
Warning: This article includes details of child abuse.
It was February 2016 and Victorian MP Dr Rachel Carling-Jenkins, now 42, felt something was “not quite right” in her marriage to husband, telecommunications technician Gary Jenkins, now 46.
Like many women who’ve experienced something similar, Carling-Jenkins thought he was having an affair.
They had married in their 20s. They were both Christians. And Jenkins helped his wife raise her son, Terry, from a previous relationship.
But Carling-Jenkins couldn’t shake this feeling of insecurity, which was niggling at her constantly. Was he sick? Was he depressed? Was he seeing someone else?
In a bid to find the truth she, with Terry’s helped, logged onto her husband’s computer. What they stumbled across was much, much worse than any mutually-consensual affair.
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“I saw a number of icons on the screen, and I could see small images … some were photos and some were videos and I started to click on them to see what it was,” the MP told SBS’ Insight on last night’s program.
“They were all of children and all of little girls. I saw child rape.”
She said she immediately became “hysterical” but common sense soon kicked in. She was forced to report her partner of more than 10 years to police and cut off all ties with him and his family.