Malka Leifer: The cushy life a rapist headmistress enjoys behind bars is revealed - as her victims lash their abuser's 'shocking' prison perks
Malka Leifer, 58, ran the Adass Israel School in Elsternwick, which caters to the city's ultra-orthodox Jewish community, but fled back to Israel in 2008 after the allegations against her first arose.
Following a lengthy process to extradite her to Australia to stand trial, she was jailed for 15 years in 2023 for the rape and indecent assault of Melbourne sisters Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper.
A former inmate of the maximum security Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, in the outer Melbourne suburb of Deer Park, has now claimed Leifer is receiving perks other prisoners do not get while she is held in the protection unit.
'Malka has a microwave in her room, cooking equipment, gets special orders every Thursday,' she told news.com.au. 'She wanted an airfryer and had members of the Jewish community write authorities about it. She gets whatever she wants.'
The former inmate also said she is allowed to make challah, a special bread that is often baked for the Jewish Sabbath observed every Saturday.
One of her victims, Elly Sapper, was appalled to hear of the perks Leifer was getting.
'To hear that she's doing this brings back so much of the way she acted in court which was no remorse and arrogance. It kind of brings out this anger again. It's shocking,' she said.
According to the former inmate, Leifer is disliked by other prisoners because of her arrogance.
She previously claimed Leifer was in a relationship with conwoman Samantha Azzopardi, 36, who was jailed for fraudulently claiming compensation by posing as a sex trafficked 17-year-old from Belgium known as Hattie Leigh.
She alleged the pair would write each other notes and often spend time in a laundry area where there is no CCTV.
Leifer targeted the sisters between 2004 and 2007 when they were students and later in their first year as student teachers.
The offending occurred while the headmistress was aged between 37 and 41 while Ms Erlich was aged between 16 and 19 and Ms Sapper aged 17 and 18.
The sisters previously welcomed the sentence but said it would never be enough.
'The ruling of 15 years recognises the harm and pain that Malka Leifer caused each one of us to suffer over so many years,' Ms Sapper said.
'While no amount of years will ever be sufficient, we are relieved that Malka Leifer is now in prison for 15 years and cannot prey on anyone else.'
The sisters campaigned for years to bring Leifer to justice and Ms Erlich said it was because they had not given up that they were successful.
'While we know the onus of fighting for justice should not be up to survivors, this fight was never just for us,' she said.
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Telegraph
10 minutes ago
- Telegraph
I tracked down my aunt's killer on Facebook
On July 30 2014, Lehanne Sergison was in Pizza Express with a friend when a South African number flashed up on her phone. She assumed it must be her aunt Christine Robinson who had lived in the country for the past 12 years. Instead a female voice said, 'Lehanne, Christine has been murdered '. 'It was brutal,' recalls Sergison, the shock still raw 11 years later. 'The waiter was passing me a pizza and I was taking in what I'd been told.' Her 59-year-old aunt lived nearly 6,000 miles away in Thabazimbi, South Africa. The pair were close, however, speaking on the phone every Sunday and writing emails. And now Robinson had been found, raped and murdered, in the lodge that she owned. Initially it was thought to be a farm killing, but then it emerged the 26-year-old gardener, Andrea Imbayarwo (then known then as Andrew Ndlovu), had disappeared along with £1,400. With such an obvious suspect, Sergison and her family reasonably expected his arrest and trial to be swift, but as days became weeks, and then months turned into years, any chance of justice seemed to slip away. Catching Robinson's murderer became something the South African authorities, the UK government and, eventually, even her own family back in England gave up on. Everyone in fact, except Sergison, a retired chartered surveyor from Bromley, who never quite stopped believing that it might be possible to bring him to justice. The start of a six-year journey So began a quest that would eventually, six years to the day after her beloved aunt was murdered, result in the man responsible being arrested. That he was finally caught was all thanks to Sergison, who had single-handedly made contact with the main suspect, honey-trapping him into messaging with her on Facebook and ultimately leading the police to his whereabouts. What made her achievement even more incredible was that Sergison did all of this without ever visiting South Africa. How she managed to secure the conviction of Imbayarwo is the subject of a new documentary, The Facebook Honeytrap: Catching a Killer, available on Amazon Prime Video from July 27. Today the 54-year-old still feels astonished by her role in securing justice. As someone who has always led a quiet life, taking part in a documentary isn't something that came naturally to her. She was driven firstly by a desire for justice for the aunt who she had always shared a close bond with, but while she acknowledges that nothing she has done will bring her back, the past 11 years have proven to her how femicide is allowed to happen virtually unchallenged. In South Africa, 153 rapes are reported each day and eight women are murdered. 'I think life is cheap there. It's accepted. Even when they find the men responsible, cases fall apart because the systems aren't robust enough. And then you start to read UN reports about femicide, rape and gender-based violence and they show that right across the world women have no value.' That her plucky, vivacious aunt was all too easily reduced to yet another female murder victim photograph, a headline in a newspaper, is something she still rails against. 'She was a real person, with a real life and lots left to live, and that was taken away from her in the most violent way possible.' Christine Robinson's life and death All her life, Sergison had looked up to her aunt as someone who embraced life to the fullest. The teacher from Liverpool had lived everywhere from Moscow to Kuwait, and had travelled to the Galapagos, China and Australia. 'You'd sit next to Chris on a bus and you'd know her life story; she was chatty and funny. She had many friends all over the world. She grew up very poor but she had ambition and she wanted to travel.' 'She would come home with a suitcase full of photographs of the kids in her class and she'd talk about them as if they were her own children. She was nurturing as a teacher I suppose. She wanted children but it just didn't happen. And in 2002, after meeting and marrying Robbie, the love of her life, in her forties, the couple bought a game park near the Botswana border. While she and Robbie had been concerned about violence, the life they opted for was a long way from any of South Africa's violent townships. They had CCTV and two Alsatian dogs that were trained to protect. 'She did everything you were supposed to do,' says Sergison. And life was good. That was until Robbie was diagnosed with cancer. In 2012 he died with Robinson by his side in his native Ireland. Afterwards, still deep in grief, Robinson made the decision to return to South Africa to continue running the 30-guest lodge. 'I was driving her to the airport and I said: 'You don't need to do this, Chris. We can get a lawyer to sort it out'. But she hadn't been back for 18 months. There were all these legalities to go through, plus she had memories there to revisit and enjoy. By the time Sergison took the call in Pizza Express two years later, Robinson was in the process of selling the lodge with the intention of returning to the UK. The day of her murder she missed an appointment about the sale. The same day that Robinson was found wrapped in a duvet, her throat slashed, Imbayarwo fled to his native Zimbabwe. That someone close to her aunt, who had worked there for six years, could do such a thing shocked Sergison. 'I think there had been some petty theft, but nothing like this. Afterwards I scoured all the emails Chris had sent me, looking for mention of him, and there was never a story about him. She wrote about the chefs, and the maids, but never him.' A 'frustrating' investigation What followed was a painfully inadequate attempt to extradite him from Zimbabwe. 'There were three or four attempts at extradition but the paper work was always wrong in some way. They'd tell me it was getting done but it wasn't. The authorities were so incompetent.' Sergison found her dealings with the Foreign Office to be equally frustrating. 'Our government wouldn't put enough pressure on them to get it sorted. I went to one meeting that had been in the diary for two weeks and the case officer knew nothing about the case. He hadn't even had the decency to open the file and look at the details. All he said was: 'I'll do better next time.'' It wasn't until she made contact with the charity, Murdered Abroad, that she realised her experience was all too common. 'Everyone thinks of the Madeleine McCann case where the police swoop in. But that doesn't happen,' says Sergison plainly. And even the South African non-profit organisation Action Society, that focuses on working for reform in the justice system, especially regarding gender-based violence, went quiet. 'They'd moved on to the next case. While that's frustrating, you understand they've got to put the resource where they can.' Going to South Africa herself was out of the question due to her own health problems – Sergison suffers from severe asthma that has seen her hospitalised in intensive care. Via text and email she maintained contact with the likes of Noelle Denis, the lodge manager as well as Robinson's friend. It was through her that, in 2015, she was told about a sighting of Imbayarwo; he was back in South Africa, living in Johannesburg. Sergison told the South African authorities. Nothing happened. Taking matters into her own hands His Facebook page had been inactive since he fled in 2014, but in 2016, turning sleuth, Sergison discovered he had three other profiles, under which he had posted more recent photos. Frustrated by the lack of any other investigations taking place, she decided to take matters into her own hands, creating a fake profile of her own; a flirty twenty-something air hostess called Missy Falcao – an amalgam of her two retired racing greyhounds' names – to reel him in. Having befriended some of his Facebook friends, she messaged him flirtatiously telling him he was 'so hot' and had 'sexy eyes'. Imbayarwo took the bait and over the next six months Sergison gleaned new information that she passed on to the South African authorities. 'I told him I was a stewardess as it meant I wasn't always contactable. I had to keep it light; I didn't want to tie myself up in lies that I couldn't remember. I thought if I kept him flattered, it would keep his interest,' she says of her messages. Sergison didn't tell her family what she was doing. She had learnt not to raise their hopes. The loss of her sister had hit Sergison's mother horribly and she was conscious of protecting her from more distress. Throughout, Sergison's husband Simone was apprehensive but supportive, she says. 'He's not one to put his head above the parapet and I wasn't before all this. I'm quite shy but when something drives you, you have to do something.' Still, there were moments when she backed off: 'Because I thought, 'This isn't healthy'. I needed to manage my health and wellbeing. The messaging was often late at night. It was difficult. And I had no support over what I should be saying or doing. 'I remember one time I was out for dinner with a friend and Andrew texted and I texted back. And I thought: 'What are you doing? Stop this!' I couldn't let it consume me.' Her information led to a failed triangulation of his location by the authorities in 2017. And then when a sting operation failed after Imbayarwo didn't show at a meet-up, the trail went cold in 2018. Sergison was left feeling like it had been all for nothing. Throughout, she had been told by the Foreign Office not to do anything with the information she had, that the South African authorities were dealing with it. That was no longer enough to keep Sergison quiet. 'He was still out and enjoying his life. And the South African police were too overwhelmed to be doing anything beyond ticking boxes,' she says. 'The British government had never posted his image online and foolishly I had listened to them. But I had all these new photos. I wondered if I posted them, would someone recognise him now?' On July 30 2020, the sixth anniversary of Robinson's murder, Sergison decided to go for it. Writing: 'Six years ago today this man raped and murdered my aunt Christine Robinson. Andrew Ndlovu is still a free man enjoying his life after taking hers.' Ian Cameron, of Action Society, shared the post, causing it to go viral, with more than 70,000 people sharing it. The same day a woman named Melissa got in touch; Imbayarwo had been working for her family for the past five years and living in her yard for the last year. Justice – at last That evening he was arrested. 'He'd worked for them for years and was trusted,' says Sergison. It was an incredibly swift result, after so much time. However in South Africa, conviction rates for femicide are shockingly low due to the lack of thorough evidence and prosecution. Statistics from the Medical Research Council reveals that less than one in five sexual offence cases end up in court and only 8.6 per cent of all sexual offence cases are finalised with a guilty verdict. Here, luck was finally on the family's side. Six months before Imbayarwo's arrest, the prosecutor had looked through the case and asked for holes to be filled. As a result, police got a statement from Imbayarwo's girlfriend at the time of the murder, recounting his confession to her. While the DNA evidence against Imbayarwo was strong, he pleaded not guilty, claiming the sex was consensual. At the court case in April 2022, Sergison employed a watching brief to report on the trial. Not only was she too ill to travel to South Africa but she was in intensive care in hospital with suspected tuberculosis. Against the odds, Sergison managed to write a Victim Impact statement to be read in court. 'It was important the judge heard that she wasn't a nobody. She had family, she had friends. She was real. She wasn't just a photograph in the evidence docket,' she says. Imbayarwo was found guilty of murder and rape eight years after killing and raping Christine Robinson. Sergison has subsequently been told he had a girlfriend whom he was living with at the time of his arrest. 'She was in pieces apparently. I just assumed he was a loner, because I couldn't bear to think otherwise. But she lived with him and had a relationship with him.' 'There was a life left for her to lead and someone took that away from her for £1,400' Her grief for her aunt remains raw. 'Sundays come when we would always speak, but the phone calls don't come and the emails don't come. Wherever she was in the world you'd get a birthday card and the oddest gift. She returned from Moscow one Christmas with a suitcase full of caviar and waistcoats,' laughs Sergison as she holds back tears. 'There was a life left for her to lead and someone took that away from her for £1,400. I'm sure she would have given that to him. She could be dippy but she knew the value of her own life.' She worries about what will happen in the future. 'At least for the next 22 years he will be in prison. But if he gets parole and is released, he'll only be my age today.' How has her experience changed her? 'I've become more vocal. I was very much a wallflower, not one for public speaking. But once you've learnt about what's happening to women and misogyny continues and femicide is accepted you feel obliged to do something.' 'My friends that have known me for a long time are shocked to know I had that fire in my belly.'
Daily Mail
40 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Bombshell twist you NEVER saw coming after Mark Latham's porn star ex bragged about lawyering up with Australia's top female barristers
Two of Australia's top female barristers have denied being engaged by Mark Latham's ex-girlfriend to deal with the ongoing fallout over her toxic relationship with the NSW independent MP. Nathalie Matthews claimed in a text message to Daily Mail Australia on Monday morning she was now being represented by defamation specialist Sue Chrysanthou SC and top prosecutor turned criminal defence barrister Margaret Cunneen SC. However both lawyers have told Daily Mail Australia they are not working for Ms Matthews. Ms Chrysanthou has acted for television presenter Lisa Wilkinson, billionaires Lachlan Murdoch and Gina Rinehart, Academy Award-winner Geoffrey Rush and former radio broadcaster Alan Jones. Her political clients have included Victorian state Liberal MP Moira Deeming and One Nation senator Pauline Hanson - Latham's leader when he was still a member of her political party. Ms Cunneen is a former deputy senior Crown prosecutor who has regularly appeared in high-profile cases, particularly sexual assault matters, since embarking on private practice in 2019. Ms Chrysanthou told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday she was not acting for Ms Matthews 'and my chambers has no record of any such brief'. Ms Cunneen said she had been offered the Matthews case but declined because she was too busy. Ms Matthews, 37, claims Latham, 64, inflicted 'a sustained pattern' of psychological, financial and emotional abuse over almost three years. She is seeking an apprehended violence order against the former federal Labor leader, alleging he committed vile acts 'including defecating on me before sex and refusing to let me wash'. Latham's lawyer Zali Burrows served WiseTech global billionaire Richard White and Ms Matthews with subpoenas related to the AVO application on Friday. The subpoena requested emails, text messages, and OnlyFans direct messages between Mr White and Ms Matthews, who connected on LinkedIn in 2023. Mr White is not accused of any wrongdoing and this publication is not suggesting Mr White and Ms Matthews engaged in a sexual relationship, only that Latham joked about her performing a sex act on the businessman. Daily Mail Australia revealed Ms Matthews' past as an OnlyFans content creator last week. She posted graphic images and videos of herself under the suggestive name Bondi C** Sl** from 2019 to 2023. Ms Matthews declined to comment on her OnlyFans past but her previous lawyer told Daily Mail Australia her client 'has been subjected to character assassination, reputational damage and trial by media'. Sexually explicit WhatsApp messages between Latham and Ms Matthews were made public by The Daily Telegraph last week. Latham told Daily Mail Australia the outlet's reproduction of the messages was 'not accurate'. The messages included a series of lewd exchanges on February 20, 2025, during parliamentary sitting hours. 'Very hard thinking about you,' Latham wrote to Ms Matthews shortly after 11am that day, before following up with a series of suggestive emojis. 'Need badly to taste you,' he wrote that afternoon, alongside a tongue emoji. 'Made it back for first vote after dinner,' Latham wrote at 8.38pm. Having generally limited his comments to posts on X or interviews on radio station 2SM, Latham directly addressed the unfolding sex scandal in a press conference on Saturday. Latham said what he has called his 'situationship' with Ms Matthews ended on May 27 after the Australian Turf Club members voted against the sale of Rosehill racecourse. Both of them are racing enthusiasts and Latham claimed that night Ms Matthews was covered in mud when she allegedly confronted him. 'This was like something from World War Z,' he said. '[But] one thing's abundantly clear - what we had for over two years was a sexed-up, consensual, open arrangement between adults with a fair bit of other contacts, such as fun days of the races, thrown in. I didn't make any moral judgment about her.' Latham went on to say the pair shared a consensual relationship, adding that 'probably 95 per cent of the things she's complaining about, she initiated'. 'So the media disease here... is to take this stuff which is not rational, not true, from someone who... is obviously not thinking clearly about anything and exploit her for these salacious smutty stories that you run about someone's sex life,' he said. Latham did not deny accusations he had sex with Ms Matthews in his parliamentary office, saying people could 'write whatever they like'. 'Members of parliament are allowed to run their own office,' Latham said. 'These are not matters of public interest… but the truth is, members of parliament have privilege for whatever happens in their office. It is their own domain.' Latham said the subpoenas requesting communications between Mr White and Ms Matthews had not been intended to intimidate her, as she had alleged. Instead, Latham insisted he wanted access to those communications to test Ms Matthews' allegations that he had made her have sex with other men. Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting the abuse claims against Latham are true, only that they have been alleged by Ms Matthews.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Sofronoff knew ‘destructive' potential of leaking confidential documents to Australian and ABC journalists, court hears
Walter Sofronoff was fully aware of the 'destructive' potential of leaking confidential documents relating to his inquiry into the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann to journalists, the federal court has heard. Hearings continued on Tuesday into the former Queensland judge's legal challenge to findings by the Australian Capital Territory's Integrity Commission that he had engaged in 'serious corrupt conduct' by leaking documents relating to his investigation into the Lehrmann case to Janet Albrechtsen at the Australian and Elizabeth Byrne at the ABC. Those leaked documents included notices sent to then-ACT director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold that the inquiry was considering making adverse findings against him. Scott Robertson SC, representing the ACT Integrity Commission, told the court those documents were disclosed to journalists knowing they posed a significant risk to Drumgold's career. 'It wasn't an accidental disclosure, it was a knowing disclosure,' Robertson said. A 2022 criminal trial against Lehrmann, who was accused of raping Brittany Higgins in the ministerial office of Senator Linda Reynolds at Parliament House in 2019, was abandoned with no verdict because of juror misconduct, and prosecutors decided against a re-trial. Lehrmann denied the allegations. Sofronoff was appointed by the ACT government to determine whether the investigation into the trial had been affected by political influence or interference. His report ruled that out but made 'serious findings of misconduct' against Drumgold, which were partially overturned in March 2024. The Integrity Commission launched an investigation in May 2024 to determine whether Sofronoff acted corruptly in leaking confidential documents, including providing the inquiry's final report to journalists before its official public release. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The corruption watchdog's report, known as the Juno report, said Sofronoff claimed his conduct 'complied with the requirements of the Inquiries Act' and that, in leaking the documents, he had 'acted in the public interest to ensure the media were adequately informed' about his inquiry and 'in a position to comment accurately' about it. The commission found that Sofronoff 'had not, in fact, acted in good faith', that his actions 'undermined the integrity of the Board's processes and the fairness and probity of its proceedings to such an extent as to have been likely to have threatened public confidence in the integrity of that aspect of public administration. It therefore constituted serious corrupt conduct.' Sofronoff is challenging this finding on the argument that the commission made a series of errors in its interpretation of legislation, and that there was no evidence to support findings that he had acted dishonestly or not in good faith. Robertson said Sofronoff clearly knew the material he was disseminating ought to be kept confidential and that parties affected by it would expect him not to send it to journalists. The non-publication order that Sofronoff issued in April 2023 over the material provided to his own inquiry (as there was a risk that adverse findings may be made at the time), showed he 'quite appropriately' believed that material should be kept confidential, 'yet he acted inconsistent with that own indication', Robertson said. Evidence for that inconsistency included Sofronoff sending two subpoenaed statements relating to the investigation into Drumgold to Albrechtsen in a text message with the words 'strictly confidential' attached, Robertson said. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion While a number of people were notified that Sofronoff's inquiry was considering making adverse comments against them, Sofronoff only leaked the notices of possible adverse comment against Drumgold to Albrechtsen, the court heard. Serious adverse findings could, and in this case did, destroy Drumgold's career. The destructive potential of those documents could not reasonably have been lost on Sofronoff, Robertson said, as he was 'an individual of extensive [legal] pedigree'. 'As sensitive and confidential documents go, it's hard to identify a more serious example. The public release of these documents and even the use of it as journalistic background is or was apt to undermine Mr Drumgold's interest, that's the factual context in which the commission makes its relevant findings.' Robertson argued that if Justice Wendy Abraham were to find that the facts behind the commission's finding were not in error, she would be 'very unlikely' to find error in the subsequent evaluation of Sofronoff's conduct as dishonest. Sofronoff's barrister, Adam Pomerenke KC, said there was a difference between 'disclosure' and 'publication', and that the suppression order only related to publication. Sofronoff was aware of the terms of his own suppression order, but 'knew that [material] would not be published while this order was operative. That's a different thing from being disclosed'. Justice Abraham queried the distinction, saying: 'A person providing a statement [to the inquiry] would not expect that to be provided to a journalist without their knowledge, at this stage, with the order in place, would they? They would have the expectation that it would not be.' 'I'm going to stick to that distinction between publication and disclosure, it's a recognised distinction,' said Pomerenke. The court reserved its judgement.
