How actress Madeleine West snared her abuser

In a career spanning more than 20 years, actor Madeleine West has played many roles in television and film.

But none have been as challenging, or confronting, as the real-life performance she undertook on the morning of July 13, 2022.

Her mission was to snare a confession from the paedophile who had abused her, and at least six other children, over an 11-year period in the Victorian town of Woodend in the late 1970s and 1980s.  

The predator was her old next-door neighbour Peter Vincent White.

A monster who targeted a neighbourhood of young kids under the age of 10.

"This wasn't a gender-specific paedophile," West told 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown.

"It was just children, and the younger, the better."

It was after weeks of planning, and in the midst of a major police investigation, that the 44-year-old star was fitted with a secret recording device by specialist sex crimes investigator Detective Scott Tuddenham of Victoria Police.

For West, coming face to face with her abuser for the first time in more than 30 years was nerve-wracking, but the recording she made, broadcast for the first time on 60 Minutes, would prove to be a crucial component of a complex investigation.

"The door opened. And in that moment, I had my 'gotcha' moment because his face dropped," she said.

"I knew he was waiting. He'd been waiting for this day for 30 or 40 years." 

Now aged 73, White was the local plumber in Woodend.

A predator who used his outwardly respectable reputation as a businessman and family-man as a cover, to prey on the children that would regularly visit his home. 

"His house was a magnet for kids," said West. 

"He had the pool and the sandpit and was the first person on the street to have a VHS player. So kids were drawn to that house, and we were regularly babysat in that house," she said.

Carefully hiding his perverted activities from his wife and from other parents, the calculating White would make the children perform grotesque acts, as part of a deliberate pattern of grooming that would lead to more serious assaults on his young targets.

"The abuse started when I was four and a half and continued on until I was 10," West revealed.

"All I knew was what it was like to be raped when you're a little girl and how much it hurt and not wanting any part of that."

White first came to the attention of Victoria Police in 2017 when West summoned the courage to report him, but given the time that had passed, and the lack of physical evidence, there wasn't enough information to pursue a prosecution. 

The case gathered dust for two years until, in a remarkable turn of events, West's childhood friend Amanda Lee, also one of White's victims, made a separate complaint.

Neither West nor Lee knew for certain the other had been abused, and neither had any inkling the other had gone to police.

When investigator Scott Tuddenham linked the two complaints, the cold case was suddenly live.

"It was just abhorrent, disgusting, horrific, calculated, intentional offending," he told 60 Minutes.

"There were some factors you don't come across too often. I was really intrigued to find out what else was there."

What followed was an extensive investigation that would yield many more names and reveal the true extent of White's appalling crimes.

Incredibly, when confronted by West, he claimed he couldn't remember his years of offending, but accepted it was possible he had abused her.

"I don't remember doing anything like that. I'm sorry please, please forgive me," he said in the recording.

"If I did, I, I don't remember.  I'm very sorry if I did."

White pleaded guilty to 33 separate charges and in December last year was sentenced to 15 years in jail, giving West the opportunity to front him once again, when she and the other survivors read out their victim impact statements.

"The moment of delivering that statement was so powerful, because I got to say every word I ever wanted to say to him," she told Tara Brown.

"You ruined my life and now I'm handing that back to you. You take it back to that prison cell and may you rot." 

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Watch the full episode of 60 Minutes on 9Now.