WARNING: The following contains details of child sexual abuse, which may be distressing to some readers. For confidential information, counselling and support on sexual assault, domestic or family violence and abuse, please call 1800 RESPECT.
Until today, we knew them only by their ages, by grainy photographs in which their faces were shielded behind a veil of pixels. But that veil has been lifted.
A group of people linked to a circus school, located west of Sydney, charged with repeatedly raping and abusing three young boys, can be named after a Sydney court lifted a suppression order this afternoon.
They are alleged to include four members of the same family: Therese Ann Cook, 58, her brother Paul Christopher Cook, 52, her daughter Yyani Cook-Williams, 29, and Yyani’s step-sister Clarissa Meredith, 23.
The family among seven people who are collectively facing 127 charges including kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault of a child and making child abuse material.
Magistrate Stephen Corry on Thursday decided in favour of five media organisations when deciding in Penrith Local Court to lift the suppression order that had concealed their identities.
A 17-year-old girl, an 18-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman, who were also arrested on Monday after a long investigation, still can’t be identified.
The alleged abuse of the three boys – who were not students at the school – reportedly included sadistic sex acts and “blood rituals.”