Published: 16 September 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
VIDEO: Julie Szego reports on what happened, how we got to this point and how the wheels of justice will turn; READ full list of witnesses and Leifer's request for Yom Kippur
MORE THAN SIX years after Victoria police launched extradition proceedings to bring her back from Israel, Malka Leifer faced justice in a Melbourne court yesterday.
The former headmistress of Adass Israel School in Elsternwick faces 74 charges of sexual abuse of three former students from 2004-08. A committal hearing began in the Melbourne County Court yesterday to assess whether there was sufficient evidence for the case to move to trial.
Leifer has maintained her innocence during the protracted legal battle.
Wearing the same blue top and white headcovering as in her previous appearances, Leifer attended the court by videolink from a room in prison, with a guard watching her from the door, while magistrate Joanna Metcalf and barristers discussed “housekeeping” matters relating to the hearing, which is being held online due to Covid restrictions.
The court was then closed to the media and public when the first witness was called. It will remain closed while the first three witnesses, Leifer’s former students, sisters Dassi Erlich, Elly Sapper and Nicole Meyer, give evidence.
Magistrate Metcalf asked Crown Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC whether the three sisters would be comfortable with having Leifer in their direct line of vision while they gave evidence. Ms Rogers told the court that the witnesses did not have a problem with it.
In addition to the three former students, the hearing will hear from seven other witnesses: Vicki Gordon, a psychologist working at Adass at the time of the alleged assaults, Chana Rabinowitz, a counsellor at the school, (who will give evidence via videolink from Israel), Sharon Bromberg and Esther Spigelman, who were teachers at Adass, Joshua Erlich, the former husband of one of the witnesses, Mario Toledo, and Danielle Newton, a Victorian police detective.
