Two truths and a lie. My go-to; “I put a man in jail” is sure to win me the game but when this game is played as an icebreaker, “I put a man in jail” just frosts everything over. You want to ask, of course – it’s a great truth!

It’s unexpected, but when you hit them with “child sexual abuse” you’ve killed the sun that melts the ice. So I say “sign language was my first language, I’ve been around Australia three times, and I’ve read all seven Harry Potter books”. Much more palatable. Then, after time, something that shouldn’t be a secret becomes a secret. Something that should be talked about, not for accolades but for awareness, is stifled.

“When you’re told you’ll have to go to court and testify against someone five times your age … you grow up pretty damn fast.” Harriet Snaith, now 26, was abused as a child.

When you are a child involved in a court case in Australia, your name is never published. This is for the protection of the child, however, when you are that child, you can’t help but feel removed from your own story and over time, something that shouldn’t be a secret feels like one.

My two best friends in primary school knew, but they weren’t equipped to be the support I needed nor would they have really understood. They still had the rest of their childhood to live. I was always told I was so mature for my age. That’ll happen to an only child constantly surrounded by adults and I would pride myself that I wasn’t like the other kids, I was like a grown up.

When you are 11 and you have to go into the police station and give a statement and the officers taking the statement are both men and there are cameras pointing at you recording you and they hand you an outline of a cartoon girl and get you to circle the parts on her where you were touched; when you’re told you’ll have to go to court and testify against someone five times your age, but you probably won’t win because it’s your word against his, you grow up pretty damn fast.

The real grown-ups decided that the odds were stacked against me and I wouldn’t win at court. We’d have to wait for more girls to come forward so that there were more of........

© WA Today