Ogled, groped and locked in a cage: Air Force servicewoman speaks out against Defence Force for 'protecting' rapist

Friday, 16 November 2018

The Recruit: Until now, she was a nameless airwoman seeking accountability for years of abuse in the Air Force. Now, Mariya Taylor speaks out.

Sergeant Robert Roper. His conviction and imprisonment is one of New Zealand's most defining disclosures of sexual harassment and assault of the past decade. And now, a new front is being opened in the battle for military accountability.

On one side, the notorious convicted child rapist and his former employer, the New Zealand Defence Force. On the other, a woman whose life has been indelibly marked by her experiences as an 18-year-old Air Force recruit.

A High Court tussle, fought earlier this year, saw the woman – known only as M – asking her former employer for compensation for allowing rapist Roper, to subject her to three years of abuse at Hobsonville/Whenuapai base.

For Mariya Taylor, testifying against Robert Roper in court was terrifying.

In return, the NZ Defence Force spent more than $600,000 dollars to make sure she walked out of court without a cent.

Mariya Taylor worked as a driver on the transport team at Whenuapai Air Force base, where she was assaulted by Sergeant Robert Roper.

* 'Whenuapai should never be repeated'

* Air Force staff 'paid back' for defending women

Mariya Taylor: 'I was 18 years old and very shy, quiet and naive.'

* Survivors: 'Old school' military won't change**

* #MeTooNZ: The investigations

Until now, M's identity was shrouded by the statutory name suppression given to all complainants in cases of sexual violence. Shrugging off that name suppression and stepping into the light of public scrutiny is not an easy process – you need a court order to do so.Today, M has done that, unmasking herself so that she might keep on with the battle that has dominated the past five years of her life.

Her name is Mariya Taylor, and she did not expect to have to talk to media, to have her image broadcast. But after losing her case on a point of law earlier this year, Taylor says she has no choice.

When the #MeToo movement exploded late last year, there was much talk that women would come forward with baseless stories of harassment, for a shot at fame, or notoriety. This idea seems ludicrous as I sit opposite Taylor on a hot Queensland afternoon, at the house she shares with her partner and their teenaged son.

For the six confirmed victims of rapist Robert Roper, Whenuapai Royal NZ Air Force base holds dark memories.

She does not want the attention. Her fear of telling her story in public is palpable. There are long pauses as she composes herself to answer my questions, which on a couple of occasions bring her to tears. This is no moment of glory – it is a moment of terror.

But talk she must, if she is going to be able to see this particular journey through, and be free of the shadow of Roper.

'I WAS NAIVE'

It's unusually warm for this time of year on the Sunshine Coast, but we sit outside anyway, in the lush tropical garden Taylor has built from nothing since she and her family moved here a decade ago. The garden is her sanctuary and her therapy; she says tending it allows her to push thoughts of Robert Roper and her time in the air force from her mind. She can think a bit, but not too much as she gardens – it keeps her mind busy enough to cope.

It was Taylor's green thumb that brought her to the Air Force in the first place, more than 30 years ago. In the mid-1980s, she was working in horticulture near Hobsonville, and knew many of the young people working at the air force base. She was young and fit; the career path was attractive. In 1985 Taylor joined up and completed her basic training. Pictures from the early part of her three years' service show a smiling young airwoman, not yet out of her teens.

The Complaint: Mariya Taylor says she complained repeatedly of the sexual assaults by Sergeant Robert Roper – but the Defence Force swept them under the carpet (video first published November 2018).

'I was 18 years old and very naive', she says of her teenage self. But initially, life in the Air Force was a joy, and a career she fully expected to spend the next 20 years building.

'I loved it, I absolutely loved it', says Taylor of her first posting, as a motor transport driver at Whenuapai.

Her Sergeant was Robert Roper.

Taylor describes Roper as 'another level altogether', someone she had an intense fear of throughout her time at the base. There was no question, however, of disobeying a superior.

'I had just come off the recruit course and we were taught we were always to do what our superiors told us to do. We were taught to always follow orders.'

Taylor says Roper's behaviour towards female underlings at the base was well known. He would pull bra straps, pinch bottoms, push open the door of the airwomen's change rooms while they were dressing. He did not hide his actions, Taylor says – they took place out in the open, for all to see.

But before long, Taylor became a particular target of Roper's attention.

'In the early afternoon the senior NCOs (non-commissioned officers) would leave our section and and they would go down to the Sergeants' mess and they would drink all afternoon.

'Early evening, the Section would get a phone call and he (Roper) would specifically ask for a lift home from me.

'When I went to pick him up he was extremely intoxicated. The minute the car started he would lock the car doors and start abusing me.'

Taylor has had to describe the deeply personal details of what happened in that car in the High Court, under cross examination and with her identity protected, but speaking them out loud, publicly, is quite obviously still difficult for her. 'He would put his hand up my skirt, he would be groping my breasts, groping my inner thighs', she says.

'When I would reach for the RT to call for help, he would squeeze my arm so hard. When I arrived at his house he would put his hand on me and squeeze my upper arm tightly, and tell me that this was to go no further. If I said anything, he would ruin my career.

'When I got back to base I would be crying and hysterical and often the boys in the section would offer to drive instead of me, to protect me.'

Taylor says Roper harassed other women as well, but he seemed to have a particular wish to bully and intimidate her, in increasingly bizarre ways. On several occasions, Taylor says she was locked inside a wire-mesh storage area in the transport division tyre bay by Roper. He would rub himself against her from behind, and poke her on the buttocks with a tyre iron.

While inspecting troops during transport division parades, he would leer at her when he looked her up and down. Taylor was terrified.

'Knowing what he'd done to me in the car the previous night under the influence of alcohol, I felt intimidated and degraded. He had total control of me in these situations. This power made him fearless, and excited him. It still makes me shiver from head to toe. I can still hear him and smell his strong aftershave as if it was yesterday.'

Former air force lieutenant Robert Roper is in jail, convicted of sexually assaulting five women and girls while he was in the Royal NZ Air Force in the 1980s.

Despite her fear of Roper, Taylor says she did complain, several times, including to her superior at a performance review. Each time, Roper was spoken to and claimed Taylor was 'lippy and opinionated'. These complaints, and those of others, went no further Taylor says, and she still wonders why so many of her superiors turned a blind eye.

After almost three years in the services she could take it no more – she resigned and fled to London, staying away for more than seven years. In the 1990s she came back to Whenuapai, as a civilian worker but the memories were too much to bear. She turned her back on the force altogether, and tried to put the past to bed.

'I FELT ANGRY THAT I HAD NEVER BEEN HEARD'

It's an unusual thing, for an victim of sexual assault to ask for their statutory name suppression to be lifted. The case of Robert Roper is unusual in the extreme, therefore: Mariya Taylor is the fourth of his victims to ask the court for it.

The first three included Karina Andrews and Tracey Thompson, Roper's two daughters, who had name suppression lifted in 2015 after giving evidence at Roper's trial for raping and sexually assaulting them when they were children. Roper was convicted and jailed, but Tracey, Karina and their friend Cherie Ham felt the Defence Force had ignored it's own responsibility in the case and wanted to speak out for change.

It was the news of Roper's conviction that galvanised Taylor, thousands of kilometres away in Australia, into action.

'I just froze. I felt absolutely sick. All the emotions came flooding back. I felt angry that I had never been heard as a young airwoman and I felt guilty … if I had been heard, those children would have had a better life.'

In the mid-1980s, a young Mariya Taylor worked in Hobsonville and knew many of the young people working at the air force base. The career path was attractive.

She initially made a police complaint, giving a formal statement to Queensland police in June 2015, just weeks before an independent inquiry was commissioned by the Defence Force into how it handles complaints of sexual assault and harassment. But with Roper already in jail serving a 13 year sentence, Taylor decided to sue the Defence Force (through the Attorney General) and Roper for compensation instead.

Her lawyer, Geraldine Whiteford, says the trial was a 'massive ordeal' for Taylor.

'One amazing thing about Mariya stands out to me as a lawyer – she is a diligent client, and I think that would have been a feature of her service in the Air Force, too. She was determined to please and would have been a stunning employee.

'But despite being so brave and dealing with everything, I always thought she was incredibly fragile'.

Mariya Taylor now lives with her husband and son in Queensland, nurturing a lush tropical garden.

Whiteford says Taylor's distress became increasingly obvious throughout the trial.

'She sat with her back to Roper in the witness box, but perhaps because he was being brought to court from prison, there was always a lot of clanking and noise when he came in, and when she heard him she would start to cry. It was miserable for her.

'She had close supporters with her, and without them I doubt she could have got through the doors of the court. It would have taken huge bravery, but despite all that she was a careful witness'.

Whiteford does not believe her client launched the case on a whim.

The Report and the Trial: High Court says Air Force Sergeant Robert Roper groped Mariya Taylor then locked her in a tyre cage and assaulted her.

'She doesn't take her decisions lightly. She agonises over them. She thinks deeply and wants to see justice done.'

In defending Taylor's claim, counsel for the Defence Force denied knowledge of any pattern of systematic inappropriate behaviour by Roper, and said there was no evidence Taylor had suffered trauma as a result of her experiences. It denied any breach of a duty of care, or that the Crown was 'vicariously liable for any of the acts of the first defendant (Roper)'.

In her ruling, Justice Rebecca Edwards finds Roper groped Taylor as she drove him home from the Sergeant's mess, and locked her in the tyre cage on more than one occasion. The ruling also states that Taylor's claims that Roper rubbed himself against airwomen, pulled on bra straps and ogled her on parade were corroborated in court by evidence from her co-workers.

However, Justice Edwards said Taylor's claim that she had complained to her superiors, was 'undermined by the lack of any documentary record of a complaint being made', along with testimony from her seniors at the time, who also denied taking a formal complaint from her. Evidence given by a fellow airman who said the formal complaint he made was 'screwed up and thrown in the bin' in front of him, was discounted. Her ruling states there was 'insufficient evidence to conclude, on the balance of probabilities, that M did make a formal complaint about Mr Roper's conduct at the time.'

In the end, Justice Edwards found that Taylor's claim was barred by the Limitation Act, which states that a claim must be brought within six years of the original actions.

So now, Taylor is headed to the Court of Appeal.

COSTS CLAIM BY RAPIST

Mariya Taylor felt she had to waive her right to name suppression and speak out, to protect other young women in the Air Force.

It goes almost without saying that legal action of this kind takes a huge financial, as well as emotional, toll on on individual participants. Taylor and her family readily admit they can't pay the kinds of costs the Defence Force and Roper are demanding of her. She already fears she will lose her home, having staked it against the Defence Force's demand for security of courts costs.

An appeal, and the potential to have the Edwards decision overturned, is her only hope.

When I ask Taylor how she feels about having to ask the public for help, she seems deeply embarrassed.

'It's really hard to ask for help, but it's just that this is an amount of money I can't come up with myself. We've spent so much money getting to where we are'.

With the total costs being claimed against her reaching more than $200,000, Taylor can justifiably feel overwhelmed. But it is the portion of that – $57,000 – being claimed by her tormentor Roper, that horrifies her most of all.

'He ruined my life. He ruined my career, and I guess now he wants fifty thousand dollars for the pleasure of it all. I just don't see where justice prevails in that situation.'

CROWDFUNDING TO HELP PAY LEGAL FEES

Talia Canvin and Mariya Taylor first 'met' on a parenting group chat website. Canvin says Taylor's friendship – online and then in person when Canvin and her family moved to Queensland from New Zealand – has inspired her to set up a crowdfunding page for Taylor as she tries to find a way pay her legal bills.

'Mariya helped us settle in here and she has always had time for a chat when I needed support. When she eventually told me about what she went through I felt so awful for her – sick to my stomach', Canvin says.

'Mariya deserves so much more respect than the New Zealand Defence Force has shown her. No-one should have to go through something like that, and then to have it hidden away so deep inside that you never know when it's going to show up.'

Canvin says she accepts that the target – $95,000 – is a steep one with no guarantees, and that they will be relying on the generosity of ordinary Kiwis.

'But I really wanted to help in some way, so I thought that starting a page may just ease the burden a bit.'