Families hiding dark secrets of child incest and abuse
Behind the doors of suburban houses across Australia lie family secrets of incest and abuse so dark the world was left in shock when they were exposed.
In December, a shocking case of intergenerational child abuse was brought to the forefront of the media.
Disturbing and depraving secrets of the normally picturesque Australian area emerged, alleging children born from generations of incest, unwashed and with physical deformities, lived together in a cult with others.
Now, the 12 children removed from the squalid incest camp are displaying highly sexualised behaviour in the foster homes and institutions, according to News Ltd.
How could the children not be damaged from four generations of inbreeding, degradation and rampant child sex?
They were found living on a remote farm in a malnourished state in a community of 40, barely able to speak and without running water and electricity for most of their lives.
Those who could speak told police of the sexual abuse they experienced, allegedly mostly at the hands of their siblings and cousins.
Reports suggested brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts had sex with each other over four generations. They then raised children who grew up to become intimate with each other and conceive more inbred children in the small community.
Authorities said that some of the children were unable to read or write, wash their own hair, use a toothbrush, bathe themselves or use toilet paper. Nearly all of the children suffered from fungal infections on their feet.
Some of the children even had oddly-formed body features, a result of identical gene patterns from both of the children's parents.
Even the children were sexually involved with each other.
In an ordinary house in a working class Victorian suburb, a father imprisoned and and began abusing his daughter when she was just 11 years old.
For nearly 30 years, he told her she was "damaged" and unlovable as he forced himself on her twice a day.
He aggressively subdued his daughter and fathered four children, who were all disabled.
"You're damaged goods," he used to say to her.
"No one will want you now."
A court later heard how the girl tried to run away but couldn't escape the man who would slam her against and wall and punch her in the stomach for refusing to have sex with him.
When the father was arrested, he told police "I'll kill the bitch".
By the time he reached court, the girl's father had sexually abused his daughter for two-thirds of her life.
Another Australian man abused his three daughters over two decades, even offering them to other men for sex and forcing them to perform sexual acts on animals, according to News Ltd.
But these are not simply isolated incidents.
Leone Shiels, co-ordinator of the Incest Survivors Association, holds counselling sessions with more than three people each week.
She says only one in seven reports of child incest ends in prosecution.
"Children become isolated due to the perpetrator's need to silence the child and to prevent the abuse from becoming known to the wider community," she told News Ltd.
"Threats, lies and manipulation are often used to ensure secrecy and continued involvement.
"In incestuous families, there are often rigid boundaries with regard to outsiders, leaving the child socially, psychologically and physically isolated.
Over 40 percent of children sexually abused before the age of 15 suffer the abuse from a male relative and more than 30 percent are abused by someone they know, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
"For many survivors of incest, there may be intergenerational incest within their family," Shiels says.
"However... research indicates victimisation does not cause later reoffending: not all victims of sexual or physical abuse become perpetrators, and not all sexual offenders have experienced abuse as children."
FACS defends NSW incest case response
New South Wales Family and Community Services has defended its handling of allegations of incest and generational abuse within the Colt family,
Chief Executive Maree Walk says it was an extremely complex case, particularly because the family had moved states several times.
"This family did not want to be found," she said.
"Some of the families that we work with are very open and seeking for help but that wasn't the circumstances here."
Ms Walk says the department has been working with interstate colleagues to try to link up and find all branches of the family.
"I think our workers have done incredibly tenacious and focused work," she said.
The Minister Pru Goward says the case is extremely complex and it took a while for the full picture to emerge.
"It was taken very seriously," she said.
"Sadly the initial reports had been about educational neglect and they are issues that the Education Department and Community Services dealt with as just a simple factor instead of recognising as we eventually did that it was a much more complex family situation."
