Father Sexually Assaulted His Daughters
In June 2008, South Wales police take a call from 17-year-old Nicola Tumi and uncover a dark taboo of sexual abuse within a family home. It’s lasted more than a decade. And there are two victims, sisters Nicola and Emma. And their abuser is their own father. You could see him locking in a certain way if they say, “Right, I have an opportunity.
Do I don’t die?” He wasn’t a father. He was a monster. I knew in my head that something had to be done. I needed to go to the police. Britain’s Darkest Taboos reveals the shocking real life stories behind the most horrific acts of familial crime, including murder. Laura had to witness her own mother being shot dead.
They took our life and our allisonens and our tans. Child’s destruction. This is one of the most brutal murders I’ve come across. He stabbed my daughter and granddaughter. And incest. She stopped seeing her father as a father. She starts seeing him as the sexual predator that he is. I never thought he’d go as far as to rape me ever in a million years.
He was my dad. On the 30th of November 1990, Nicola Tumi is born in Port Talbbert, South Wales. The youngest of three siblings, she has an older brother, Ian, and older sister, Emma. Emma and Nicola have happy memories of their early childhood. I’m the youngest of three siblings. Um there’s 5 years difference between me and Emma. We were all like really close.
It was like as if the family was complete from an outsider looking in. We were the perfect family. We were happy. We did a lot of stuff together. You know, we were perfect. Nicola has a particularly close relationship with a father Kevin Tumi. My dad was a very happy person. He jolly. He was just a typical dad.
He did everything to do around the house. He did everything, you know, for me and Emma. You couldn’t wish for a better father. Kevin Tumi encourages his daughters to sing. >> Music was really important to my family. Me and my sister loved singing. We just loved everything about it. And my dad enjoyed singing.
My mother enjoyed singing when she was really young. So there was always music on in the house. Emma and Nicola attend theater group from a young age. and their dad enrolls Emma in singing contests. I loved all the competitions and especially after the first one when I won it, it was like, “Oh my god, I’m quite good at this.
” And it was something that I wanted to carry on with. She was my role model. I looked up to her and I just wanted to be her. I wanted to do what she was doing. Psychologist Emma Kenny works with victims of familial abuse at her clinics and she’s been looking into Tumi’s family life. Whilst Emma and Nicola acknowledged that their life felt quite normal, that they had a mom and dad at home, that they felt very happy, that everything seemed to be okay, they also knew that dad was in control.
He looked after all the money. He sorted out all the finances. He made all the decisions. He was a very strong man. And I think because he’d met my mother at such a young age. My mother was a Salvation Army officer herself. I think he just had this control over her. I don’t think that she could make a decision without him.
Do you know what I mean? So, I just think she was scared. >> Detective Inspector Tracy Wheeler of Essex Police has worked with victims and perpetrators of child abuse for more than a decade. And she recognizes warning signs in Tumi’s behavior >> with his partner. I would suspect that if he controlled the finances, that would make his partner and anybody that lived with him um feel that he was quite an invaluable member of the family.
In fact, Tumi works with vulnerable people and children and is a respected figure within the community. >> My dad did a lot for the community. He used to like do the scoring for the cricket team. He used to play Santa at Christmas times for the community centers. Did a lot of work with rugby and he was well respected in the community. I was proud of my dad.
There was a lot of things that my dad did that I looked up to him and I thought, “Wow, like he’s so respected.” Emma and Nicola not only idolized their father but saw that their father had that kind of recognition of others around them. >> It is important to Tumi that his children see him in social situations. >> After a few drinks he was up on the dance floor.
He’d even get the strangers up to dance. And I think that’s what everybody liked about him. the fact that he wasn’t afraid to get up, be the center of attention regardless of whether he looked, stupid or not. Whilst Emma and Nicola see their loving, popular dad as the perfect role model. Forensic psychologist Dr. Carrie Nixon has profiled sex offenders in her research, and she believes Tumi is laying the foundations to enable him to offend.
Tumi seems to be a showman. He wants to show himself as the perfect dad, the perfect husband, the respected member of the community. So that certainly shows some narcissistic elements. Sex offenders, um, in my experience and the sex offenders I’ve worked with, they will spend an enormous amount of energy in the planning, in the grooming, often for years.
That’s where they’re they’re planning and they’re preparing and they’re working on victims. But not only on victims, also on surrounding people to ensure they’re able to offend. In this respect, Tumi is very, very typical of a sex offender. >> Tumi is about to betray the loving trust of his daughters in the worst way possible.
A person that offends against children, whether that be male, whether that be female, whether that be somebody in the family, would have thought and planned in detail what they were going to do. And they would start by testing the waters. They would start by seeing whether or not their the victim, who they would have chosen in advance, would um be complicit, would acquies to what they wanted to happen.
In 1996, Kevin Tumi targets his first victim, his 10-year-old daughter, Emma. Remember it like it was yesterday, unfortunately. Um, I don’t know what to say cuz I can see it. Nikki was ill from school. She was laying on the sofa in the living room with a blanket over her. I was going to start a piggy bank and my dad called me upstairs into his room and said um he was going to give me money to start piggy bank but I had to close my eyes and put my hands out and he give me money wasn’t money.
I opened my eyes seeing where he was doing and I ran downstairs and hid actually hid behind my sister. She was like it was like as if she was there to save me in one way even though she was fast asleep. I hid behind her and just tried not to think about what had just gone on that day. Actually, what he put in her hands was his penis.
This was him saying that or trying to test to see what her reaction would be and in turn test the relationship and the amount of power and control he had over Emma. >> But Emma’s response is a warning to her father. >> By letting him know that she’s unhappy with his actions and that she doesn’t like it, he knows that she’s possibly unsafe to continue to abuse.
She may tell somebody. >> Tumi needs to make sure Emma stays silent. >> My dad comes straight downstairs after me and told me that um it was our secret. We couldn’t tell anyone cuz nobody believed me anyway. Um and that was it. He went out to the kitchen and carried on with his normal day. But Tumi isn’t finished with Emma or her sister, 5-year-old Nicola.
>> The fact that she spurned him, if you like, um, might have meant that he would then turn his attention to the younger daughter. >> Kevin Tumi is a pillar of the community. But behind closed doors, he begins a 12-year reign of terror. >> He was my dad. You know what I mean? I I loved him so much, and I didn’t think he could hurt me like that.
Emma and Nicola had their childhood stolen by the one person they loved most in the world, their father. >> He got really quiet and you could see him looking in a certain way just to say, “Right, I have an opportunity. Do I don’t die.” >> It’s 1996 in Port Talbert, South Wales, and father of three Kevin Tumi is well respected as a good family man by the local community.
>> We were respected. Yeah. if we went out, people would know who we are. People knew who were, you know, oh, that’s Kevin’s daughter, you know, and oh, that’s Kevin, you know, and that’s how we were known as his family. >> But behind closed doors, Tumi has already begun to abuse his 10-year-old daughter, Emma.
>> When he was abusing me, he he wasn’t himself. He wasn’t the the father that I loved and respected. It was like as if somebody had taken over his body and he was a completely different person. [Music] >> Although Emma spurns her father’s advances, detective inspector Tracy Wheeler believes this didn’t put him off and claims that sex offenders try different methods to test the waters with their victims.
>> They might touch them lightly. They might um play with them in a bit of rough and tumble. They might speak an inappropriate language or they might use some sexualized words or maybe leave some pornographic material around to see what the child’s reaction would be. If it was positive, and by positive I mean that it would be positive for the offender and it looked like the child actually wouldn’t go and tell anybody, then what that would do for the offender is reinforce the fact that they would have quite a lot of power over that
child and they would take it further and further and further. After the first incident, 10-year-old Emma is scared to be at home alone with her dad. >> If he knew that we had the house to ourselves for an hour, 2 hours or whatever, and he got really quiet and you could see him looking in a certain way. You have to say, “Right, I have an opportunity.
Do I don’t die.” >> A few weeks later, Tumi tests Emma again. It was early in the morning. I think I slept awkward cuz I remember going downstairs and my neck and shoulder was hurting on one side and he said, “D come here and I’ll sit in front of me. I’ll massage your neck and shoulder to ease the pain.
” He he did massage my neck a little bit. And then his hands started to um wander a bit. He actually goes up behind her and suggests to her that if she wants her breasts to grow. And let’s be honest, at 11 years of age, that’s what pretty much a lot of girls are hoping for. And he actually says, “You need to massage them.
” So, he starts to massage her breast and she doesn’t like it. And she lets him know that she doesn’t like it. Now, again, this is really testing behavior. When I realized what he was doing, I pushed his arms away and I just run off to my bedroom and he just come up by I was sat by the door didn’t let him in and he just said the same thing again. You know, you can’t tell anyone.
>> If you think about it, if she had gone and said, “Dad’s done this.” The likelihood is because it wasn’t actually a serious sexual assault, people would have said, “Oh, you’re wrong.” Emma decides to keep her dad’s secret, but keeps a distance from her father. >> After that, I was thinking, I don’t want to be alone with him anymore.
>> Emma and Nicola had their childhood stolen by the one person that they loved most in the world, their father. >> Tumi realizes his eldest daughter is a risk, so he focuses his perverted attention on Nicola, who is just 5 years old. Nicola describes the first time that her father abused her as being um carried out through play.
In my professional experience, that happens quite regularly. >> I was 5 years old and we were in the living room and we were on our own in the house and he picked me up. He sat me on his lap. Children will play games. Children love attention of adults and if an adult says it’s a game, it’s a game. and he just put his hand on my leg and then I didn’t think nothing of it and then it just started getting higher and higher and then you know he put his hand on my private parts and cuz I was so young I didn’t think that it was anything wrong and I just sat
there and then he just when he was finished he lifted me off his lap put me on the floor and I just ran out and I didn’t think nothing of it I thought it happened to everybody I thought it was normal >> tum knew that at 5 years of age, it was going to be far easier to abuse Nicola. And she took it as red that daddy loved her.
So letting him do what he did to her, albeit that it was painful, albeit that it made her feel uncomfortable, she felt like she was being a good daughter. I know he was hurting me and I didn’t like it. I kept telling him, you know, you’re hurting me. I I don’t want to play a game no more. And he wouldn’t really stop. So I’d start crying.
And then, you know, he’d stop. He’d walk out and you know I’d just be sitting there crying. >> Over the next 5 years the sexual assaults become a regular occurrence for Nick. But when she starts secondary school she gets a terrible shock. >> When I started school a few of my friends were talking about stuff they did with their dads and something just didn’t add up and I pulled one of my friends to a side and I said you know do you do this for your dad? Does your dad do this to you? sort of thing and she said, “No, that that’s wrong.”
The time she starts to question this behavior and by the time it’s confirmed by her friends this behavior is not acceptable. The amount of guilt, the amount of shame, the amount of responsibility that she has on her shoulders will weigh her down so heavily that the idea of talking about it to a professional, for example, a teacher, is almost an impossible task to carry out.
Despite the abuse, Nicola and Emma maintain a close relationship with their father and become professional singers, performing at local pubs and clubs in the area. Emma is just 17 and Nicola just 12 years old at the time. >> My dad liked to think he was our manager. He’d make sure all our music was on qu.
He’d deal with getting us the gigs. He would deal with all the manager roles, I suppose. So, he was a big part in it. when we started singing in different places like Happy Valley and things um it was something that we did that was our thing and it was the best time of my life but you could forget everything that had happened and it was like as if it didn’t didn’t happen.
DI Tracy Wheeler believes that Tumi encouraging the girls singing career is part of his grooming process. I think by putting them on on stage if you like on show and performing it made them very happy. He exploited what children need which basically is love affection. They need attention and generally in a normal happy family that’s a positive thing.
What he seems to have done with the girls is have blurred the boundaries between father and daughter and then it sort of changes the rules. Seeing the way you was outside of the house makes you forget about things that happened inside the house. This bloke goes, you know, the life and soul of the party. Everybody loves him and then like a monster behind closed doors.
>> Imagine the confusion as a child. You have this great dad. You enjoy all your time with him. You do fantastic fun things. You have these little secret things that take place when you’re out. You might have a drink. You might be able to talk in a way that you wouldn’t talk at home. And this is all okay.
It’s like a special place where you, your sister, and your father exist. How likely are you to risk the 95% of good times for the 5% of bad times? And that’s how abuses work. >> As Nicola develops into a young woman in the family home, the abuse from her father escalates. in my teens. He tried he tried doing a lot of awful things.
You know, he did try putting his penis in my mouth a couple of times and I’d always thought to just push it away and just get it away from my mouth or get it away from me and then he’d grab my hand and put it on his penis and then put my put his hand over it. So, I couldn’t I couldn’t let it go. >> As the assaults become more severe, Nicola finds it hard to understand her father’s behavior.
He was my dad, you know what I mean? I I loved him so much and I didn’t think he could hurt me like that. >> Kevin Tumi has a particular way of abusing his daughter, something that is common in sex offenders. >> He would never speak as he was abusing her. And he would often abuse her from behind without looking at her.
By abusing her from behind, by not talking during the abusing, he’s able to disassociate himself from the situation and just engage in the abuse. This is such a powerful and manipulative trick to play on a child because it almost makes you think, did this really happen? >> He’d never stop until he was satisfied.
Never. >> A teenage Nicola pleads with her father to stop the abuse. >> I’d beg him, “Please, no, don’t do this now. Don’t, you know, please just don’t do it to me.” Every time he’d finish, he’d always say, you know, “Please don’t say anything. It’s our little secret. you’re going to break up the family if you do say anything.
You know that, don’t you? And sort of like manipulating me to think that that my whole world had just come crumbling around around me. I’d lose everything. So everything I had, my singing career, my my everything I had was all just going to disappear if I had just told anybody anything. >> They would feel that the only security they had got was their family, their home, their mother, and their father.
And regardless of the fact that their father was sexually abusing them, it wouldn’t possibly stop them loving him. So they would just want the abuse to stop. >> I lived in fear all the time. >> I always start to blame myself. I was always like, why is he doing this to me? Is it my fault? Am I doing something? I always tried to be the best daughter I could possibly be when, you know, we were out and about as a family and stuff because I thought if I’m good, maybe it’ll stop.
>> Nicola begins writing a diary describing what her dad does to her. >> I couldn’t take, you know, carrying this secret around me anymore. I couldn’t take it. It was draining me. Every time he abused me, I wrote it down in my diary, kept it under my pillow with a lock on it, and it helped me so much.
Sexual abuse isolates people entirely. You feel ashamed of what’s going on, but by recording it, by validating it, it’s almost regurgitating the information, the fear, the pain, the shame, and placing it somewhere else. And it can be a very powerful tool in healing. As they share a bedroom, it’s not long before Emma discovers her sister’s diary.
>> I came to a page where she described something that my dad had did to her. And the realization came then that it wasn’t just me. It happened to her. Even though she was younger than me and I I was a bit in shock to be honest. I wasn’t expecting to read something like that in a little kid’s diary. >> She said, “Everything you’ve written in the back is a tro.
” And I just started crying. I couldn’t really answer that cuz I was I was so upset. And she said, you know, she put an alarm on me and she said, “Don’t worry, he does it to me, too.” [Music] I thought that um he’d never do anything to my sister because I pushed him away so many times and he knew he couldn’t do anything.
Couldn’t physically do anything. Didn’t think he’d try it with my sister either. I felt in a way we could help each other. We could help each other through it by talking about it and by letting it out and you know I wouldn’t have to write it in my diary anymore cuz I had somebody to go to. So I think we both found it a bit easier to deal with.
>> The girls have each other to confide in, but they are still too scared to speak out. >> We didn’t know what to do because we couldn’t say anything because who would believe two little girls over not a respected man. And because we were such a close family, we didn’t want to split us all up. In 2007, while still living at home, Emma meets someone and falls pregnant.
Unbeknown to Emma, her younger sister is still being abused by their dad. >> I sort of felt as if I didn’t have anybody there to talk to anymore, and I had to deal with it on my own. Emma gives birth to her first child, Amelia, and moves out of the family home, leaving 17-year-old Nicola on her own. >> Nicola was alone, and she was more vulnerable.
And that’s when the abuse by Kevin Tumi got worse. >> I knew my dad was, you know, a bad person with what he was doing, but I never thought he’d go that far. Kevin Tumi is planning to take the next step in abusing Nicola. But will it be one step too far? >> He’s scared them into not saying anything. He’s threatened them into not saying anything.
He’s groomed them into not saying anything. >> Kevin Tumi sees this as an absolute excuse to be able to push the abuse further. And that’s exactly what he does. >> When I was my dad made me do things that I didn’t understand then to do it to my sister as well. It’s September 2007 in Port Talbert, South Wales, and happily married pillar of the community, Kevin Tumi, has been abusing his daughter, Nicola, for 12 years.
At the age of 17, Nicola has begun seeing a local lad, and the relationship becomes sexual. She goes to get a contraceptive implant to make sure she’s protected. Kevin Tumi sees this as an absolute excuse to be able to push the abuse further and that’s exactly what he does. >> To Dr.
Kerry Nixon, this is the culmination of 12 years of grooming and abuse. >> He’s scared them into not saying anything. He’s threatened them into not saying anything. He’s groomed them into not saying anything. But then he’s got the added protection that at that time it coincides with when Nicola gets the implant. >> He knew that she had an implant.
He knew that the chances of her getting pregnant were zero or very small. So he probably planned it in as much as when she next comes to the house and as soon as I get the opportunity, I’m going to have sex with her. I’m going to rape her. >> A few days after she has the contraceptive implant, Nicholas at her friends and her mom is out seeing family.
>> I knew I had to go home cuz it was getting late. I knew my dad was alone in the house. I I was just saying to my friend, I was like, I I don’t want to go home. I I know he’s going to he’s going to do something. I said, I don’t want to go home. >> She knows that when she gets in, very often, Tumi will have orchestrated a situation where she’s on her own with him.
And she knows that as soon as that he’s got her on her own, the abuse is going to take place. >> I went in through the front door. I ran upstairs and I went in my bedroom and I sat by my bedroom door. I’d only been home like a few minutes. It’s like a jing off the stairs and he was pushing against the door. I moved out of the way, let him in.
He came in, he closed the door behind him. He started to undress me. He undressed himself, laid me down on the bed. He was holding my hands up and he jumped on top of me and he raped me. I couldn’t get this man off me. And I thought to myself, I just need to let it happen. And I just need to, you know, lay there and just leave him, do what he’s got to do, and then he’ll go.
He’ll go away. He’ll eventually be over. After he’d finished, he’d said, you know, remember now our little secret, grabbed his clothes, and he walked out. Dr. Carrie Nixon believes Tumi has been planning this attack for a long time. >> He’s probably fantasized about doing that for years and he was scared about her saying something, but gets to the point where he thinks he’s controlled her enough to not speak out and now there’s not the risk of her getting pregnant.
So, he feels safe enough then to engage in rape. >> Nicola is left in her room alone to deal with what has just happened. I knew what he was capable of, but I never thought he’d go that far. I never thought he’d go as far as to rape me ever in a million years. He was my dad, you know what I mean? And I never thought he was capable of it, but obviously he was.
>> She spends the night in tears. >> The next morning, things just went back to normal. Go downstairs, you have breakfast. I sort of look at him with hatred. and I’d be like, “You’re a disgusting man, and I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.” >> A few weeks after the rape, Nicola confides in her sister, Emma.
>> When I found out that he’d raped her, my world kind of came crashing down cuz I thought, well, I could have stopped that if I spoken out a bit earlier. If I had said something the first time it happened to me, it probably never would have started with her. >> But terrified of breaking up the family. And with Emma being a new mom to daughter Amelia, the girls decide not to tell the police.
>> To suddenly start telling people the truth and to let people know that this abuse is happening means that your very foundations will change. And it does. So, it’s almost easier to suffer the consequences than to see those that you love suffer because of those consequences. >> In June 2008, Nicola finally decides to tell her mom what’s happened.
>> I said, “I can’t deal with this no more.” I said, “I can’t live with it.” I said, “Dad’s been doing this to me.” And I started crying. She held my hands and she said, “I’ll try my best to keep you away from him.” And that was it. The family continued to spend time together, but something changes in Nicola when she sees her dad with Emma’s baby daughter, Amelia.
When my dad and her were alone together, I couldn’t deal with it. I had to walk out of rooms or, you know, I’d go up to him and I’ I’d take a baby off him and I’d be like, “Come on, Amelia. going out on date without dog. You know, >> this made her feel or made her realize that if she didn’t go to the police, possibly Amelia would be the next victim. People do have trigger points.
The trigger points can be something like this. Another child comes into the family or they see a threat to another vulnerable person and suddenly she stops seeing her father as a father. She starts seeing him as the dirty, horrible, filthy human being that he is, the sexual predator that he is. She didn’t believe that she deserved to be kept safe.
But bet your bottom dollar, she believes that this little child deserves to be safe. >> I wouldn’t like to think that you do anything to my daughter, but then I suppose you don’t expect your own father to do things to you. A few weeks after she told her mom, realizing that her dad is a threat to her niece, Nicola goes to the police. >> I knew in my head that something had to be done. I needed to go to the police.
>> These children have been told all their lives that they will destroy the family. And as they walk into the police station to report this, all of that will be in their mind. And topping all that will be the fact that they may not think that they’re going to be believed. DI Mark Lewis of South Wales Police is the senior investigating officer in this case.
>> If a victim when they reporting feel that there’s disbelief in the officer, then that affects the whole process going forward. So, we believe we listen and we investigate. >> The fact that they believed me, it meant so much to me because that’s what I was scared of. nobody believe in me and I was going to go to the police station and they were just going to laugh me out of there and then I was going to have I was going to have to live with it and Amelia was going to have to live with it. But the fact of me it meant meant a
lot. >> Nicola and Emma have to give video statements and it’s the first time they’ve spoken to strangers about the abuse. >> When I was younger, my dad made me do things that I was too young. >> All right. For anybody to imagine that to go in and tell somebody that you’ve been sexually abused is straightforward is completely wrong.
It’s really confusing because the consequences of this are huge. And for Emma and Nicola, whilst it’s the right thing to do, it’s an incredibly difficult thing to do and a very very courageous thing to do. When I was little, my dad made me do things that I didn’t understand then. And he used to do it to my sister as well. >> Can you explain what happened? >> Um, he used to try and touch me places and he used to try to get me to touch him.
>> What age were you when this started? >> Probably say 9 or 10 maybe. >> He’d take my top off then and play with me and I’d say like, “Dad, stop it.” and he would and he take his trousers off and make me do stuff twow I think Tumi definitely underestimated Nicola. I don’t think he would have expected her to speak out.
I think he thought he’d done a good enough job on her from the age of five to 17 to prevent her speaking out. >> 17-year-old Nicola has to go into great detail when describing the abuse. He took my trousers off then and started using his mouth down low and I’m like, “Dad, get off me as long as um it was horrible.” It >> it is important to um establish exactly what has occurred, when it’s occurred, where it’s occurred, because within that video interview, what the officer is trying to establish is what types of sexual offense has been committed. cuz
each offense um will have different punishments when it goes to trial. >> Then he just get up and lay on top of me. Like I said, he he had put his penis in my vagina and then started having sex with me. >> Bringing back memories is not the easiest thing to do. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.
>> Can you explain to me why you haven’t mentioned this before to anyone? >> Cuz I was kid. What were you scared of? [Music] >> Just everything because I just wanted to forget about it. So I did. >> I knew I was doing the right thing and it felt good. It felt really good. >> After it was like a huge weight had been lifted.
I thought, well, I should have done this years ago. After the video statements, Nicola is told that she cannot return to the family home and she is waiting for her father to be arrested. >> Officers attended there um in the morning, arrested him on suspicion of the sexual offenses against Nicola and Emma. He was cautioned um and and he then replied to the officers, I haven’t touched them.
That was his initial allegation. He was taken into custody, taken to Neath police station um under arrest and then he was later interviewed then where he continued to deny the allegations. >> Tumi thought he was untouchable. He he thought that his daughters would never say anything. Nothing will make this man um admit that he’s done this because he’s got too much to lose.
The decision was made to release to me on bail. >> In this case, the crime scene was the family home, but this causes the police investigation problems. Kevin had been living at the home for 21 years. Emma uh and Nicola have been living there all the childhood. So, there’s bound to be DNA, fingerprints, fibers, hair, and any other type of forensic evidence in the house from them.
So to discriminate whether they were relating to an actual sexual offense against them is difficult. So it was determined in this case that there was no discriminating forensic evidence available in the house. >> Police take a statement from Nicola’s mom where she states she was unaware of any abuse going on until Nicola disclosed it to her just a few weeks earlier.
>> Then in the weeks that followed the evidence was gathered and a file of evidence was presented to the Crown Prosecution Service and a decision was made that he should be charged. Tumi is charged with 17 different offenses, but with no forensic evidence, will a jury believe Nicola and Emma? >> He wasn’t the father. He was a monster.
>> They were asking questions like, you know, am I lying? And I was saying, you know, why would I lie? And he was saying like for attention. >> That is the most disturbing thing about men like this. potentially everybody knows one. [Music] >> In March 2009, Kevin Tumi is awaiting trial at Swansea Crown Court for 17 charges of abuse against his daughters Nicola and Emma.
But Tumi is pleading not guilty on all accounts. >> Tumi, like many pedophiles, is a coward. So instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he pleaded not guilty. In fact, I imagine that he didn’t feel like he had any responsibility. As far as Tumi was concerned, they’re his daughters. He can do whatever he likes with them.
It shows that he had no value for them emotionally. He had no value for what he’d put them through and essentially confirmed what they already knew. He wasn’t a father. He was a monster. Nicola and Emma have to give evidence in court via a video link, but they’re in a separate room to their father, the judge, and the jury.
I got questioned by his defense, and that was awful. They were asking questions like, you know, am I lying? And I was saying, you know, why would I lie? And he was saying like for attention. And I was like, I’m 17. And you really think I’d come to court give all this evidence I’ve done breaking up my family just for a little bit of attention.
It was awful. On the 2nd of April 2009, Kevin Tumi is found guilty of eight counts of indecent assault, five sexual assaults, and two counts of rape on Nicola. He is also convicted of attempted indecent assault and indecent assault on his daughter Emma. He is given a total of 14 years and 6 months imprisonment.
>> When I had a phone call to say he’d been found guilty on all accounts, it was like a huge weight had been lifted because he kept saying, you know, nobody will believe you. There’s no point saying anything. And then when it turned out that people do believe you, they found him guilty. It was like, well, I could have done it years ago.
Dr. Kerry Nixon believes this case is not unusual. Tumi is a prime example of a familiar sex offender. He displays all the characteristics that we see in sex offenders. He’s manipulative. Um, he’s a master at grooming. He seeks out employment that will put him in position of trust. He was a sex offender who was liked in the community.
And that is the most disturbing thing about men like this is potentially everybody knows one. >> Tracy Wheeler thinks Tumi saw having two daughters as an opportunity to offend. Children within the family are easy targets, particularly because of the relationship, the strong relationship they’ve got with their parents. Parents by their very nature should be the people that nurture you and they’re the ones that you trust most in the world.
That’s why it’s so destructive. Sexual abuse in the family is so destructive. Everything that you ever trusted in your life turns out to actually be betraying you. And that’s what makes children within the family so vulnerable. For DI Mark Lewis of South Wales Police, Emma and Nicholas strength has left a lasting impression to have come forward in the first instance to provide us with the information to to pursue this prosecution to be consistent throughout all the evidence gathering stages to back it up through cross- examination in
court. Clearly is inspirational example of strength and determination through adversity really. And I really think Nicola and Emma are shining example really for all victims of sexual abuse out there. >> For Emma, the guilt of not speaking out sooner is still hard to bear. >> I’ll always feel guilty for like what happened to my sister. Always.
I’d never forgive him for never. Ever. Despite their father’s conviction, the emotional scars remain and Nicola turned to alcohol to help deal with the pain. I always drank to try and hide the fact that I didn’t want to think about it. And he was still living with me. Even though he was in prison and even though he was I was safe, he weren’t around anymore.
It just felt as if he was still there. And when I was alone in the house, alone in my bedroom, even though it was a completely different house, I always had a fear of him walking in and I wanted it all to go away. And Nicola turned to strangers for affection >> because I was so used to getting that attention off my dad and I wasn’t getting attention anywhere.
I’d go out and I’d get attention off complete strangers. And that’s how I dealt with it. I’m disgusted in myself. I, you know, I hate myself for it, but that’s how I dealt with it. One of the things that you’ll see with women who’ve been sexually abused is that they often turn it on themselves. You get a lot of women who self harm.
You get a lot of women who might engage in things like promiscuous behavior because they’re used to being used in that way and they have so much self-loathing that they’re actually looking to punish themselves further. with Nicola. This is what happens. >> It was anger of what he had done to me and I’d let it happen and I’d let myself become this person that I didn’t want to be.
It took a lot of people to sit me down and to talk to me and to tell me I need to stop. So, I went to counseling and I really owe that woman my life because she saved me. She did. >> Emma and Nicola are very different individuals. They acknowledge that. But they have one very important similarity. They know what it was like to be abused at the hands of their father and that has made them very close as far as being able to rely on one another.
And it’s a longlasting lifetime relationship. And essentially whilst they would never have chosen to have been abused, the experiences have not broken them and they are leading good lives as good parents and good sisters. That’s why Kevin to me has lost. My relationship with Emma means the world to me. She’s she’s my rock.
I think if she didn’t step up and give her love dance, I don’t think I could have done it. So yeah, she means everything to me. She really does. She’s amazing. In the years since their father went to prison, Emma has had another child and Nicola has become a mom for the first time.
And the girls are looking forward to the future with their families. Getting it all out in the open was the right thing to do. Should have done it earlier, but better late than never. I feel as if I’ve done an amazing thing, an absolute amazing thing. I’m good and really happy. I’ve got an amazing, you know, partner. I’ve got an amazing little boy.
We We’ve got an amazing life together. It will live with me forever and it will be a big part of my life for, you know, until the day I die. But I live every day as it comes. And I’m thankful for what I’ve got. I really am.
