INTTRODUCTION,TED BAILLIEU: Hi, I’m Ted Baillieu, former premier of Victoria. Tonight, we continue the dramatic story of Dassi Erlich and her sisters and their long battle to bring their former principal to justice.

For the past decade, Dassi, Nicole and Elly have been seeking extradition for Malka Leifer from Israel to face allegations of abuse. Now, Israeli undercover surveillance has brought them one step closer to their goal. But first, a recap.

 

LOOK BACK:

DASSI ERLICH:  We grew up in Melbourne, in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, called Adass.

ELLY SAPPER, YOUNGEST SISTER: It's not like the wider Jewish community. It's very insulated, very close You don't have TV. You don't have internet.

NICOLE MEYER, OLDER SISTER:  My sisters and I went to the Adass school/the most religious, strictly orthodox school in Melbourne.

DASSI ERLICH: When I was in year 8 Malka Leifer became the new principal.

SHARON SWIATLO, FORMER ADASS ISRAEL SCHOOL TEACHER: She was a woman who exuded confidence She was well liked. One of the girls was always doing this for Mrs Leifer or that for Mrs Leifer.

ELLY SAPPER: We were all hearing, "This is good for you. What I'm doing is helping you and I'm giving you love."

DASSI ERLICH: I had no words to describe what was happening or absolutely any understanding of how it wasn’t right.

NICOLE MEYER: In 2008, Dassi somehow let out to a social worker/therapist, that Malka Leifer had abused her.

ELLY SAPPER:  My sister said, ‘Did you hear the news Mrs Leifer has fled the country’.

ASHLEY BROWNE, FORMER EDITOR, AUSTRALIAN JEWISH NEWS:  The questions were there how does this happen; what circumstances would force her to flee the country so quickly and who enabled it?

Opening title: The Justice Principle

DASSI ERLICH: Once Mrs Leifer left Australia in 2008 and went to Israel, my sisters and I were wondering what was happening to her, and was she continuing to teach there? Did people know why she had fled Australia? But for the most part, she wasn’t first and fore-most in our minds. We had a lot of other things going on.

MICHELLE ORBACH, OLDER SISTER: It was time to focus on Elly, Dassi and Nicole, and try and help them move forward.  Elly seemed relieved, but I could see that she was still holding a lot back within her and there was still a lot of tension and trauma.

ELLY SAPPER: After a few years I realised that I had an inner strength. I had a social group that was unbelievable. This was a social group that was from the wider secular Jewish community.

ELLY SAPPER AS SHE IS COOKING: I’m just making everyone’s favourite food, fish balls which is a very simple recipe.

DAVID GRABER, ELLY’S FRIEND: I met Elly in 2009.  She used to host these Shabbat dinners at her house, and we used to stand in the kitchen for hours, and I would learn about her life. Sort of like her previous life, I guess. And how she was transitioning I guess into a whole new world.

ELLY SAPPER:  By that time, I just knew that I was not part of the Adass community anymore and didn't want to be.

Sound up cheering as Elly brings in fish balls.

DAVID GRABER: She was a shy girl. A little bit awkward. She wasn't yet used to hanging out with guys. She didn't know anything about pop culture, or She didn't know who Michael Jackson was, or The Beatles, And I couldn't believe you could grow up in Melbourne and not know about football. After a few months of us being friends, Elly slowly started to trust me, and confide in me, and tell me about the sort of abuse that happened to her in Addas, in the school. I was quite shocked that she didn't even know that going to the police was an option in the first place.

ELLY SAPPER: He told that I should make a statement. Now when he first broached the idea I thought he was crazy probably. I was still connected somewhat to the community, people were going to hate me even more. It took many, many months of him encouraging me, for me to actually take that step. In 2010, I went to Moorabbin Police Station.

DAVID GRABER: And we were both super nervous, but I think the overriding feeling was that Malka Leifer needed to be held to account.

ELLY SAPPER: I then told my sisters that I had given the police statement. But Nicole and Dassi were still in the Adass community, so they were still religious, and they were still part of the Adass community.  And I don't think any of them were thinking about giving their statement then.

DASSI ERLICH: I was desperately wanting to get pregnant and have a child. That was my whole goal in life. That was what had been taught since I was basically born, that that was the only thing that I really could do.

MICHELLE ORBACH: When Dassi finally had a daughter, it was a tremendously joyous time, a beautiful baby girl after all these years of waiting. But sadly, things began to go downhill.

DASSI ERLICH: I didn't feel like I could bond emotionally with my daughter. I was struggling to breastfeed her. It triggered a lot of memories. And I just wasn't in a good place. I didn't feel like I could pretend any more to be normal. And one day I just said, "I can't do this anymore." And very shortly afterwards I was admitted into a psychiatric hospital, mother and baby unit.  I was suicidal, I was self-harming.

DASSI HERSZBERG, Dassi’s friend: When I visited Dassi in hospital, it would've been around 2010. Her parenting capacity was being questioned by her daughter's father due to her mental health.

DASSI ERLICH: I was in therapy with my husband, we were discussing the idea of a separation.

DASSI HERSZBERG: The most important thing in Dassi's life was her daughter and being the best mother she could be. She needed to look really deeply into herself.

DASSI ERLICH: I began to understand that there was a life outside of the Jewish community. And I was trying to shed religious values that I had. So, I was ready to go the police. And I knew by doing that that there was no way I could return to that community.

NICOLE MEYER: Dassi gave her statement mid-2011, and it took me a couple more months. Life changed completely in regard to my mental health and memories and triggers and all that type of stuff. It’s snapped me out of disassociation. It kind of brought everything to the surface.

DAVID GRABER: By the time the third sister, Nicole, had made her statement, police were taking it very seriously. They had mounted an investigation, and they had drawn up 74 counts of assault, ranging from indecent assault to rape. And that enabled extradition proceedings to start.

NICOLE MEYER: The police led us to believe, according to what they knew, that it was all a matter of documentation. Sending the documentation to Canberra, having it approved and sent over to Israel and Israel extraditing Malka Leifer. It seemed very simple. As far as we knew, Israel was just really dragging their feet, the paperwork had been sent by Canberra over a year ago.

NEWS PRESENTER (2014): Authorities in Israel arrested a woman over the alleged sexual assault of students at a Victorian Jewish girls school.

DASSI ERLICH: When we heard the news that Malka Leifer was arrested, we were absolutely shocked. We did not know that it was happening. We hadn't heard from Israel, we hadn't heard from the police in Australia.

NICOLE MEYER:  It meant that something is going to finally start happening three years after we gave out statements.

DASSI ERLICH:  She was in custody for about two months and then her lawyers argued for her to be on house arrest and we were quite nervous about that fact. The conditions of her house arrest was that she would turn up to court for extradition hearings. And each time an extradition hearing was set she would refuse to come, saying that she was mentally incapable of standing in a courtroom and understanding what was happening. And her lawyer would keep asking for adjournments.

YEHUDA FRIED, MALKA LEIFER’S LAWYER: (TRANSLATED FROM HEBREW TO ENGLISH) The criminal law in Israel says that any hearing must take place in the presence of the suspect or the defendant. Also, according to the Israeli law, you need to first check whether the suspect or the defendant is capable of standing trial.

DASSI ERLICH:  We knew that she was a master manipulator and she was manipulating the system. So that was extremely upsetting. By this stage, we were getting reports that there were people going around the world to collect money for Mrs. Leifer, and to raise awareness that these allegations were not true.

NICOLE MEYER:  Mid-2014, around August, my oldest sister, Dalia, called me urgently and told me that two men who had flown from Israel had come to meet her.

DASSI ERLICH:  She was living in a religious community and was a head teacher and then became principal of a religious school in Manchester.

 MICHELLE ORBACH: They said she should influence her younger sisters to drop the criminal charges against Leifer otherwise there would be terrible ramifications for her family.

ELLY SAPPER: These men were threatening her, it was very clear.

NICOLE MEYER: They will ruin her children’s marriage prospects, her name in the community, her reputation, and her livelihood.

MICHELLE ORBACH: When she went to the Rabbi in the community and asked him for advice, he encouraged her to maintain the culture of silence. This absolutely broke my sister.

NICOLE MEYER: And she said I’d rather die than do anything like that; those were her words.

MICHELLE ORBACH: Within two weeks of these men coming to visit, my sister passed away age 39 from heart related issues.

DASSI ERLICH: After Dalia died, and learning what had happened before she passed away, we began to wonder, you know, if going to the police, and everything that had followed after, was worth it.

Over the years, my sisters and I had been dealing with a lot of psychiatric issues and were under psychiatric care.

NICOLE MEYER: Dassi had started a civil suit against the school to help the compensation with the medical bills and things like that.

NICK MAZZEO, Dassi’s solicitor: Because the civil case had been dragging on, for at least three years, I became concerned that Dassi was going to simply instruct me to cease any further action and discontinue, and because of that, we were looking at getting the matter on. It was a tricky case being able to link the school and the school board to Malka Leifer leaving the country. I needed to do quite a deal of investigative work and there were people following me, there were people outside my home at times.

DASSI ERLICH: There had been rumours going around the community about what had happened and who had sent her away, but it was all rumours, so as the information came to light it was quite exciting in a way to put those pieces together, and quite upsetting at the same time to really learn what had happened.

NICK MAZZEO: There were several meetings held before the principal’s departure, involving psychologists, Rabbis, a barrister in the community and after these meetings there was then the crucial meeting with board members where Leifer was contacted late one night. A member of the board instructed his wife to book tickets for Leifer and her family leave the country.

DYSON HORE -LACY SC, BARRISTER:  She was gone within 24 hours of the decision to let her go.  We did a search, subpoenaed company records and found that the company that paid for the tickets was a company controlled by the president of the school council at the time. That really completed the circle of the decision for her to leave, and who was behind it.

AUDIO OF JUSTICE RUSH GIVING HIS SUMMARY: In conclusion to summarise, I find the school is vicariously liable.

NICK MAZZEO: Dassi’s case ran to judgement and was a landmark decision. Dassi was awarded over a million dollars plus exemplary damages and costs and it obviously changed the landscape of cases in respect to that type of matter in the country.

MARK LEIBLER, SENIOR AUSTRALIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY LEADER: The decision of members of the Adass school board to allow Malka Leifer to flee the country - not to allow her but to facilitate it - and actually acquiring the tickets to enable her to leave on very short notice, once it was clear that there were alleged criminal offences, that was an appalling decision.

SHLOMO ABELESZ, ADDAS ISRAEL COMMUNITY MEMBER: Where ever she was going where ever she lived. We knew where she was living, and we notified the authorities there.  It's not as if we just let her loose onto the world.

DASSI ERLICH: When Malka Leifer moved to Israel there was talk in Israel about what she had done in the Australia, and to avoid that scrutiny she moved her family to a little settlement Immanuel.

SHANA AAROSON, JEWISH COMMUNITY WATCH: As far as places to hide, Immanuel was certainly a perfect spot. I mean, it is unbelievably insular, fairly remote and a very, very religious community, very close- knit community, and a very small community.

DASSI ERLICH: We started getting more into contact with the Ministry of Justice in Israel, who updated us more regularly and told us that she was checking herself into hospital before every court date and checking herself out of hospital after every court date.  Finally, the judge decided that this couldn't continue and decided to release any expectation that she would face extradition trial and set it to her appearing in front of a psychiatric panel every six months. She was free to go wherever she wanted, and it completely shocked and devastated myself and my sisters.

TZIPI HOTOVELY, ISRAEL’S DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER: The only thing we can do is of course is make sure that she'll be diagnosed every few months, and to make sure that whenever she's able to stand in a trial, she will be sent back to Australia.  This is our goal. We have no interest to having people like her here.

NICOLE MEYER: In 2017, May, somebody put up a picture of Malka Leifer in public amongst crowds of people. I quickly took that picture and sent it to Dassi. I said, “Look at what Malka Leifer is doing.” She put that picture on her Facebook page which literally went viral.

RADIO REPORTER: An Israeli principal has allegedly been spotted out and about at a religious festival.

SECOND RADIO REPORTER: For the last two years she she’s been fighting her extradition to Australia in the Israeli courts.

DASSI ERLICH: She was claiming that she wasn’t able to understand what was going on; she wasn’t able to have basic human interactions; she needed to have a carer for her daily living.

NICOLE MEYER: The term we heard was that she was like a sack of potatoes. That’s how mentally incompetent she was.

DASSI ERLICH: It was clearly not the case, and I knew if somebody didn't speak out against her publicly, it would just continue going for another 10 years.  Halfway through 2017 I started a campaign #BringLeiferBack.

DASSI HERSZBERG, DASSI’S FRIEND:  When she started, I think people were saying to her it's a lost cause, you're flogging a dead horse, it's dead in the water, but they've all been wrong.

TED BAILLIEU, FORMER VICTORIAN PREMIER:  Dassi came to me because of some of the work I've done around sexual abuse in in other communities. And she told me the story. It was hard to believe.She had her conviction that she was going do something about it. And she was calm, and she was strong. And I made a promise-  "I'll go anywhere with you. I'll stand with you.”

ELLY SAPPER: Nicole and I had not been in the limelight, but I had just started to gather a little bit of what this was about.

DASSI HERSZBERG:  They took it right to the top, meeting the prime minister of Australia. Malcolm Turnbull subsequently spoke to the Israeli prime minister, BB Netanyahu.

DASSI ERLICH: Obviously, Nicole and Elly, while they weren't public, they were helping me behind the scenes. And they saw the amount of support that there was across the board.  And we agreed to travel to Israel, and they would campaign together with me. Something that they hadn't done until that point.

ELLY SAPPER:  It was hard at times, and it was encouraging at times. We held each other strong and we felt that we did everything we could.

DASSI ERLICH: We met many politicians and many influential people who promised to do whatever they could.

Sound up of Michal Biran, Israeli Labour party: But what’s going on, that she’s walking around, living her life like nothing happened.

DASSI ERLICH: One of those people that we met with was Shana Aaronson, the head of Jewish Community Watch. And at the time we didn't know how influential she would be for this case.

SHANA AARONSON: Jewish Community Watch is an international organisation that deals with child sexual abuse in the global Jewish community. I had the idea, well, what if we could prove that she was in fact lying. And if we get the proof, then we can give it to the police, and then they'll have to do something.

ELLY SAPPER: We heard that Shana had hired investigators to follow Leifer and to show the world what she was actually doing and the life that she was living.

TSAFRIR TSAHI, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR:  And we did all the background check and everything that if something would happen, we'd be ready for every scenario.

SHANA AARONSON: We obviously discussed my first and foremost concern that she obviously not know that this was going on, of course. Very concerned that she would flee the country and go to a non-extradition country.

TSAFRIS TSAHI: So, we decided to be builders. The people in the community of Immanuel never talked to the builders there.

SHANA AARONSON: The investigators discussed a little bit about their plans, just a little, with us, use multiple different cars and vehicles, and we knew that they were highly experienced at this.

Sound up: Tsafrir Tsahi: This is a wifi camera. They put in the streets on the rain and the snow.

TSAFRIR TSAHI: We have a bottle camera. We have a key card camera. We have a remote camera. We have a lot of kind of cameras.

SHANA AARONSON:  And then a couple days in was when was when there was the first major breakthrough where she was really out an about doing an extensive amount of shopping and running errands, and social outing type thing.

TSAFRIR TSAHI:  She looked very natural around people and if you look from the side you see a normal person. This was the highlight because we understood that we have something big. We have something in our hand that can change the picture.

NEWS PRESENTER (February 2017) Police in Israel have re-arrested a former Melbourne school principal who is wanted on numerous charges of child sex abuse.

ELLY SAPPER: In February of this year Mrs Leifer was arrested in the domestic court for feigning illness and obstructing justice.  We obviously quickly got together at one of our houses and spent the night together just in disbelief.

MANNY WAKS, ANTI- CHILD ABUSE CAMPAIGNER: I remember being in contact with Dassi and her sisters and keeping them up to date and what was going on.

YEHUDA FRIED, MALKA LEIFER’S LAWYER: (translated from Hebrew to English) We must understand that the behaviors are only allegations. Ok? That means, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That means a person is innocent until proven guilty. Let’s remember she’s not even convicted. She’s a suspect.

MANNY WAKS:  I was watching Leifer sitting in the courtroom and making all sorts of movements, erratic movements, but it just felt that finally justice is catching up with her.

MARK LEIBLER:  So, what did the judge do? The judge decided when a certain Rabbi Grossman appeared there and offered to keep her in home detention with him the judge was prepared to accept that. I just found that beyond comprehension.

DASSI ERLICH: I don’t even know what we’re going to do now. It’s hard not to give up. It’s extremely infuriating and I can’t even wrap my head around that this has happened. That this has been allowed to happen.

MICHELLE ORBACH:  The backlash was so strong that this person immediately within a couple of days retracted his words and withdrew his support for Leifer.

DASSI ERLICH: I think, for the first time, my sisters have a feeling of hope that this can finally reach some sort of end. I think if the school hadn't spirited Malka Leifer out of the country we wouldn't be here where we are today, and an apology is needed, not just for myself, but for the other people that have been affected by what they did.

ABE WEISZBERGER, FMR BOARD MEMBER: I was on the board at the time this story happened. Whatever happened in the 48 hours of this saga of Mrs. Leifer happening, the whole saga, was a decision made on two people on the board, who ...but the rest of the board wasn't informed at the time.

TED BAILLIEU: So Dassi rang me and said, I've been invited by the board of Adass to come and talk to them, and she asked me if I would go with her. I said, ‘Of course’. We said at the start, we'd like to record it. There was no objection to that.

AUDIO RECORDING OF ABE WEISZBERGER AT THE MEETING:  We do appreciate you coming; we know how hard it was and we appreciate it.

ABE WEISZBERGER, FMR BOARD MEMBER:   I'm forever grateful for the people who came forward, because I don't want to think what would have happened if no one would have come forward.

AUDIO RECORDING OF ABE WEISZBERGER AT THE MEETING:  The most important part from our point is just really and truly to say how much we feel sorry for what’s happened.

TED BAILLIEU: We did ask that board as we sat around the dining table, what would you have done differently.

AUDIO RECORDING OF ABE WEISZBERGER AT THE MEETING:  If this had happened today, the issue would have been reported before we even started speaking to her.

TED BAILLIEU: And that's true, it is the right thing to do. It should have happened 10 years ago.

DASSI ERLICH: During that meeting my request to them was that they make a public apology because I wasn't the only one that needed to hear that apology. I'm still waiting for that.

ELLY SAPPER:  Nicole is still part of the Jewish community, but she's not part of the Adass community. And I think it's extremely brave of Nicole the way she is able to juggle her beliefs in religion together with the consequences of her becoming public about such a thing.

REPORTER QUESTION: Do you think it will ever end?

NICOLE MEYER: That remains to be seen. I don’t know.

MICHELLE ORBACH: I know that for each of them, Dassi, Nicole, and Elly, putting themselves out there every time is not an easy thing to do. I've seen firsthand how draining it is for them. Yet, their commitment to the cause is so resolute.

DAVID GRABER, ELLY’S FRIEND: I think that every single one of those siblings is really admirable. Where other people, I think, would give up, they don't, and sometimes I think it's because they support each other to get through the really, really difficult times.

DASSI ERLICH: I've had a massive amount of experiences the last year, I mean experiences that I never thought were possible.

DASSI ERLICH: I've gone from being 10 years ago a shy, reserved, passive, submissive person that felt very powerless and weak to someone that's the complete opposite of that now. I definitely don't see myself as a victim. And I don't even see myself as a survivor. That would mean I'm trying to survive something and I believe I'm a lot further along than that. If anything, the word "thriver" comes to mind.

Producers: Belinda Hawkins and Sarah Farnsworth