This story includes descriptions of sexual abuse.
In August 2023, Dassi Elrich breathed a huge sigh of relief as she watched her former high school principal sentenced to 15 years in prison.
She fought for 15 years to hear those words, after suffering ongoing sexual abuse at the hands of Malka Leifer as a teenager.
Leifer had been in charge of the Adass Israel School she attended in a close-knit and very isolated ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Melbourne's south east.
Listen to Dassi's chat with True Crime Conversations, below.
The former teacher was convicted of 18 charges of sexual abuse including rape and indecent assault against Dassi and her sister Elly. She was acquitted of nine charges, including five relating to their older sister Nicole.
Their story received worldwide attention. They were the sisters fighting to get Leifer extradited back from Israel after she fled there in 2008 soon after the allegations came to light. It took 70 extradition hearings and 13 years to bring her back to Australia.
But there is more to Dassi, Elly and Nicole's story than Malka Leifer.
We got a taste of it during the trial, as the court heard details of school being a safe haven for the sisters and a place to escape a loveless home and a cruel and abusive mother.
But their mum wasn't the one on trial. The details of their childhood were only relevant as context to help put Leifer behind bars.
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