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That new chapter began by treating COM as a full time job. Louise became the Managing Director of Calling Out Monsters. The small office she rented was operated by a clerical assistant, Susan Holst, who managed the paperwork and filing, and made a database of the contacts they needed to function effectively. Mary still worked full-time at the High School and came in daily to catch up on events. Susan was a creative person who was full of ideas. She handled the clerical workload easily and was obviously becoming bored with her job. Louise asked her to organise publicity, starting with a series of television documentaries.
The first programme Susan organised was filmed around their first prosecution, a legal assistant charging her manager with sexual abuse. Susan set to work and produced scripts for the case where the woman was in a most uncomfortable situation with her boss. She was being told that if she did not play the sex game he would replace her with someone more amenable. After all, the previous holders of her job had been compliant, so why wouldn’t she. Using her script as a guide to what might happen, Susan sold the rights to the story to a television company. The actual drama had to filmed as the case progressed.
COM was underway and gathering momentum. Mary and Louise used the Arbitration Court for their challenge on behalf of the young law graduate because it was a workplace matter: ‘you want to work here, be nice to me’, a cry that brought in six new complainants after the programme had aired. The story was told in a matter of fact way, something that Louise insisted upon. First, the leaders of COM were introduced. Louise had no problem with this; she did not feel nervous at all because it was something that she knew had to be done. Mary stayed more in the background because she was still working for the Wahanui High School Board, who had handled Louise’s failed complaint about Bannister.
The complainant had name suppression throughout and following the hearing. She was known simply as Miss M. At first it was a classic case of ‘she says he says’. She was just starting out in the practice of law, he was a fifty year old solicitor with a large practice and four other staff. He was happily married to a socialite, went to church regularly, played golf with professional associates, and had engaged an investigator who claimed to have a witness who was present when Miss M used cocaine. Another witness said that like many students with huge Student Loans, Miss M regularly walked the streets.
Miss M’s barrister used the report commissioned by COM that showed the investigators had faked the evidence and had paid witnesses to lie. Unlike Harris’s report, Miss M’s investigator was present in Court and could be cross-examined.
As a result of the investigator’s disclosure, Harris was charged with perjury and subsequently barred from practice by the Law Society. The detective agency closed down but that did not stop the Court charging the principals with perverting the course of justice. As a result of that investigation, the private investigator and Harris faced further charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and went to prison. The Law Society called for an investigation of such practices throughout the Hamilton region. Right through New Zealand fear of denunciation rippled through law offices and many women suddenly found they were no longer under threat. It was a complete and utter victory for Calling Out Monsters.
Following her performance in the first programme, Louise was asked to front the rest of the series Susan had planned, a series of documentaries about the problems women faced to gain justice for sexual abuse. She used an actress to replace the fifty two year old woman to tell her story of a male family friend who came to visit regularly over a period of seven years. While staying in the family home, the man sexually abused the woman, who was then a girl of fourteen. He even managed to have sex with her while the family was camping. As the woman detailed the long term effects on her ability to sustain relationships later in life she broke down and cried. The audiences on all media found the programme very moving. A roll up at the end of the documentary stated that although actors had been used to portray the events, the victim was satisfied that the portrayal was accurate in every way.
The third story was of a man who at the age of nine was taken into care by a church orphanage. He was abused so often by priests that he needed hospitalization. When released from hospital the welfare authorities managed to place him on a farm in Earnscleugh in Central Otago. His voice was disguised and he was shown only in silhouette but the emotion in his voice as he told his story brought many to tears.
For many years after his ordeal the authorities would not accept his story. Louise and Mary’s team found survivors from the same Dunedin orphanage and children’s home who had similar stories to tell. COM traced the priests that these men named and challenged the church concerned. One priest in particular had risen in the Church to become a Bishop.
The release of this documentary caused an uproar. The Government ordered an investigation into the orphanage and the treatment by church authorities of complaints of sexual abuse. The bishop resigned and fled to Ireland. The School Board of a Catholic high school named in his honour was forced to consider renaming the school. Throughout New Zealand, victims of institutional abuse began to rise up and to seek help.
Louise expected Father Larkin to turn against her as a result but he said that she had found her pathway. Her courage was exemplary and would lead other women to be brave enough to expose the truth. He said to follow God’s will as she understood it, but to be aware of vanity posing as a false voice.
After the showing of the story of abuse of the boy in a church orphanage, Kezia rang.
“Mum, that programme was amazing!” she said as soon as Louise answered her call.
Louise was very embarrassed. She did not quite know what to say to Kezia. She had thought that she would remain a quiet figure, that those around her would not be affected. How wrong she was. Instead she had become the leader of a crusade, an internationally recognised figure with calls to visit other countries to call out their monsters.
Kezia broke Louise’s silence, with “Mum, you were absolutely brilliant. All my friends were in tears. They all know I’m your daughter, and you know what? I’m proud of it.”
“I’m sorry, Kezia,” said Louise. “It wasn’t meant to spread to you.”
“Mum! It’s great. It’s what the country needed. There’s awful stuff everywhere, and those guys just get away with it. Can I do Mr Bannister?”
Louise did not want Kezia involved. As she now felt strong enough, empowered in a way she had never been empowered before, she said, “I’ll do it Kezia. I’ll do it for you.”
David Bannister was a worried man. Nobody had stepped forward to make allegations against him but he knew he was on borrowed time. He did not know it but the next television documentary would be about him. He decided that the Labour Day holiday would be a good time. It was also the time of a new moon. Bannister was a groomer who loved to stalk his prey to find out about his target and her family. He was used to moving about in the dark. If he was challenged, he would say that he wanted to ensure Louise, a woman who would probably be alone on a three day public holiday, was all right. He knew he would be believed. He still had credibility.
He did not realise how quickly that credibility could disappear.