The Whatsapps | Master Ep 2

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Speaker 18 Tortoise

Speaker 19 Before we begin, I just need to warn you, this is a hard listen at times. The series contains graphic descriptions of sex and allegations of sexual abuse.

Speaker 19 And this episode also deals with suicide.

Speaker 19 Promise.

Speaker 21 I miss you so much as I said in my text. I hope that you're doing alright.
Let me know I worry.

Speaker 22 These are video clips from WhatsApps. We have the notes that were saved or recorded on Scarlett's phone, photographs and pages and pages of messages.

Speaker 21 I thank you for all your help. I'm so grateful.

Speaker 22 It means a lot because the messages span the whole story we told you in episode the first alleged assault and the following three weeks of what Scarlett says is rough sex.

Speaker 22 The relationship ends, but the messages continue back and forth over the course of almost a year.

Speaker 22 The messages are friendly, often affectionate or supportive, but Scarlett has shared the unedited transcripts with us so we can see exactly what they said to each other and when.

Speaker 22 And it feels like a very different story. Not so black and white, like we're viewing the events through the other end of the telescope.

Speaker 19 It really throws me.

Speaker 22 Because when I read the WhatsApps, I think that Scarlet comes over as besotted.

Speaker 19 Messages like these appear to be evidence of consent in black and white.

Speaker 19 And they also appear to show that he could assume consent was there.

Speaker 19 The two things are separate and both matter when it comes to the law.

Speaker 23 As the criminal defense lawyer Catherine Jackson explains, If you have a complainant who says I wasn't consenting but I'm sure he believed that I was, that is a big red flag.

Speaker 23 Yeah, it's not not as straightforward as I wasn't consenting.

Speaker 19 Meaning, it's not just about what was going on in Scarlett's mind, but what was going on in Neil Gaiman's mind too.

Speaker 19 If he had reason to believe that Scarlett was consenting, then there isn't a case of sexual assault.

Speaker 19 In other words, it wouldn't be fair to give someone an indication of consent and then claim assault.

Speaker 19 So,

Speaker 19 understanding whether someone really dared have reasonable belief in consent is important.

Speaker 19 Understanding whether there's more than one way of reading Scarlett's messages to Neil Gaiman is important.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman's position is that the natural and ordinary meaning of the WhatsApp messages is that Scarlett was in a consensual sexual relationship with him.

Speaker 19 I'm Paul Carwana-Galizia.

Speaker 22 And I'm Rachel Johnson. And from Tortoise, this is Master, Episode 2:

Speaker 22 The WhatsApps.

Speaker 24 So he runs through a bath. The bath is outside.

Speaker 22 The WhatsApps are unsettling. Before we get to them, we need to rewind.

Speaker 22 Back to the Friday night when Neil Gaiman runs Scarlett an outdoor bath under the Pahutukawa tree when he joins her in the bath and she says he uses his fingers to anally penetrate her.

Speaker 22 Neil Gaiman's account is that he offered to run a bath for both of them and after he established consent, cuddled and made out with Scarlet.

Speaker 22 Remember, she sends a message to her friend the next day saying it had crossed the boundaries.

Speaker 22 She googles Neil Gaiman and me too, but she also messages Neil Gaiman saying, thank you for a lovely, lovely night.

Speaker 19 Wow.

Speaker 24 But it was the following night where the really, the just the worst abuse began.

Speaker 22 Neil Gaiman's position is that he never had full penetrative sex with Scarlett. We understand it's during this weekend that he discovers this sexual ingenue is in fact into mild BDSM.

Speaker 22 It's that Saturday that Scarlett alleges he had anal sex with her without a condom and using butter as a lubricant. But we can now see what she says to him the morning after on the Sunday.

Speaker 22 Do you feel like a rainbath? With a smiley emoji. And the next day,

Speaker 22 I am consumed by thoughts of you, the things you will do to me. I'm so hungry.
What a terrible creature you've turned me into.

Speaker 22 I think you need to give me a huge spanking very soon. I'm fucking desperate for my master.

Speaker 19 This

Speaker 22 is just so hard to make sense of or understand.

Speaker 22 Scarlett seems eager for more, despite what she now says happened. She is calling him master.
On face value, the messages show a woman making her own choices with agency, a woman who chooses to stay.

Speaker 22 We decide we need an external opinion on what she's saying to Neil Gaiman on the one hand and what she's telling other people and us about what happened on the other.

Speaker 22 But to tell this properly, we're going to reveal some grim and explicit details. We're talking here about allegations and graphic descriptions of rough and degrading sex.

Speaker 22 One such allegation takes place two weeks after they first meet, when they are in room 1619 of the Sky City Grand Hotel in Auckland.

Speaker 22 In Neil Gaiman's account of this scene, Scarlett wasn't meant to stay for long in the hotel room, but that at a certain point they found themselves in bed, fully clothed and cuddling under the sheets.

Speaker 24 He went into the bathroom, pissed all over his hand, came back out,

Speaker 24 put his hand

Speaker 24 round my face,

Speaker 24 you know,

Speaker 24 made me clean him up.

Speaker 22 Scarlett's recollection of what happened in that small double room with an en suite bathroom is more graphic.

Speaker 24 Oh my God.

Speaker 24 Clean him up. That became a big thing.
So he made me vomit multiple times. And then I would get punished and have to clean him up.

Speaker 24 Or if the anal sex was too painful and i was i was basically screaming he would get really really angry and i would get punished and um have to have to clean him up which would often mean performing you know oral sex on him after anal sex yeah yeah yeah and and i remember trying to navigate this you know and and googling if these things were um safe, you know, and I sort of knew they weren't.

Speaker 24 And I knew that anal sex without condoms was not safe and, you know, that I was always bleeding.

Speaker 22 Again, in Neil Gaiman's account, they never had full penetrative sex. But what Scarlet tells us sounds extreme, the sort of sex that happens between people who practice BDSM.

Speaker 22 We've spoken to people in those circles and they've told us that for BDSM practices, precise words and boundaries should be used and established for each and every act.

Speaker 22 But then she messages Neil Gaiman eight days after that night in the hotel room and a day after he leaves for England. It's the 25th of February, and Scarlett's in bed with COVID.
She writes,

Speaker 22 I may be ill, but I am lying here with my sick little mind wandering into terrible, filthy, dark places.

Speaker 22 And I want you to, if I'm lucky, occasionally instruct me with naughty things to do so that I can fill all this alone time imagining your cruelty.

Speaker 22 I'm sorry, I'm such a desperate and perverted and kinky, sad little girl. What do they say? When you play with fire?

Speaker 19 Texts back from Neil Gaiman are always carefully worded, neutral, light and short. Scarlets are longer, and there are many more of them.

Speaker 19 If she ends one to him with, extra punishment needed, good night, he'll go, good night dear.

Speaker 19 His messages are affectionate, but non-committal.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman's position is that his replies show that it was Scarlet who continued to initiate sexual contact with him,

Speaker 19 and that he does little, if anything, to reciprocate.

Speaker 19 At his most intimate, he will tell her, Dream dark dreams. I'm glad you are there with my unwashed clothes, in my bed that smells like me.
Be safe and I worry about your COVID.

Speaker 19 But more often they are prosaic.

Speaker 19 There should be a lot of frozen vegetarian meals in the tall freezer.

Speaker 19 Scoliff knows that if taken at face value, these messages tell a story of a consenting relationship between two adults. one which undermines her allegations of sexual assault.

Speaker 19 And Niamh Gaiman's position is that the WhatsApps should be taken at face value.

Speaker 19 We understand his position is informed by Occam's razor, a philosophical principle in which the most straightforward explanation is usually the right one.

Speaker 24 The messages are really hard for me to go through because of, you know,

Speaker 24 my delusion and like, and just, I, I, you know, I'm so furious with myself.

Speaker 19 She says she can hardly bear to read them, because it's now clear in her mind that that was not how it was.

Speaker 19 So, we start to speak to some of the experts in this field for their opinions.

Speaker 19 How can we reconcile her WhatsApp's Danil Gaiman with her account to us? of what happened.

Speaker 19 What do you do about sexual assaults within a relationship that was consensual? Is there nothing for it but pained regret?

Speaker 26 What's your project? You're making a film about the case?

Speaker 19 A podcast.

Speaker 20 A what?

Speaker 19 Podcast.

Speaker 22 Podcast.

Speaker 19 Ah.

Speaker 19 Evan Stark is a sociologist who wrote a book called Coercive Control, How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life.

Speaker 19 He's acted as an expert witness in high-profile court cases, and his research has influenced laws, not least the coercive control section of England's Serious Crime Act.

Speaker 19 There is no specific law against coercive control in New Zealand as there is in England.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman's view of Evan Stark's opinion, which follows, is that it is flawed.

Speaker 19 That one can find an expert or an academic to support any viewpoint, and that we have engaged in expert shopping.

Speaker 19 With Scarlett's permission, we showed Evan Stark WhatsApp messages between her and Neil Gaiman, including ones in which she said she'd consented to sex with him, along with a chronology of her account and an NDA.

Speaker 19 We'll come to that document later.

Speaker 26 Many, many of our cases are filled with instances where victims express affection, love,

Speaker 19 and commitment, or try to make sense of it.

Speaker 26 It never happened. It happened.
It wasn't paid. I asked for it.
You know,

Speaker 26 that's because that's of the nature of the crime.

Speaker 26 It's a crime of deceit and control.

Speaker 19 Evan Stark believes physical assault is only the most visible part of domestic abuse.

Speaker 19 He says that there is usually a wider pattern of exploitation and manipulation that surrounds this abuse.

Speaker 26 In that sense, it's very much like any con game.

Speaker 19 And people consent to be conned. That's how it works.

Speaker 26 I mean, if I was calling you to buy insurance and you didn't write down that you believed everything I told you and that you were doing this at your own free will, I would be not a successful con man.

Speaker 26 I mean, coercive control is a con.

Speaker 19 And like any con, people afterwards feel shame and embarrassment of their behavior and whatever record of it they put down.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman's position is that the idea he coerced and controlled Scarlett by having non-penetrative sex within hours of first meeting her and then over a matter of weeks is far-fetched.

Speaker 26 The fact that he does it the first day she's in the house

Speaker 26 is very symptomatic of the kind of approach that con men take. They're not subtle.
First act is often the most extreme act.

Speaker 26 Because from that act, everything becomes a literance test of what is possible and what will come next. That first incident becomes a template for everything that comes later.

Speaker 22 The morning after the assault in the bar, she says, Wow, last night that was lovely.

Speaker 24 Kiss.

Speaker 26 Yeah, so

Speaker 26 the con man is reframing right from the beginning. You see, I think you're making too much out of this.
It's not that complicated. And the idea that you consent to degradation is such a stupid idea.

Speaker 26 Only men can think this idea up.

Speaker 19 Neve Gaiman's position is that tendencies to sexual degradation are not uncommon with women, as shown by the success of the 2011 novel 50 Shades of Grey, and that such activities between consenting adults are lawful.

Speaker 19 But context matters too.

Speaker 19 Many companies now have policies that stop senior employees from even sharing taxis with their juniors or from socializing with them.

Speaker 19 This isn't to say that an older or more experienced person can't have a sexual relationship with a younger one. They often do.

Speaker 19 The point here is that given the power dynamics, it's hard to establish that consent was freely given, especially if one party is much more junior to the other.

Speaker 19 It's hard to say no.

Speaker 22 A month after Neil Gaiman leaves New Zealand, the two versions of Scarlett's story come together.

Speaker 19 Remember her friend Misma?

Speaker 22 Scarlett confided in her. Misma and her partner Chris, an academic who specialises in sexual abuse, were outraged.
It strikes me that perhaps you haven't grasped the severity of the situation.

Speaker 22 Yes, Scarlett. Misma wrote that scorching WhatsApp message to Amanda Palmer.

Speaker 19 And after receiving the message, it appears Amanda Palmer gets in touch with Neil Gaiman, who's in Scotland. to tell him that Scarlett is making serious allegations against him.

Speaker 19 Two weeks pass before Scarlett happens to send a friendly, chatty message to Neil Gaiman.

Speaker 19 I just wanted to check in and hear about how you are, she says. Neil Gaiman responds quickly, 11 minutes later.

Speaker 22 What date are we looking for?

Speaker 19 24th of March.

Speaker 22 Okay, got it, got it, got it.

Speaker 22 Okay, hold on, there's tons, tons, there's tons.

Speaker 19 Okay, look at this. So on that day, Neil

Speaker 19 messages Scarlet

Speaker 19 and he says,

Speaker 19 Honestly, when Amanda told me that you were telling people I'd raped you

Speaker 19 and were planning to meet to me, I wanted to kill myself.

Speaker 19 But I'm getting through it a day at a time.

Speaker 19 And it's been two weeks now and I'm still here. Fragile, but not great.

Speaker 22 Scarlett's response to that message from Neil reads, Oh my god, Neil, I never said that. I have been deeply upset about it all because it's triggered things from my past and also for many reasons.

Speaker 22 I feel whiplash. But I'm horrified by your message.
Me too, you?

Speaker 19 Rape? What?

Speaker 22 This is the first I've heard of this. Wow.
I need a moment to digest your message.

Speaker 22 And then, um,

Speaker 22 at 11.28, she says,

Speaker 22 Okay, it's been blown way out of proportion, it seems. My heart is pounding.
I'm so sorry. You have been so not okay.

Speaker 22 I had no idea. I have never used the word rape.
I am just so shocked. I honestly don't know what to say.

Speaker 19 So then he really just a few minutes after that sends her a message saying,

Speaker 19 It was very unstabilizing. I spent a week actively not killing myself.

Speaker 19 If you see what I mean.

Speaker 22 About her me tooing him.

Speaker 19 Yes, that's right.

Speaker 22 And then she responds a minute later:

Speaker 22 this is 11:32 the same day. The more I hear, the more I am dying inside.
I can't believe this has been told to you. It's absolutely not true.
I feel sick to my stomach.

Speaker 22 And then Neil Gaiman responds, heart pounding.

Speaker 19 So he's really clearly anxious about the Me Too, but it seems...

Speaker 22 Then this from Scarlet,

Speaker 22 which is 11.39, so still in the same

Speaker 22 conversation at the same time.

Speaker 22 I feel like bawling my eyes out. I would never me to you.
I don't know where that came from.

Speaker 22 And I have told Amanda that even though it began questionably, Eventually, it was undoubtedly consensual and I enjoyed it. Heart is pounding pounding too.

Speaker 22 Neil, I am so deeply sorry to hear how terrifying this has been for you. I feel like I am being headfucked.
I am so, so shocked.

Speaker 19 That line.

Speaker 19 Even though it began questionably, eventually it was undoubtedly consensual, is really key.

Speaker 19 Could Neil Gaiman have held a reasonable belief that Scarlett was consenting to sexual activity in the bath within hours of meeting her?

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman's position on Scarlet's use of questionably to describe how their sexual relationship began is that he doesn't know what it refers to, and he wishes that he had asked Scarlett about it at the time, and that he can only imagine it was in reference to the impromptu outdoor bath within hours of him first meeting Scarlett.

Speaker 19 There's something else in that message exchange which is extraordinary to read.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman wants a favour.

Speaker 19 If I had Wayne, our therapist, call you, would you talk to him and just tell him what you've been telling me?

Speaker 19 Scarlett says, Okay,

Speaker 19 I am nauseous, and yes, of course I will speak to Wayne.

Speaker 24 He had the therapist call me so that I could tell the therapist that he didn't write me and all of

Speaker 19 this is unusual, to say the least. Wayne Muller, who is retained by the couple and bound by codes of confidentiality to his clients, not Scarlett, gets in touch with her at Neil Gaiman's request.

Speaker 19 The therapist messages Scarlett, saying he'd be happy to speak to her in complete confidence, because he had heard that she found herself, in his words,

Speaker 19 in the midst of relationships, stories and narratives, not alas necessarily of your own making. Sadly, this is not a surprise.
Two creative, dynamic people can easily draw others into their orbit.

Speaker 19 unaware of how powerfully the magnetic pull of their influences can have on others.

Speaker 19 Some people land in places of confusion, unclarity or uncertainty how to respond to this.

Speaker 19 We wanted to speak to Wayne Muller.

Speaker 19 But he never responded to our detailed questions about his role in this story.

Speaker 19 Scarlett does speak to Wingwiller, and she tells Neil Gaiman that she has found it helpful.

Speaker 19 Again, we have contacted Amanda Palmer on multiple occasions for comment over WhatsApp and email. She never replied to or acknowledged our messages.
We also tried contacting her friends.

Speaker 19 On the 25th of March, a day after that long exchange of messages, Neil Gaiman learns from Amanda Palmer that the detail of what Scarlett is alleging comes from the WhatsApp message from Misma.

Speaker 19 The next day, Neil Gaiman messages Scarlet.

Speaker 19 Misma's message to Amanda is kind of awful. I'm a monster in it.

Speaker 19 A short while later, he messages again.

Speaker 19 Knowing that you would be prepared to say, it's not true, it was consensual, he's not a monster, makes me a lot more grounded.

Speaker 19 Scarlett responds, it was consensual. How many times do I have to fucking tell everyone?

Speaker 23 My name's Catherine Jackson. I'm a criminal defence solicitor at the firm Bindmans.

Speaker 23 I practice in a broad range of areas, but I think probably sexual offences has been quite a large part of my experience.

Speaker 19 For defence solicitors like Catherine Jackson, messages like this are important

Speaker 19 because they can raise questions about the credibility of a complainant.

Speaker 23 One would expect, and it would usually be the case, that if somebody is the victim of a serious sexual offence,

Speaker 23 they're either going to report it to the police fairly immediately or they're going to want nothing more to do with that person.

Speaker 23 So, if you then have a scenario where there's further contact in the aftermath, and particularly if it's instigated by the complainant, then that is already potentially undermining the credibility of the complainant who's saying I was the victim of a serious sexual offence.

Speaker 23 And yet, here we go, I've actually continued to stay in touch.

Speaker 19 In her experience, prosecutors tend to take such messages at face value, which makes them, she says, gold dust for defence lawyers.

Speaker 23 I'd say the bulk of my cases actually end at investigation stage. The bulk of my cases set in sexual offences

Speaker 23 do not result in a charge.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman's position is that messages from Scarlett particularly the ones where she says their relationship became consensual, should stop us from publishing her belated allegations of sexual misconduct.

Speaker 19 That the messages are evidence of consent, and so there can be no misconduct.

Speaker 22 Two days after Neil Gaiman and Scarlett exchange those messages about consent, Amanda Palmer also leaves New Zealand. It's now late March 2022.

Speaker 22 Scarlett feels totally abandoned, alone and desperate.

Speaker 22 By the evening of the 10th of April, she's admitted to Auckland Hospital with suicidal thoughts.

Speaker 22 Neil Gaiman's account suggests we should treat Scarlett's allegations with caution, as they first surfaced when she was hospitalised, he says,

Speaker 22 for the treatment of a condition that's associated with false memories. But we know her allegations predate her admission to hospital.

Speaker 22 Scarlett's medical records also show us that Neil Gaiman's claim that Scarlett has a serious pre-existing medical condition to be false.

Speaker 22 According to her records, she presented as a genuinely high risk of suicide and was discharged after recovering overnight.

Speaker 22 There's no mention, even in her previous medical history, of any condition like the one Neil Gaiman claimed in his account. The only medication she was on was the sleeping pill, Zopiclone.

Speaker 24 Suddenly, when I was in hospital, like I remember, you know, I remember suddenly he started sending me chocolates and shit and

Speaker 24 videos of Fiona Shaw talking to me and stuff, you know, because he knew I loved Fiona Shaw and had a crush on Fiona Shaw.

Speaker 24 All this weird shit,

Speaker 24 and kept me sort of

Speaker 24 just enough.

Speaker 22 Neil Gaiman and Scarlett continue to message each other.

Speaker 20 Hello, this is a little film. I really do get it.

Speaker 20 Get it about just feeling like you're at the end.

Speaker 20 The one thing that always

Speaker 20 has kept me holding on so far

Speaker 20 is just the knowledge

Speaker 20 that

Speaker 20 you know suicide can be

Speaker 20 a very permanent end to some temporary problems.

Speaker 20 I think you're funny and smart

Speaker 20 and a good person.

Speaker 20 And I think you have to stick around so that I can introduce you to Fiona Shaw at like the Anancy Boys premiere or something.

Speaker 22 Scarlett messages back.

Speaker 22 This made me smile to no end. I can't stop smiling.
It is so lovely to hear your voice and see you in that hilarious hotel room. Fuck, thank you for overjoying me and touching my heart.

Speaker 22 The Fiona Shaw idea always helps me escape from the tendrils of suicide. It makes me so elated on a cellular level.
Thank you, Neil.

Speaker 22 Neil Gaiman. I'm glad I made you smile.
Fiona Shaw, Anancy Boy's fancy premiere. Scarlett and Neil both stay alive.

Speaker 22 Scarlett's in a bad place. No job, nowhere to live.
Still feeling suicidal. Neil Gaiman is also feeling suicidal, he tells Scarlett, and Scarlett thinks she's supporting him.

Speaker 22 Neil's position on the messages is, again, that they must be taken at face value, that he was low, too.

Speaker 22 Neil Gaiman has, on his social media, often talked about his own struggles with mental health.

Speaker 20 Aya, just sending you a message to remind you

Speaker 20 it will all be okay.

Speaker 20 That may be hard to believe right now for you, where you are, but honestly, it will all be okay.

Speaker 20 Promise.

Speaker 27 Hi Scarlett, Fiona Shaw here. We're being introduced by Neil Gaiman.
And I am up in Edinburgh. As you can see, I have just been doing some of my work on Neil Gaiman's series Anancy Boys.

Speaker 27 Anyway, I understand that you are going through a tough time and a rough time, and I hope that you'll be much the better soon, and that I will get to meet you with Neil.

Speaker 27 And maybe my hair won't be quite like this when we do. So, lovely to meet you.

Speaker 19 Good luck.

Speaker 20 Right, I called,

Speaker 20 but hopefully, the sleeping pills have worked

Speaker 20 and you're fast asleep.

Speaker 20 So,

Speaker 20 so what?

Speaker 20 So,

Speaker 20 I hope when you wake up, the world is easier.

Speaker 20 Um

Speaker 20 hang in there. We have to keep each other's head above water.

Speaker 20 I'll help with you.

Speaker 20 And that's all. Okay.

Speaker 22 Neil Gaiman didn't respond to our specific question on this video. He didn't tell us whether Fiona Shaw knew the background or reason for it.

Speaker 22 He didn't tell us what he had asked Fiona Shaw in order for her to agree to the video.

Speaker 22 On the same day that Neil Gaiman sends those videos, the 15th of April, Scarlett is also reaching out to a former employee of Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer.

Speaker 22 Scarlett does this because she's heard that this young female also had a hard time in the Gaiman-Palmer household.

Speaker 22 Scarlett tells the former employee she's had some pretty awful things happen to her while working for Neil Gaiman, and Scarlett wanted to know: did similar things happen to her?

Speaker 22 The woman responds, concerned about Scarlett, but doesn't answer the question.

Speaker 22 And all the while, Scarlett's messages to Neil Gaiman continue.

Speaker 21 I miss you so much, as I said in my text.

Speaker 21 I hope that you're doing alright. Let me know.

Speaker 3 I worry.

Speaker 24 I am

Speaker 21 doing better today. I've been terrible

Speaker 19 and

Speaker 21 not really sure what just happened, but

Speaker 21 it will sink in.

Speaker 21 I thank you for all your help. I'm so grateful.
It will get better for both of us, and I can't wait to see.

Speaker 22 She's still holding out for a connection, a relationship, a promise, even a lie.

Speaker 28 Her hope that this hadn't really been an exploitation, but was genuine, I'm sure went on for some time. Because

Speaker 28 who wants to acknowledge they've been victimised in that way?

Speaker 28 In fact, your hope is that you haven't been victimised because the person does really care about you.

Speaker 22 What's the bet that hurts most?

Speaker 24 Just something fundamentally has shifted in me, and I haven't been able to quite get that, get what it was back.

Speaker 24 And the pain is also injustice, and you know, just

Speaker 24 you know

Speaker 24 horror that I let myself get that subjected to some of that stuff and didn't recognize that it wasn't normal

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Speaker 19 It's the 10th of May 2022.

Speaker 20 Hello, Scarlett. Right, I'm in Denver on tour.

Speaker 20 Still alive, which is good. And doing basically okay, I think.

Speaker 20 Life is just weird.

Speaker 20 And

Speaker 20 on

Speaker 20 the rent thing,

Speaker 20 that all looks great.

Speaker 20 And

Speaker 20 I figured

Speaker 20 my idea would be just to look after your rent for about six months, which gives you time

Speaker 20 to get on top of life and the world.

Speaker 20 Get a job, figure out what you're doing, who you are, and such like.

Speaker 20 And there you you go. So that was my idea on that.

Speaker 20 And other than that, I don't know. Sending love.

Speaker 20 I hope you're okay.

Speaker 20 Okay, bye.

Speaker 24 He was paying me $350 New Zealand dollars a week, not a lot, £175 to get me back on my feet.

Speaker 19 A day later, on the 11th of May, Scarlett gets an email from Neil Gaiman's bookkeeper in Los Angeles.

Speaker 19 How are you? I hope all is well. Attached is an NDA form.
We request all service providers for Neil to sign the Attached. Would you kindly sign it and email it back to me?

Speaker 19 I am also sending you a wire for your rent deposit and first week.

Speaker 24 And to get that money, he said I need you to sign this NDA.

Speaker 19 But Scarlett has a question. Why does he want her to sign an NDA now? She's no longer providing services.

Speaker 19 Her nanny job didn't even come with her contract and she wasn't working for Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer on the 11th of May 2022 when she received the NDA.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman's personal assistant reassures Scarlett it's just the standard form.

Speaker 24 And so I signed an NDA.

Speaker 19 The agreement binds Scarlett to use her best endeavors to stop the disclosure of any information concerning Neil Gaiman, including but not limited to

Speaker 19 his characteristics, customs, views, opinions, ideas, conduct, habits, purchases, shopping preferences/slash habits, personal database/slash contacts, photographs and videotapes, travel itineraries, social/slash family interactions, taxes.

Speaker 19 Scarlett signed this NDA on the 25th of May.

Speaker 19 She says she didn't even read it because she doesn't understand legal stuff.

Speaker 19 It supposedly binds her to confidentiality indefinitely.

Speaker 19 And here's another thing about the NDA found in its schedule on the last page.

Speaker 19 It's backdated to the 4th of February 2022.

Speaker 19 That's the day Scarlett first met Neil Gaiman and he ran her that bath.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman didn't respond to specific questions on why he had an NDA sent to Scarlet long after she had stopped providing services, why it was backdated to the day of the bath, or why he couldn't have sent her rent money without it.

Speaker 19 His position is that NDAs are generally standard practice, especially for those who supply services to a family in a domestic setting or to people with a degree of public prominence.

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Speaker 19 By the summer of 2022, Scarlett is getting to a point where she feels ready to report Nilgeman to the police.

Speaker 19 We know this because on the 16th of August, she messages the former employee again.

Speaker 19 She tells her that she wants to report Nilgeman, but that she feels powerless and scared.

Speaker 19 She adds

Speaker 19 There is also a lot of evidence of me writing to his therapist saying everything was consensual when actually, of course, it wasn't fucking consensual.

Speaker 19 In her reply, the woman asks Scarlett whether she went to a rape crisis center. And she advises Scarlett not to contact anyone else.
until she's done that or gone to the police.

Speaker 19 Then she adds, unsure if you signed an NDA, followed by a sad face emoji.

Speaker 19 Despite her anxieties about the NDA, on the 21st of October, eight months after Neil Gaiman left, Scarlett emails New Zealand police.

Speaker 19 She says she wants to report a sexual assault that happened to her in February. She writes, He's an extremely high-profile individual and possesses a great deal of financial and celebrity power.

Speaker 19 Scarlett and the police officer exchange emails. She also continues exchanging messages with Neil Gaiman.

Speaker 19 On the 28th of December 2022, she asks Neil Gaiman for help to cover her rent for January.

Speaker 19 Because the only work she's been able to find are a few pre-Christmas shifts at a cafe,

Speaker 19 and shops were now closed for the holidays until mid-January.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman replies a few hours later,

Speaker 19 How much do you need?

Speaker 19 She tells him the rent amount and then, in her last ever message to him, on the same day, she asks how he's feeling about returning to New Zealand. He says he's looking forward to it.

Speaker 19 In January 2023, Scarlett is formally interviewed by the police in Auckland. The interview is videotaped and runs over three days.
Scarlett hands in her personal phone with all the WhatsApps.

Speaker 19 On the 20th of January, Scarlett gets her final unprompted WhatsApp message from Neil Gaiman. Dot dot dot.
Are you okay?

Speaker 22 Scarlett doesn't reply. She has had no direct contact with him since.

Speaker 22 She says she cut him off because she'd now been to the police and that she felt like a fraud for for taking his money only to report him. But she doesn't hear anything from New Zealand police.

Speaker 22 After the gruelling three-day interview, after handing in her phone and following up with emails, including sending the police her NDA, it has all seemingly come to nothing.

Speaker 22 Neil Gaiman's position is that this is because her allegations lacked substance and are contradicted on face value by the WhatsApps.

Speaker 22 Almost a year passes, and she still hasn't heard of any progress with her case.

Speaker 22 And she's not sure what else to do, as she's still anxious about her NDA.

Speaker 22 She still felt like she couldn't, as the NDA dictated, speak to anyone about her experience with Neil Gaiman, about anything at all to do with him.

Speaker 32 It's a clear, you know, as in most cases with NDAs, massive disparity of arms. You know, the power disparity between a young, young woman and an older, powerful, successful man.

Speaker 32 She was away from home. She was reliant on him financially.

Speaker 22 This is Zelda Perkins. She worked as Harvey Weinstein's assistant in the 90s and was made to sign an NDA by him after he allegedly raped one of their colleagues.

Speaker 22 Zelda Perkins broke her NDA in 2017, helping to precipitate Harvey Weinstein's downfall. She's been campaigning against the abuse of NDAs ever since.

Speaker 22 In the summer of 2023, Scarlett meets Zelda Perkins thanks to a mutual friend.

Speaker 32 It was clear that she was still very traumatised by what had happened to her.

Speaker 32 And from the severity of what Scarlett told me, I felt that her best step, actually, at that point was to report it to the police. To me, her NDA was the least of her concerns.

Speaker 19 And in that context, an NDA can an NDA is unenforceable.

Speaker 32 Essentially, the 90% of NDAs are unenforceable anyway.

Speaker 22 Scarlett had already reported Neil Gaiman to the police. But most people don't know that NDAs can't be used to stop those who've signed them from reporting criminal behaviour.

Speaker 22 They're designed to frighten them into silence.

Speaker 32 There is a change beginning because it is now very apparent that having an NDA isn't reputational protection.

Speaker 22 It's clear Scarlett did initially feel silenced by her NDA and she thought she needed to sign it to have her rent paid. But it didn't stop her from making a police report.

Speaker 22 And after speaking to Zelda, she's beginning to see that the NDA is part of the abuse, an ongoing part of it.

Speaker 32 That abuse repeats itself every single day because you do not have the right to own your own trauma, to speak your own trauma, to heal, to move on.

Speaker 32 And the worst of it all when it comes to something like this is you're constantly nagged by that feeling of complicity in the continuation of that behaviour with other people.

Speaker 22 Over that summer, Scarlett talks to friends, makes plans for her future, and begins her recovery. After speaking to Zelda, she no longer feels silenced.

Speaker 22 But telling her story to the police hasn't seemingly led anywhere.

Speaker 22 I wanted to know if anyone else had come forward with that spirit or not.

Speaker 19 Well, I've actually, no, look, I've taken on board what you said about other people and I've done an open source search and I've found nothing that

Speaker 19 supports

Speaker 19 that he's up to mischief with other people as well.

Speaker 19 There is a lot of writing on the board.

Speaker 22 Scarlett isn't alone.

Speaker 29 It was all of 2003 when I met him at the book signing. And then the next year was when he invited us out and I was 19.

Speaker 29 And then the next year that he came out, I would have been 20.

Speaker 22 The police haven't found anyone.

Speaker 22 But we have heard from someone else.

Speaker 33 I was

Speaker 29 employed full-time at the zoo. He came to the zoo once actually and like visited.

Speaker 29 And I remember he would not take off his black leather jacket even though it was like summer in florida and he was like oh i just you know that's my thing and he's like actively sweating and also like worried about being recognized she was in a relationship with neil gaiman for about two years at this point like all of my work is attached to like i am dating a famous person like The really interesting thing about me is that I am dating this guy who has this exciting life.

Speaker 29 And by proxy, I am exciting.

Speaker 29 Like he could do whatever he wanted and I would do whatever it took to keep that relationship going she has a story to tell about neil gaiman and like scarlet's it's not a straightforward one and i would say okay okay we can fool around but you can't put anything in my vagina you just can because i will die and it didn't matter you did it anyway you did it anyway although you told him you were in pain and very specifically said you cannot put anything in me please don't it will hurt very badly, and it will make things worse than they already are.

Speaker 29 Because I know for sure, I remember for sure in Cornwall saying those words out loud.

Speaker 19 Neil Gaiman has a clear position on this woman's story: that it is false, and he denies any unlawful behavior.

Speaker 19 It's certainly complicated, but it's a story like Scarlet that's worth hearing. Shall I show you the ocean in of the lane, please? That's what we're looking for.
I know that.

Speaker 19 First though, we want to go in search of Neil Gaiman, before he became famous. The fame and status that played such a part in both women's relationships with him.

Speaker 32 So just see you on.

Speaker 32 This is the ocean at the end of the lane.

Speaker 19 It's a journey that takes us through the worlds of Scientology and comic books to the ocean at the end of the lane.

Speaker 19 The sociologist Dr. Evan Starr, who we spoke to for this episode, died on the 18th of March this year, a few weeks after we interviewed him.

Speaker 19 This series is reported by me, Paul Karuanagalizia, and by Rachel Johnson. It is written by us and by Katie Cunning, who is also the producer.
Sound design and original music is by Tom Kinsella.

Speaker 19 Additional recording is by Jess Swinburne. Artwork is by John Hill.
The series editor is Matt Russell. The editor is Jasper Corbett.

Speaker 19 Tortoise.

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