Faith Reeves still remembers the magical moment 18 years ago when her doting husband first cradled their newborn daughter in his arms.
After already welcoming two sons, the long-awaited birth of their first girl, Hope, was marked by celebration for the growing Queensland family.
But the once-beautiful memory is now a sickening reminder of the years of horrific sexual abuse that would befall Hope at the hands of her father Richard James Smith.
In Faith’s mind, that loving first embrace will now forever be contrasted with the nauseating sight when she stumbled upon him 15 years later groping their baby girl’s breast.
‘He is sick, more than sick,’ Faith, 43, told Daily Mail Australia.
‘No kid should have a monster in their cupboard, but unfortunately mine did.’
Faith Reeves thought she had the perfect family. But her husband was harboring a dark secret. Behind closed doors, he had been subjecting their daughter, Hope, to years of heinous sexual abuse. Pictured: Hope (far left), Faith (left), Cameron (back), Dylan (centre), Richard (front)
Life seemed perfect for the Smiths. There were the occasional fights and typical stresses, but the couple-of-23-years were happily raising their four children, who all have autism, in the pastoral Lockyer Valley, just west of Brisbane.
In 2018, the parents-of-four were running a busy household, home-schooling Hope, 14, and Abbigail, seven, and meeting the needs of Dylan, 18, and Cameron, 16.
They were also caring for Faith’s ill mother Dawn, 76, who had recently moved in after being diagnosed with congenital heart failure.
But on August 29, their ideal family would be shattered within seconds by a devastating discovery.
After the kids spent a few hours keeping busy on their iPads, the family decided to come together to watch a DVD, with Richard offering to fetch the PlayStation from a bedroom with Hope.
When the pair failed to emerge after several minutes, Faith went down the hall and sprung open the door to find Richard standing behind Hope, rubbing her chest.
Caught off-guard, Richard jumped back, releasing his teen-aged daughter as she remained frozen in fear.
Richard Smith cradling his newborn daughter Hope in a Lockyer Valley hospital in February, 2003
‘What the hell is going on?’ Faith demanded, shocked and confused.
After her questions were met with silence, Faith walked into another room and sat down, trying to piece together what she had just witnessed.
Moments later, Hope came to her mother with a dark secret that had been haunting her for years.
‘She said: “He was touching my boobies. I can’t make him stop,’ Faith said.
‘My heart sank, because I realised it wasn’t the first time.’
‘I turned to her and said “well I can”.
‘That’s the second our family broke apart.’
Choking back an avalanche of mixed emotions, Faith jumped into mother-mode, ushering the kids, her mother, and the dog down the other end of the house for safety, while she confronted Richard, expecting him to explode into a fit of rage.
When she charged back to Hope’s bedroom, her husband started shouting and throwing projectiles at her, still refusing to explain his actions, before curling himself up in a mattress protector, aware his reign of terror was coming to an end.
Hope pictured aged eight, around the time the abuse began, with the family’s dog, called Beagle
As Faith called the police, Richard began to panic, rushing to his phone and laptop to seemingly erase files – which would never be recovered.
After officers arrived, Faith, Dawn, and the kids were escorted to the police station where Hope would spend hours giving detectives a harrowing account of the horrific sexual abuse she had suffered since she was eight.
Meanwhile, left alone in the house with detectives yet to make an arrest, Richard was preparing to flee.
‘At the police station he sent me a text saying “Goodbye Faith, I love you”,’ the mother-of-four said.
‘Officers went back to the house to do a welfare check and he was packing his things to go on the run.
‘They caught him just in time.’
The incestuous father was taken into custody and charged with three offences, including rape and maintaining a relationship with a child, which later swelled to a total of 32 as the investigation progressed.
As the broken Smiths returned home to spend their first night as a family of six, Faith’s mind raked over the disturbing details she’d just learnt about Hope’s torment.
‘She was raped three or five times a week,’ Faith said.
‘I’m devastated. I wasn’t able to stop him from touching her. I was there and didn’t know. Hope was suffering day-in day-out.’
Faith and Richard (pictured together in their youth) were together for 23 years before she discovered him groping Hope in her bedroom on August 29, 2018
Richard pleaded guilty to 20 charges, including rape and incest. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison last year
In one instance, Richard had instructed Hope to go to her room to complete her online learning, after having insisted the girls be pulled from school to be taught at home.
While Hope was studying on her bed with her laptop, her father came into the room and started performing sex acts on her as she did her school work.
‘This was a man I was with for 23 years, who held a security job and should have known better,’ Faith said.
‘He is disgusting.’
The next morning, the family learnt Richard would not be coming home as his charges were so serious he had been remanded in custody.
His charges were shaved down to 20 after he agreed to plead guilty. He was sentenced to ten years in prison at Toowoomba District Court on August 4 last year.
Hope, described by the judge as an ‘amazing and strong young woman’, delivered a powerful victim impact statement that brought the entire courtroom to tears.
‘Because I didn’t think I had the courage to ask for help, I became numb to everything,’ she said.
‘I guess I just learned to hide behind a mask. I had really bad self-esteem, I hated myself, and I developed depression where I could not eat or feel happy.’
Although Faith was completely blindsided by Hope’s abuse, in retrospect, she realises the family were unhappy under the control of Richard for years. Pictured: The kids cuddling when Abbigail was born
Hope (pictured in recent times with Abbigail) said the abuse had left her self-esteem in tatters, but since her father’s arrest she has never felt better
‘When he was arrested, I thought it was a dream. I was so scared I was going to wake up and nothing had changed.
‘Now I feel I can express how I feel, I don’t have low self-esteem, and can say I actually love myself, which I couldn’t do a long time ago.’
The 707 days Richard spent in remand was shaved off his prison term, meaning he could spend just eight years behind bars, with the possibility of parole after only six. The prospect that he could one day walk free leaves Faith terrified.
Despite being completely blindsided, Faith realises in retrospect there were signs of her husband’s deviant behaviour.
‘Mum said once he was caught, she would always wonder why it would always take Richard such a long time to wake up Hope in the morning. It makes me sick,’ Faith said.
‘The day I caught him was the one day I was wearing bed socks without grips on the bottom. The grips click on the tiles and he would have heard me coming and stopped.
Hope said it ‘felt like a dream’ when she woke up the day after his arrest and learnt he was not coming home
Faith said all of the kids are doing much better without their father, and Abbigail (pictured) can now read better than her
‘These kids have autism and they don’t communicate right sometimes. He used it to his advantage. Hope was too frightened to come forward.’
After the shocking revelation, Faith immediately applied for divorce, which was granted 18 months later by a judge after Richard refused to sign the papers.
Now, Faith realises what she thought was the ‘perfect marriage’ was actually a relationship plagued by domestic violence and a domineering patriarch who used control to isolate the family.
‘He managed all of our finances and would get physical, shove me, and yell at me in public. If he wanted sex, he got it. I couldn’t talk to the neighbours without getting in trouble,’ she said.
‘He had a god complex and would remind us that he was ‘god’ and had to follow his orders. He would use security holds on the boys. Everyone had to have Find My iPhone so he could track us.
‘He had me in a corner too scared to leave, fearing if we did he would track us down. But I can see clearly now. I was stupid for not leaving years ago.’
Although Richard was in custody, the family’s troubles were far from over.
Just days after he was arrested they were handed an eviction notice after Cameron yelled at a child from an adjacent day care centre who was climbing a shared fence, fearing the infant would fall.
Seizing the opportunity for a fresh start, they decided to relocate to Roma – but soon found themselves facing potential homelessness after struggling to find a house.
Just weeks after the family broke apart, Faith, her mother, and the kids were kicked out of their home. Facing homelessness, the mother-of-four was able to secure a property with the help of Instarent. Pictured left to right, Instarent’s George Kuburlis (Director), Aron Akca (Director of Sales & Marketing), centre, and AJ Chand (Founder & CEO)
Desperate to put a roof over her kids, Faith sent an email to Instarent, a company that streamlines landlord-tenant interaction, who were immediately able to secure a property for the family.
‘We saw the email, at first we thought this can’t be true, within moments I said out loud “we need to call her”,’ said Instarent Director of Sales & Marketing Aron Akca.
Aron said Insarent Founder and CEO AJ Chand immediately picked up his phone and dialed her number.
‘By the time he finished the phone call, more than half of our office was in tears,’ Aron said.
‘It was that moment where we knew we had to help her. We couldn’t believe what we read, how could one person draw such a bad hand of cards in life and have the drive to keep pushing forward. We felt sad, but inspired to help Faith and her family.’
Faith said the staff at Instarent ‘saved’ them during the most trying time in their life.
‘We were going to have to sleep in the car. They were so understanding. I don’t know what we would have done without their help. It was refreshing to have someone actually care,’ Faith said.
Faith, Dawn, and the kids, who plan to soon take their mother’s surname, have since moved back to the Lockyer Valley after holding a family vote. They do not talk about Richard.
And although father’s day is still tough, Hope, now 18, and her siblings Abbigail, nine, Dylan, 22, and Cameron, 20, have started to heal.
Despite their horrific ordeal, the family have bounced back and are now closer than ever before. Pictured: Cameron, 20, left, Abbigail, nine, second from the left, Dawn, 79, front, Hope, 18, centre, Dylan, 22, second from the right, Faith, far right
‘The kids have all gotten so much better without him,’ Faith said.
‘Dylan is making phone calls, and Abi is back at school and can read better than me.’
‘Hope can still close her eyes and see what happened, so she tries to keep her mind focused on other things. I hold them close and treat them how they should be treated.’
For Faith, building a life back where it all began has given her the chance to grieve the abrupt breakdown of her marriage.
‘On that day, we were a family of seven, but all of a sudden it ended. There wasn’t time for me to mourn him as my husband, there wasn’t time to get angry, because I was just numb,’ she said.
‘My kids deserved the chance to have a good dad and they don’t have that. It is sad when we see other families that were normal. What happened to us? Why could he not do the right thing?’
‘But I am grateful for this journey. It has brought us closer. We all roll together, we are a very tight family.’
‘And now we are stronger than ever before.’
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