My Story

I'm sharing some of my story: multiplicity, organised crime and the cover up of child sexual abuse.

How do I allow others to see me when I can’t see myself? I look in the mirror and don’t recognise her. I look over old photos and wonder why I feel so disconnected from that Mel. She’s me, but not me. I miss knowing her. Some would say she was full of insecurity, shy, and, as a familiar phrase I often heard, “crazy.” Was she crazy, or was she multiple sides of the one person?

When I look back over my childhood, I see it enveloped by a hazy darkness. Nothing is fully reachable. But it feels so real in my body, it stops me from sleeping. Not fully knowing is the hardest part. Gaps in memory make it hard not to believe they might be right. I’m mad.

There aren’t too many photos of me in childhood. School photos were the most reliable source. I looked neat with my hair done and a clean uniform. A way we kept up appearances as a family.

When the gaps fill with remembering, I still don’t fully know us. But we are learning more as we turn inward. Turning towards the darkness, instead of running in the opposite direction. When I slow down, I hear them, chatting amongst themselves, congregating and planning what to reveal to me next.

My therapist asked me this week if the voices were inside or outside my mind. I know what she was thinking: checking to see if my madness was in the acceptable lines of plurality. Multiplicity is so misunderstood that even speaking about my personal experience of alters is risky. Will they deem me too mad to be in society? Will they lock me up and throw away the key? If it were the 1800s, then the answer would probably be yes. “She’s hysterical!”

My mind fragmented so I could cope with extreme, inescapable childhood trauma. The scary thing is, the more I learn about organised crime involving the trafficking of children, the more I realise how common this experience actually is. Underground child trafficking and child abuse material networks exist throughout Australia. They involve police departments, politicians and judges who keep it well hidden through using the legal system.

The world has been shocked by the enormity of the Epstein files and the unveiling of satanic child trafficking networks in the US. Yet Australia has its own files full of the same kind of networks under a suppression order for over 90 years. Australia’s files contain a list of 28 prominent child sex offenders, including a previous Prime Minister named in the Wood Royal Commission. In 2015, Senator Bill Heffernan requested that Parliament name the judges on the list who continue to allow corruption through the family court system. It is alleged that children were being intentionally removed from their childhood homes to be filtered into the underground trafficking rings while they were in foster care. Heffernan’s request to include the legal system in the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse was denied.

The Wood Royal Commission in the 90’s revealed pervasive corruption in NSW police. This corruption included the mishandling of child sexual abuse claims, from losing paperwork to not properly investigating claims. The NSW police force was linked to child brothels in Sydney and the widespread distribution of child abuse material. The police covered up critical information linked to this network and utilised drug syndicates to fund the network. Two Underbelly TV series were based on the findings of the Wood Royal Commission, but they conveniently left out details of the cover-up of child sexual abuse.

My hometown, Wollongong, was included in the Commission. The discovery of similar cover-ups and mishandling of child sexual abuse claims was uncovered, together with its own child trafficking network, led by the Mayor of Wollongong, Frank Arkell. Police throughout Wollongong were involved, including my father, who was a police officer at the time of the corruption.

My father trafficked me into this network. The network included institutions and professionals such as my church, my school, the police force, doctors and politicians. Programming/rituals were used on the children in the network. This programming ensured dissociation and control of their little minds. In addition to child trafficking, child abuse material was distributed from the ring.

These themes are difficult to comprehend, and I know it’s easier to bury your head in the sand and decide this couldn’t be as bad as what survivors/victims say. We have clearly seen this reaction with the Epstein files. I’ve heard people call them a conspiracy theory. They are publicly available to search on the United States government website. Yet, believing that the Epstein child trafficking network was a fabricated story feels more comfortable for some people.

I don’t have the privilege of disbelief. I have a bodymind that knows the truth of what we have been through. Child sex trafficking, child abuse material, family violence, pregnancy at the age of 12 years old and extreme betrayal. I am plural, so I could live through it all and stand to tell my story. Some days, the remembering is too much to bear, and some days I am grateful for the dissociation. But at no point can I pretend it didn’t happen. My body knows the story.

More school photos: my kindy photo, then when I was 10 and lastly when I was 5.

Let’s stand together and demand change

The information I have shared here is publicly available, including Senator Bill Heffernan’s speech, findings from two Royal Commissions, the Epstein files, and information relating to Frank Arkell’s involvement in child trafficking networks.

These are difficult and deeply confronting topics, but they are important conversations to have. We can research, listen to survivors/victims stories, and advocate for stronger protections for children. We can call for greater transparency from governments and institutions, including the release of the 28 names that may help expose abuse and protect communities.

We can choose to fight against child abuse, or we can silently watch it continue. We can choose to listen to plurals who had no choice but to fragment, instead of labelling them mentally ill. And we can stand united to participate in the protection of future victims.

Further information:

Eklund, E. (2025). Politics, pride and perversion: The rise and fall of Frank Arkell. ANU Press. https://doi.org/10.22459/PPP.2025

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. (2017). Final report. Commonwealth of Australia.

The Aussie Report. (2021, January 7). Senator Bill Heffernan’s speech Australia [Video]. YouTube.

Wood, J. R. T. (1997). Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service: Final report. Volume IV: The paedophile inquiry. New South Wales Government.