Bridie

Bridie was only allowed to sit in the gallery once her testimony had been given. It was one of the many rules of the court; she was learning them as she went. Inside this wood-panelled room was a parallel universe. The judge was King, the court officers his minions, the legal personnel court entertainers, and the jury members visiting royalty. Bridie liked the rules and formality, the sense of performance. She liked how the judge – a short round man in his fifties – had the final say in the various disagreements that broke out. She liked Madame Crown’s gravitas and fashion: sharp suits, high heels, statement pieces of jewellery. Bridie was toying with the idea of doing a law degree when she finished school next year.

The trial, after three never-ending weeks, was coming to a close. The prosecution had taken up most of the proceedings; the defence had only a handful of witnesses, mainly to give the illusion of reasonable doubt. The court sat from ten to four every day, with breaks for recess and lunch. On one of the days the jury had been taken on a bus tour to the Central Coast, to examine the house where Bridie had been kept captive. The house belonged to a relative of Joel Hashem: an elderly uncle who’d recently been put in a nursing home. Bridie’s DNA was all over the bedroom, bathroom and even in the ceiling cavity: the forensics specialist had been particularly fascinating to listen to.

The Crown was now giving her closing summation. ‘Your Honour, members of the jury, this was a crime that was premeditated and planned in ruthless detail, beginning with George Pearson exploiting Bridie Sullivan with the theft of private videos recorded by his daughter, Lily Pearson. Bridie’s videos were particularly popular on the dark web with a certain community, which included Joel Hashem, who offered a generous sum to have the girl in the videos delivered to him. Unfortunately, Bridie fitted a profile that was attractive to Hashem: fair-skinned, blue-eyed, young, inexperienced. George Pearson could have refused. George Pearson could have gone to the police. Instead, George Pearson made the unconscionable decision to use Bridie Sullivan, a young girl who knew and trusted him, as collateral to extinguish his debts.’

Bridie couldn’t help looking over to the dock, at the man who’d tutored her in maths, told goofy jokes, supplied hundreds of lifts before that last one when she’d tuned in to the Coldplay song on the radio. She still couldn’t reconcile his actions in her head. Her psychologist said that everyone is made up of good and bad; it’s when we are put under stress that we see what we are truly capable of. Mr Pearson’s financial stress exposed his lack of morals and callousness. By contrast, Bridie’s stress during and after the abduction had revealed her fighting spirit and resourcefulness.

‘Similarly, Ms Vaughen supplied videos of young women in the tattoo shop as a payment in kind for her outstanding loans and burgeoning interest. She was offered $25,000 for her role in the abduction, enough to wipe her debts. Instead of simply refusing, or informing the police, she knowingly proceeded with the planning and execution of a terrible crime,’ the Crown stated solemnly. ‘Ms Vaughen installed spyware on Bridie’s phone, purchased a last-minute single-seat ticket to the concert, engineered a text that appeared to be from Fitz Johnson: meet me at the bathroom. She injected Bridie with the drug GHB before delivering her to Mr Pearson’s car and a potentially horrific fate … The fact that she has since shown remorse and a level of cooperation will no doubt be a factor in sentencing.’

Nobody on the prosecution side was admitting this, but the evidence on Mr Pearson and Joel Hashem wasn’t as strong as they would have liked. The truck driver’s dashcam had captured the make and model of Mr Pearson’s car, but only a partially legible rego. Bridie’s DNA had survived the car detailing, vomit particles (ewww!) and strands of hair detected by forensics. But the defence had claimed that her DNA would have been in the car from previous trips, raising doubt even though she insisted that she’d only been in Mr Pearson’s new car once before, and on that occasion sitting in the front seat, not the back. More doubt generated from the fact that Bridie hadn’t seen the face of either man; she’d only heard their voices. And she’d been under the influence of drugs, hallucinating at times, which she’d conceded under cross-examination. With regard to Joel Hashem, the prosecution was relying on the car incident in outer Gosford, access to keys for his uncle’s house, and evidence of pornographic material on his devices. All of which were circumstantial.

The Crown looked directly at the jury. ‘This is a most serious crime, a crime that will affect Bridie Sullivan for the rest of her life …’

That much was true. Bridie suffered from nightmares, claustrophobia, intense anxiety. She was clingy, tearful, a bit wilder than before. She’d had a short fling with Fitz, an even shorter fling with a girl at school. She had two close friends who’d supported her through the worst of it: Imogen and Caitlin Hewitt-Franklin. Lily and her mum had moved to Hong Kong to live with family. Bridie had sent Lily a message a few weeks after the ordeal.

You are not responsible for your dad. I don’t blame you.

Lily didn’t reply. She was employing her right to silence. Just like her father.

Bridie still missed Lily, in the way that you missed someone who had once been the centre of your universe. No matter who came to take their place, there was still a void, an ache. Bridie’s celebrity factor guaranteed invitations to a constant stream of social events. Sometimes it felt as though she were on a roller-coaster and couldn’t get off. Sometimes – this was crazy but also true – she yearned for the loneliness and boredom that preceded the abduction.

‘Despite the trauma experienced by Bridie, the facts remain that the abduction was the start, not the end. Joel Hashem planned to engage in, record, distribute and profit from sexual and violent acts …’

Bridie tuned out, preferring not to hear the gory details. Her dad, similarly, was staring at his knees: they were alike in that way, a bit ‘soft’. She focused on the facts as they’d occurred, muting the Crown’s dire postulations about sexual abuse and even death. She had been saved by a distracted mother who failed to stop fully at a red light. She was saved by the fact that her dad spent a lot of time in ceiling cavities, parts of a house other people never really thought about. She was saved by a horse owner, a particularly observant truck driver called Dean, and a statewide alert with a specific emphasis on the Central Coast. In a weird way, getting sick in the car had also helped: forcing Mr Pearson to stop on the freeway, helping with the truckie’s evidence and the DNA from the vomit particles. Apparently, vomiting was a common effect of combining alcohol and GHB; those covert drinks on the train had ultimately come to her aid.

Most of all, Bridie was saved by her own ingenuity, strength of character, determination and courage. She wasn’t going to downplay her own role, no way!

Bridie was saved and Bridie was safe. She just had to keep reminding herself.