TRIGGER WARNING: This article discusses sensitive topics. Please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 if you are in need of support.
Nicole Meyer knows the exact number of days and weeks it’s been since her abuser was found not guilty on a range of historic sex offences against her.
“The verdict still impacts me deeply, it’s still very hard for me to accept it,” Nicole, from Melbourne, tells New Idea.
“There’s my whole life before the verdict, and then my life after it. I felt a lot of shame but then something changed inside me. I realised there was no way I was going to allow her to silence me.”
Along with her sisters, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper, Nicole was abused by the now-convicted sex offender Malka Leifer between 2003 and 2007.
The sisters’ 15-year campaign to bring Leifer to justice is charted in the documentary, ‘Revealed – Surviving Malka Leifer,’ which premieres on Stan on Sunday, October 5.
Chatting with New Idea two weeks before the airing, Nicole, now 40, says her and her sisters’ first time watching the film was “very confronting”.
“But there was a sense of pride that we did this; we are not survivors shamed into silence,” Nicole explains.
“We are survivors who are standing strong, we’re having a voice – and not only that, we are also saying our voice is loud to help other survivors. We wanted to create change so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Leifer was the principal at the ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel School in Melbourne’s southeast, where the sisters attended.
For years, the trio claimed Leifer had isolated and sexually abused them on campus, at school camps, and inside her own home.
When her crimes were first reported, Leifer secretly fled to Israel, thus beginning a near-decades long fight for the sisters to have her extradited to Australia to face trial.
Their campaign for justice not only strengthened their resolve in themselves, but in the unbreakable bond they now share.
“Sometimes when families go through abuse, often there can be a trauma bond that can scatter the siblings as they grow older,” Nicole, the eldest sibling, says.
“But with us, we became really close and very protective, and that’s continued from being children into adulthood. There’s a strength in the three of us together.”
For Nicole, witnessing Dassi and Elly endure the traumatic trial process, where Leifer’s defence team accused them of telling “blatant lies”, was something that propelled her to want to help future victims.
She is now studying law in the hopes of using her lived experience to change the legal system.
“I want to help victims from the other side. I’ve been through it, and I want to be there to give them the tools to feel empowered,” Nicole, a mum of four, says.
She also supports victims online and is an Ambassador for National Survivors’ Day.
By continuing to speak out, Nicole hopes she can raise awareness about how abuse can thrive in silence.
“I hope [the film] will be met without judgment or criticism, and with openness to see this is a survivors’ story,” she says.
“It happened in Australia, but this can impact communities around the world.”
If you or someone you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Where to watch Revealed – Surviving Malka Leifer?
Surviving Malka Leifer premieres on Stan on Sunday, October 5.
