This video segment by A Current Affair shares the brave story of Jessica Gardiner, a young woman who survived and later fought for justice after she spent years being physically and sexually abused by her father, Peter Gardiner.
“I think the hardest part is the fact that I was so innocent and I was so vulnerable,” Jessica says. She solemnly recalls the abuse she endured at the hands of her own father. “He was always just abusing us, swearing at us, pushing us, from my earlier memories. I was petrified.”
Jessica recalls dreading her brother’s weekly karate lesson because that meant her mother would leave the house, and that gave her father ample time to abuse her. She also remembers dreading going to bed at night because he would show up in the dark of the night when everyone else in the house was asleep.
The abuse went on for years, from the time Jessica was 5 years old until she was 11. It was only when she was at school in sex education class did she finally learn that what her dad was doing to her was not normal and very wrong.
After her epiphany at school, the next time her father came into her bedroom at night, Jessica recalls looking him dead in the eye and telling him no. That was when the abuse finally stopped.
Unfortunately, when Jessica tried to tell her mother about the abuse about a year later, her mother initially didn’t believe her due to her father’s vehement denial.
About 10 years later, when the authorities contacted her after an anonymous tip was called in, Jessica was finally able to receive a sense of justice when she got her father’s confession to the abuse on tape.
To hear the confession for yourself and to find out what happened next, watch the video.
