for a good part of his life. Everyone in that community's saying he got off on a technicality. The next morning, I got a phone call from a local woman saying there'd been this circular drop, and she had this letter in her mailbox and it said, uh, 'Be careful. 'There's a` a paedophile in the area.' And everybody who got that drop would have known who that was referring to. So, while he's deemed not guilty, according to that community he lives in, he's just another bloody paedophile. Some of the people were so upset about it, they took it to the local police station. And we knew Wife Two had done the drop. It was done in her car. She had them printed, and she had somebody else deliver them. (CAR ENGINE STARTS) And I just thought, 'When is this ever gonna stop?' This bloody nonsense, you know, it's just time to give it up. And she did phone me a couple of months later. I said, 'What do you want? 'You know, what are you phoning me for?' And she said, 'Oh, oh, I want to make my peace.' And I said, 'Oh yeah, well, you'd better bring your bloody chequebook.' (SIGHS) Of course, that didn't happen. Even to this day, we go out, you know, and you still wonder who's saying what and how, cos there are still rumours going around that he's a paedophile. He just prefers to be at home. I think it's hard to live in the same district when a percentage of the population think that you're... you know, you did it, that you got off on a technicality. You know, and that's a` that's a hard thing to deal with, but life goes on. I know I didn't do it. I know I didn't do it. You know, so you've just gotta get on with it, so I just carry on. I know that we've... We` We don't even talk about it any more, cos we don't have to. Well, I'm just shocked that it ever got to a point of going to court. Mandy'd had enough in her life, and Sam had done a good thing and` and helped her. And I fully believe that Sam never did anything wrong. My cell phone rang, and I was shocked. It was Mandy. It` It was Mandy's voice on the phone. And I said, 'How did you get my number?' And she said, 'I'm getting married. Bye.' You know, I didn't want to speak to her. I was still a bit bitter. But she had a disastrous life, that girl. She had a disastrous life, and I felt so sorry for her. I felt pity for her. What this case highlights is that the horrendous physical and sexual abuse suffered by Mandy in her early years has impacted not only on her, but everyone that come in contact with her. The real offender in this case is the male relative from way back when. He's destroyed Mandy's life, and by the fact that you come in association with Mandy, the ripples keep going out. You know, I think the blame lies with the way her case was handled, the way CYFs handled her case. When she was placed in our home, we had no idea who she was, you know, or where` or where she'd come from, you know, or how she'd been treated. They failed that child. They failed that child, and they failed me big-bloody-time. TEARFULLY: It's not fair. It's not fair what he's been through. If I'd gone back home, none of this would have happened ` none of these allegations. Wife Two gave a damning statement to the police just to hook me up. There's no doubt about it. No doubt whatsoever. She was just out to get me. My name is Sam, and I've been ruined by claims that I sexually abused and raped my foster-daughter. But I am not a rapist, and I am not a paedophile. I am innocent.