I helped jail my evil twin

PREYING ON THE INNOCENT

A fall from

I worshipped my twin brother – but he wasn’t as godly as he seemed Margaret Harrod, 63

Iwatched as my mum Coral, 65, and dad Richard, 77, beamed proudly at my twin brother, Michael, then 31. Making his way to the altar to be ordained as a priest, he was dressed in long, black robes and a clerical collar.

The picture of purity. It was March 1987, and the lavish ceremony in our local church was a proud moment for all my family. After the service, I gave my brother a big hug.

From the moment we were born, Michael and I were as thick as thieves. Like many twins, we shared a deep connection.

We even had our own language – one nobody but us could understand.

From birth to our teens, we were inseparable.

At school, we sat side by side, had the same mates. But Michael was always my best friend of all.

We shared a faith – and in our twenties, we both decided that we’d follow a spiritual path.

I became a nun, and Michael a priest.

But then, for the first time ever, we started to live separate lives.

Me in the convent, Michael teaching at a prestigious college.

He was quickly promoted to Deputy Principal and was popular among his students.

He’d buy them treats from the canteen and spend his lunchtimes with them

My brother was just being kind and caring. Wasn’t he..? in the playground. One day, Michael came home with a student in tow.

‘He wouldn’t get a holiday otherwise,’ Michael shrugged, explaining to Mum and Dad that the 11-year-old lad’s family were very poor. ‘That’s very generous of you,’ Mum smiled. Only, as I watched Michael stroke the boy’s arm, I felt my stomach churn.

Something isn’t right... But I pushed the thought to the back of my mind.

My brother’s just being kind and caring. Isn’t he..? Any thoughts of him having a sinister motive were soon forgotten. By then, I’d left the convent and had married Rod, 34.

We went on to have our son Jason in 1988, and then our daughter Nicola in 1989. I’d see Michael during the school holidays, always with another one of his young students by his side.

That familiar, uneasy feeling would sometimes return, but I convinced myself that my mind was playing tricks on me.

But in July 2004, there was a bombshell.

Michael was on the front page of a newspaper. The headline read Priest Faces Abuse Claim. A former student of Michael’s had come forward with allegations of sexual assault.

It was like a lightning bolt through my heart, and I knew that Michael’s accuser was telling the truth. Suddenly, my mind flashed back to all the times I’d seen Michael touch his

students. He’d stroke their arm or put

Our 21st birthday

We had a special bond Dad and Mum: so proud of us

his hand on their leg.

I remembered one day, long in the past, when Michael and I were visiting a parish family together, and he encouraged their young daughter to sit on his knee. He was directly opposite me and I could see him rubbing her belly.

At the time, I’d thought it was odd, but now the memory of it made me feel physically sick.

Shell-shocked, I confronted Michael. ‘Michael, I’m your sister and I love you, but I want to know what happened,’ I begged him. I was praying this was all a terrible mistake, but he wouldn’t answer me.

He sat staring at the TV, stony-faced, in silence.

I vowed never to speak to Michael again after that. And I knew I had to tell the Church what I

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suspected about my brother. So, in August 2004, with Rod by my side, I went to the Catholic Church’s Committee for Professional Standards and reported Michael to two priests.

That’s when I learned that Michael’s victim had complained to the Church years earlier.

He had received a confidentiality settlement and, shockingly, Michael had continued to work as a priest.

So, all this time, members of the Church had known. The police were now investigating several allegations of indecent assault, and I gave them information for their case.

I was determined to help them to uncover the truth. By now, our father had died but Mum refused to believe the allegations.

For years, I didn’t hear anything about Michael. I

My brother turned into a monster

missed my twin brother, but I just didn’t recognise the man he’d become.

But then, in August 2011, a friend phoned me.

‘Michael’s in jail,’ she said. He’d pleaded guilty to multiple counts of indecent assault against a 12-yearold boy in 1983, and was sentenced to two years in prison, with a 15-month suspended sentence.

My heart was broken – my brother was a monster. How could he have done this?

In June 2016, my brother Michael Aulsebrook, 60, was found guilty of one count of rape and admitted sexually assaulting two other children.

At his trial, the jury heard he’d invited an 11-year-old boy into his office at the college to play on his computer. He then gave his victim a soft drink spiked with a sedative.

The boy woke up on the floor as Michael was raping him. Afterwards, Michael told his victim to, ‘get out of my sight, you disgust me’.

Michael was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison.

And in October 2019, my brother, then 63, had his jail term increased, after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting another boy, then aged 11, at a camp away from the school in the mid-1980s. Michael was the Camp Director and in charge of first-aid when the boy

suffered chafing while jumping on a trampoline. He took the boy into a locked room and repeatedly sexually assaulted him.

Michael was ordered to serve a further 20 months in prison.

My brother was a vile predator. A paedophile.

I still find it impossible to understand how the monster in jail is the loving brother of my childhood.

I’ll forever carry the guilt of not speaking out sooner. If I’d trusted my instincts and spoken up before, I may have spared other victims. It haunts me every day. I’ve since lost my faith in God, left the Catholic Church. And my twin brother – who I once loved so much – is dead to me now.