Leifer complainant ‘couldn’t mouth the words’

AS the criminal trial of former Adass Israel principal Malka Leifer resumed in open court this week, psychologist Dr Vicki Gordon told the County Court of Victoria that Elly Sapper, one of Leifer’s alleged sex-abuse victims, was unable to verbally express descriptions to her of Leifer’s alleged abuse.

Recounting a 2008 counselling session with Sapper, Gordon told the court, “She would SMS me from inside the room from her chair opposite me because she couldn’t mouth the words. She couldn’t use the words.”

Leifer, 56, an Israeli mother of eight, faces 29 charges related to sexual abuse, including rape, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a child aged 16 or 17 under her care or supervision. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

She sat in court on Monday, following the case intently and taking notes.

In relating the alleged abuse she suffered as a teenager in Leifer’s school office and in the principal’s home, Sapper had texted the psychologist that Leifer had been “touching me in places all over my body. Never liked it. She could see this but would continue. She would never listen to me,” Sapper had communicated to Gordon, according to handwritten notes taken by the psychologist.

“She would say to me I’d never be able to give a man pleasure. She told me I needed it because I never had warmth and affection at home. She said it was for me but I didn’t want it.”

In cross-examination, Gordon said it was likely that most of her notes from weekly sessions with Sapper had been “inadvertently destroyed”.

Gordon had begun assisting at the Adass school at Leifer’s request, after the principal had asked her to help with students who were in difficulties.

Another counsellor, Professor Lorraine Dennerstein, said Nicole Meyer had spoken to her in 2014 and 2017 about allegedly being abused while at school. Dennerstein said Meyer had characterised her home life as “shit”, and Leifer made her feel “like someone cared”.

The trial was held in open session from Monday this week after two weeks in which proceedings had been closed to the public and to media, as Sapper and her sisters, co-complainants Dassi Erlich and Nicole Meyer, gave evidence in closed court.

On Monday, Joshua Erlich, ex-husband of Dassi, testified that his wife had spoken highly of Leifer during their 2006-11 relationship and marriage.

He became aware of the sisters’ unhappy relations with their parents, and that Leifer was seen as a person of trust by his wife.

Erlich said his wife informed him Leifer would “rub her thigh in an affectionate way” and Dassi and Leifer would lie in bed together and talk.

He said he overheard a phone call between Dassi and one of her sisters in which Dassi appeared confused as to why a counsellor in Israel, Chana Rabinowitz, “was making such a big deal” about matters discussed with her.

Erlich said Dassi initially told Rabinowitz about alleged abuse by Leifer during counselling in Israel in 2007-08.

He overheard his wife talking to Meyer about the conversation with the counsellor, and her disclosure to Rabinowitz about Leifer being “affectionate” and “like a surrogate mother” had caused the counsellor great concern.

Meyer had later confirmed to Rabinowitz her sister’s disclosures.

Dassi held great fears about what would happen if these incidents became public in her community, said Erlich.

Under cross-examination, Erlich agreed that he overheard Dassi and Nicole Meyer laughing and “working out ways to harass Mrs Leifer”.

Asked by Leifer’s barrister Ian Hill, “She was speaking about it like it was a fun and exciting thing to do?”, Erlich replied, “Yes.”

At the trial’s beginning, Crown prosecutor Justin Lewis had said the sisters had been sheltered from the mainstream world and had no knowledge of sexual relations as they grew up. He alleged the sisters had a difficult home life and that Leifer had won their trust, which she proceeded to exploit, abusing them over a number of years.

Hill described allegations against his client as “erroneous, imagined and/or fabricated”…  Mrs Leifer denies all of the criminal conduct alleged by each of the complainants.”

The trial before Judge Mark Gamble continues.