A sexual assault survivor has spoken out against victim blaming after her perpetrator pleaded guilty to the inappropriate sexual touching of two women at his north-east Victorian farm.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.
After a Christmas trip to the remote north-east town of Mitta Mitta in 2022, Catherine — who the ABC will refer to by her first name only to protect her identity — felt she had found her “forever home”.
She moved with her daughter to the country Victorian town, taking on small jobs before eventually moving to nearby Dartmouth, where she had found a house at the property of local farmer John Scales, a former Towong shire councillor.Â
Catherine said she wanted a fresh start and to be active in the community.
But things changed in September 2023, after Scales suddenly grabbed her following a conversation about beef and poultry farming on her verandah.
“It was like he pinned my arms, and he was just kissing my neck,” she said.
Catherine says she is disappointed by the sentence Scales received. (ABC Goulburn Murray: Philippe Perez)
“He was trying to kiss my lips. He was groping my arse … and he goes, ‘Just one kiss.’
“I said, ‘No, John, please stop.'”
Catherine’s daughter was inside the home at the time.
“I thought … if she walks out and sees her mum was distressed with this man groping her, that’s traumatic for her. It was traumatic for me,” she said.
“He then just left without saying sorry.”
Catherine pressed charges.
As word filtered through her small country town, she started receiving abusive text messages, calling her a whore and a liar.
“Why would [I] do that?,” she said.
“I’ve been told that I’m doing it for the money. What money? To make it clear, I’m not getting any money.”Farmer sentenced to good behaviour bond
Scales, 71, appeared at Wodonga Magistrates Court today and was fined $3,000 and sentenced to a two-year good behaviour bond, after pleading guilty to two charges of inappropriate sexual touching.
Magistrate Megan Casey told the court Scales, a well-known farmer and long-term CFA volunteer, had abused his position of trust within the community.
She told the court while she accepted he had made contributions to the community, there were no excuse for his actions.
“Your actions undermined [the victims’] bodily integrity … both then and now,” she said.
John Scales appeared in court and pleaded guilty to two incidents of sexual assault on his farm. (ABC News: Annie Brown)
Details of a second incident were also heard, in which another woman was asked to work on Scales’s farm.
He drove the woman to a remote part of his property, where she did the farm work, and afterwards asked her for a hug, the court heard.
The court heard Scales resisted the woman’s pleas for him to stop when he started pulling her into him, before groping her breast.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman said she had experienced sleeping difficulties since the incident, and was afraid to walk through Dartmouth.
“It’s impacted my identity and how I look,” she said.
“I cut off my hair to stop reminding me of the assault”
Scales’s lawyers said the incidents were “true aberrations of [the] man’s character” and that he was well supported in the community.
Prosecutors said Scales should be registered as a sex offender, but Magistrate Casey said she was not satisfied that should happen.
The magistrate thanked the victims, both of whom appeared in court.
Calls for victim blaming in rural areas to end
Speaking outside court, Catherine said she was disappointed by the sentence.
“I’m happy that he got a conviction. I’m disappointed that he didn’t go on to the sexual [offenders] register,” she said.
Not long after the incident, Catherine moved out of town.
She was on holidays when she learned another woman had been assaulted by Scales.
“All I could think about is, had I spoken out, she wouldn’t have got hurt,” she said.
“But I didn’t because no-one would have believed me. No-one still believes me now.”
Catherine said she was undergoing therapy and had support from a small group of friends.
Catherine says she wants victim blaming of sexual assault survivors to stop. (ABC Goulburn Murray: Philippe Perez)
But she said she still received threatening texts for speaking out about the offending, and that she still had to put up with victim shaming.
“It’s like no-one wants to know about this and people feel there was nothing to [these crimes],” Catherine said.
“It needs to change.”