
Content Warning: This post discusses child abuse and may be triggering to some readers.
Jennifer Haynes has waited decades to “smack” her father in the mouth over his monstrous sexual abuse and she assumed 33 of her 2500 personalities to do so.
“I’m not chickening out,” the 49-year-old said through tears as she stared him down in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court on Friday.
Richard Haynes, 74, pleaded guilty mid-trial in March to dozens of counts of rape, buggery and indecent assault committed against Jennifer in the 1970s and 1980s.
Ms Haynes, who has consented to be identified, was aged between four and 11 at the time.
She said there were insufficient words “to do justice to the enormity” of the impact of his abuse on her life.
But vile, extreme, sadistic, inescapable, unavoidable and overwhelming were some of the words she uttered at Haynes’ sentence hearing before Judge Sarah Huggett.
She looked across at her father – who smirked and stared down in the dock for the hearing – and declared: “Scum.”
“He heard me beg him to stop, he heard me cry, he saw the pain, the terror he was inflicting upon me,” she said, reading from her lengthy victim impact statement.
Watch Jeni Haynes on 60 Minutes. Post continues after video.
“He saw the blood and the physical damage he caused and the next day he chose to do it all over again. My dad’s abuse was calculated and it was planned.”
Ms Haynes said her father made her feel valueless and less than human.
She has dissociative identity disorder – previously known as multiple personality disorder.
Her father’s sexual abuse forced her to develop the thousands of personalities as the only way to cope, including “Muscles” and four-year-old “Symphony”, who were two of the 33 identities she embodied on Friday while giving evidence.
Top Comments
We are all pleading to the judge. Do the right thing! DON'T FAIL JENI like the justice system has failed so many others!
What an absolute monster. What an extraordinary woman Jeni is.