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Margaret Cunneen: the reason I fight to protect kids

The famous prosecutor reveals what drives her to seek justice against child sex offenders.

Sheโ€™s the big-hearted, sharp-shooting, black-belt Crown prosecutor who, up until 18 months ago, was best known for her extraordinary record of putting some of Australiaโ€™s most notorious murderers, rapists and child abusers behind bars.

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But Margaret Cunneen SC has had the spotlight shift onto her in a public battle with NSWโ€™s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), which accused her of attempting to pervert the course of justice following a car accident involving her sonโ€™s girlfriend.

In a candid interview published the May issue of The Australian Womenโ€™s Weekly, Margaret discusses the impact the long-running fight has had on her and her family, how it has altered her career plans โ€“ and the truth about what drives her to seek justice against child sex offenders.

She reveals it was her own experience of being sexually abused as a young girl by a neighbour that motivated her to devote much of her career to working on child sex abuse cases.

โ€œIt happened all through my early childhood,โ€ she tells The Weekly. โ€œI canโ€™t remember when it started. Mum used to leave us with him when she went shopping. He was about 40 and he had spina bifida. He was incontinent and I remember he smelled of urine. I was eight when he died.โ€

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After putting herself through law school while working full-time as a young woman, Margaret was determined to use her skills as a lawyer to ensure child abuse victimsโ€™ voices were heard.

โ€œI knew children could keep the secret for a long time and I understood how it could happen literally under your parentsโ€™ noses and how, from that era, you had no words or confidence to report it,โ€ she says.

In her 40-year career, Margaret has put numerous paedophiles, including Robert โ€œDollyโ€ Dunn, Colin Fisk and Phillip Bell, behind bars. From 2012 to 2014, she was Commissioner of the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle area.

Sheโ€™s also mother to three adult boys, a black belt in tae kwon do and married to 9th dan grand master Greg Wyllie, a martial arts teacher. She was the inspiration for ABC TV series Janet King and was depicted by actor Lisa McCune in the Channel Nine telemovie Blood Brothers.

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To read more of this story, pick up a copy of the May issue of The Australian Womenโ€™s Weekly, on sale Thursday April 14.

Inside the May issue of The Australian Womenโ€™s Weekly
Take a sneak peek inside the new issue of Australiaโ€™s number one magazine.
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