Brave Judy van Niekerk (pictured above-left and right with her father Noah Walsh as a child) has broken her silence to tell of years of horrific abuse at her father's hands - and why she still went to visit him on his death bed in the hospital.....read on....
A woman has told how her father made her his “dutiful wife” when she was six – and when she fell pregnant performed a home abortion on her.
Judy van Niekerk, 46, of London, cooked and cleaned for her father Noah Walsh after her mother left.
He even raped her and shot her in the chest.
Judy was made to care for her siblings, all the while being abused by her father
In court Walsh said: “We [me and Judy] lived as husband and wife.”
Despite this, Mrs van Niekerk went to visit her father as he was dying – and told him she loved him and forgave him.
She said the bullying started when she was young.
She said “Most people have happy childhood memories.
“Mine include my dad teaching me to swim and taking me for picnics. But I have a lot of bad ones memories too.
“When I was six and my dad taught me to box. I was only little but he expected me to fight him, even though it hurt me.
“He was mean to my mum and called her useless and lazy and hit her.”
When she was six her mother left, returning but leaving again when she was ten.
“Each time she left he treated me like his dutiful wife,”
Mrs van Niekerk said: “I should have been going to school. But he didn’t let me. He said, ‘you have too much to do here.’
“I had to stay home and look after my five kid siblings. I had to get up early to make breakfast for everyone, and pack their lunchboxes.
“I was made to wash our clothes by hand, as we didn’t have a machine."
Judy on her wedding day with her husband Tiny
Walsh won custody of his daughter while she was still young and he continued to bully her.
“He threatened me with knives,” she recalled. “The back-breaking housework left me feeling exhausted.
“By the evening I was always ready for bed – but my dad had other ideas.
“He made me stay up with him until he wanted to go bed.
“He would then demand that I sleep in his room, and would force himself on me.
“I was only a kid when he started to sexually assault and rape me. I was in such pain afterwards. He left me feeling confused and totally worthless.
“My siblings never saw him do this.
“They didn’t know I fell pregnant that year either as, fortunately for dad, I miscarried.”
Judy visiting her terminally ill father
When she was 13 she had her bones broken and he threatened to shoot her.
“He told me I was evil and wasn’t worthy of his love,” she said. “He said he had sacrificed having a life himself, to save me.
“He told me, ‘If you don’t change I’m going to have to kill you.’
“One day when I was 14, he got angry and shot me in the chest.”
On this occasion a neighbour called an ambulance.
Doctors told her she could have died, and the police were told she had shot herself.
“We kept moving house so we didn’t have neighbours looking out for us, or my school,” she recalled.
“Dad forbade me to go so I didn’t have friends to confide in.
“He'd force me to wait for him in his bed for when he got home from work. That same year, I fell pregnant a second time.
“I wanted to keep the baby as I was incredibly lonely locked up all day. I hoped it would give me someone to talk to.
“But dad couldn’t risk people knowing what he’d done to me.
“So he punched me in the stomach, made me take scolding hot baths, to try and end the pregnancy.
“Finally he carried out a home abortion using a coat hanger.”
Two years later she had another abortion at a clinic.
“Later I apologised to dad for getting pregnant,” she said. “I felt it was my fault. I was brainwashed.”
When Mrs van Niekerk was 20 she escaped and went to London where she trained as an accountant.
“I had realised if I didn’t make a run for it or I might not get another chance.,” she said.
After a time she headed to South Africa and met a man called Tiny, now 46, who encouraged her to contact the police.
In October 2000, Walsh, then 55, appeared at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin.
He admitted three charges of rape and two of indecent exposure.
The court heard they were five sample charges from 30 in all.
“There wasn’t a screen in the court room, and I looked straight at dad as I gave evidence,” Mrs van Niekerk, who has since married Tiny, said.
“In a statement read out to the court, my dad had described our relationship as special.
“He’d said, ‘we lived as husband and wife, so when my daughter left, my world fell apart.’”
Justice Carney described the crimes “as one of the worst cases of this nature he had ever heard.”
Walsh, of Sandymount, County Monaghan, was jailed for 15 years.
In 2004 Mrs van Niekerk received a message from police saying her father was in a hospice with terminal lung cancer.
So she decided to see him.
“I realised I had to tell him I cared,” she said.
“I was grateful for everything he’d taught me – how to swim, and be strong.
“I was scared at first but the fear soon melted away as I set eyes on dad who was ravaged by cancer and frail.”
She continued: “I hated seeing him suffer and he was pleased to see me.
“He was confused about why I'd reported him to police though.
“But it didn't upset me, or make me angry. I couldn't judge him.
“I told him, ‘I love you’ and he said it back.
“After he died I was sad. He was still my dad.
“I was pleased I’d got to see him one last time. I had complete love and compassion for him.
“But finally I was at peace.”
Culled from MirrorUK
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