Sarah Kopp

You just need someone to take the reins and be like, oh my gosh, you know, I believe you and I can understand the situation and I'm going to help.

I'm going to take charge and help you and I believe in you to sort of give you the courage to keep going because it's so easy to, you get hit one little roadblock and it's like, mm-mm-mm.

Yeah, I actually found out that he'd been talking to another woman, and I think that was it for me.

I just, in that moment I realised he was a liar.

Because I think most of what held me there was this premise that he was at least honest and truthful, and he was the, you know, everything that came out of his mouth was the truth.

And in that moment I just went, what else is a lie?

And that's what I guess, yeah, led me to leave.

And then I had grappled with whether or not I report the crimes against me when I was a child, because I was so concerned that he was still teaching and I didn't want anyone else to have to go through that same thing.

Um,

But yeah, I just, I didn't know if anyone would ever believe me.

But after, you know, a few years or so, probably five or so years after I left him, I remember I was at my best friend's house, the same best friend that I had at school, talking about it.

And she was like, why don't we just call the police and get them to come here if that makes you feel safer?

And I was like, look, okay, sure.

And that kind of got the ball rolling.

We rang the police together and they said they were going to send out a car.

But then it wasn't long, they called back and said, look, it might be better if you come to this station.

Just because of the sensitive nature of it, not all officers would be equipped to deal with that kind of stuff.

So we got sent to a police station that had a CIB, Criminal Investigations Branch.

And that's when I sat down with Detective Julia Ward for the very first time, who was the detective that investigated my case and, you know, continued to be involved with it the whole way through.

I was shocked as well.