The moment a mum discovered her husband was a monster
The wife of a man who drugged her before sexually assaulting her daughter has spoken about the moment she discovered her husband was a “monster”.
Timothy James Stewart was jailed for more than 30 years in November 2017 after he was found guilty of preying on one young girl relentlessly before she was even a teenager, videoing the horrific acts for his own pleasure.
She endured four years of vile degradation from her stepfather, a man she should have been able to trust.
Stewart once told his young victim it would destroy her family if it ever got out, but she spoke out regardless.
In a column published in the Sydney Morning Herald, the unnamed mum told of how she realised her husband of 12 years was a “monster”.
She said her daughter started refusing to call him dad and told her mother she didn’t know who he really was.
“The minute she said it, I knew. A pit opened up in my stomach. I told him, ‘Everything she says, points to you being inappropriate with her’,” the mother said.
She is telling her story after she spent almost four years trying to get justice.
“Because of the legal living hell my life became for the next four years, I do have times where I wish I’d found him and, instead of taking the legal route, pushed him off a cliff,” she said.
“I remember the detective telling us the case would take two years and I said, ‘No way’. I would gladly take two years now because it took double that.”
Living in southwest Sydney where the closest family court is over an hour away, the mother said during the legal battle she lost her job as her contract was not renewed because she had to miss so much work for court proceedings.
She is supporting a campaign by the Law Society of NSW, backed by locals councils, the NSW Police Association and the Greater Sydney Commission, to build a justice precinct in southwest Sydney.
If you or somebody you know is struggling contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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