TRIGGER WARNING: This article touches on mental and sexual child abuse. Those who find these subjects triggering are advised to not continue reading.
Former Neighbours actress Madeleine West, 47, is excited to be embarking on her next chapter as a mother of seven. However, the TV star has also shared her journey of confronting her difficult and traumatic past.
Speaking on Mamamia‘s No Filter podcast, West recalled the moment she confronted her former next-door neighbour and childhood abuser, Peter Vincent White.
White was the local plumber in her regional Victorian town of Woodend and Sunbury in the 1970s and ’80s, and he used his charm and positive persona to groom and abuse seven children in the neighbourhood.
“No one would dream that this wonderful, generous person who held fabulous parties and invited everyone in the neighbourhood, who’d […] fix your blocked toilet without batting an eye, was using that very positive public façade, to hide the most horrific… heinous, cataclysmic crime you can imagine,” West told No Filter host Kate Langbroek.
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West bravely reported her abuse to the police in 2018 and another victim came forward in 2020, prompting a major police investigation where the actress used her performance skills to confront White and get a confession out of him.
She knocked on the door and both White and his wife answered. “They were both in their dressing gowns,” Madeleine recalled. “[Peter’s wife] went straight into ‘Oh, Mel, what are you doing here?’ He was behind her shoulder, and his face dropped. I knew in that moment — I’ve got you. You’ve been waiting. You’ve been waiting so long for one of us to rock up on your doorstep. And here I am.”
They invited her inside and made her tea, then West said to White, “‘I wanted to take this time to talk to you because we had such a special relationship, and I understand that people are sometimes driven by needs and wants, that not everyone understands. But we understand. I just feel like I need to hear it acknowledged. I need us to talk about that.'”
He claimed he didn’t know what she was talking about, so she said, “Well, when you touched me, Peter, when you raped me. At that point [his wife] walked in, and he was just standing there with a cup and the tea bag kind of frozen.”
White cried and claimed he didn’t remember anything, then apologised and thanked her for coming.
“I imagine [this] was his way of discharging the fear that I would go and speak to someone else,” West said. “If I wrap it up with a nice pretty bow right now, she won’t go anywhere else, completely unaware that I had a wire on.”
The conversation lasted 45 minutes, and West “wrapped it up, and just by saying, ‘Thank you for inviting me into your home, but just thank you for acknowledging that. That makes so many things fall into place, and just made me feel so much better.’
“I walked out the door and nearly collapsed. It’s the finest piece of acting I’ve ever done,” she said.
In December 2023, White pleaded guilty to 33 charges and was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
(Credit: Instagram)
Back in January 2023, West confessed she was born with a different name in which she changed to escape her traumatic past.
West, who played Dee Bliss in Neighbours from 2000 to 2003 and Andrea Somers from 2017 to 2020, took to Instagram to reveal that she was born with the name Melanie Ann before confessing she had suffered abuse as a child.
“For most of my life I’ve hated her…. I blamed her for some truly despicable things that happened to her – to me- when I was tiny,” she began. “Why?”
“Because little Melanie was told it was her fault. And I believed it. I ran from Melanie as hard and as fast and as far as I could …so far I even changed my name.
“My full story is not yet ready for the telling, but #justice will be served,” she shared at the time.
(Credit: Instagram)
In an effort to save others from experiencing the same trauma, West “joined forces” with former detective and victims advocate Gary Jubelin (I Catch Killers Podcast). The news was revealed ahead of her true crime podcast titled Predatory, which released in January 2023.
The podcast aimed to help outsiders identify child abuse which could help increase the low rates of conviction despite the high victim rate.
“Abuse of children occurs across every social bracket, in every culture, in every country, every town, even in our own homes. It destroys lives,” she wrote.
“We love true crime stories, yet despite having one of the highest rates of victims, and the lowest rates of convictions, we refuse to discuss the predation of children playing out, hidden in plain sight.
“Because frankly, most of us don’t know what to look for. It’s a fact I’ve learned the hard way.
She concluded, “This series aims to provide a checklist for parents, carers, society at large, offering expert guidelines for what to look out for, how predators think, where they hide…. A guide to help keep kids safe.”
