TRIGGER WARNING
We have decided to carve out this space to share our stories in. Recently in Ottawa, Davey Brat Zegarac has been accused of sexual assault. We don’t know the survivor but do know the accused. Often when a survivor comes forward they are met with disbelief and scrutiny. We don’t want that to happen and felt our stories could serve as a character reference of Davey.
We did not know each other personally before this. When news came from Ottawa we reached out and immediately recognized how similar our stories are and found that talking to each other about it felt really good. We hope it does the same for you. Please share as much or as little as you like.
*We do not wish any harm on Davey. Collectively we have gathered a timeline (running at least a decade long) of experiences with Davey engaging in an abusive pattern of behaviour. We hope by putting it out there he will be motivated to work towards getting help.*
From a survivor (submitted June 29th 2015):
Trigger Warning: Sexualized violence.
This is a detailed account of my own experience.
*TRIGGER WARNING* For real ya’ll please take care of yourselves.
I don’t really know how to go about this, but I feel like I need to write this because I am sick with myself for the ways I have chosen to not only remain silent, but to defend this person in the past.I cannot even fathom how many people this person has hurt, and with all these stories surfacing I need to share mine. I haven’t processed this to much, so bare with me.
I am also a survivor of Dave Z (Davey Zegarac, Davey Brat, etcetc). Back in 2005, When I was 13, I was just getting into the Winnipeg punk scene. This person was a hero of mine. He played in one of my favorite local bands (The Brat Attack) and contributed greatly to my politicization. He sold me my first guitar. He booked my friends shitty bands.
He initiated beginning a sexual relationship with me over the internet, asking me questions about my sexual activity, sending me pictures of his body, telling me that because he was an anarchist he didn’t believe age dynamics were relevant. At the time he was 27. At the time, I believed him. At 13 I just wanted to be taken seriously and respected, I wanted him to like me. I chose to meet him and to engage in sex with him the first time. It is because of this that I have defended him, it is because of this that I was able to deny the gravity of how fucked he is. As I learned and continue to learn about consent, and age dynamics, the more I realize how fucked up this situation was for a mentor twice my age to engage with me the way he did. I spent a lot of time trying to understand my actions, but I realize that they ultimately don’t matter, and never mattered, because I was never considered. Consent was somewhat present in our first interaction, but it ended there. I began to barter my body for goods because I felt as though I couldn’t say no to him either way. My presence and silence was taken for consent again and again, every interaction became more coercive and forceful. I finally went to his house to attempt to end our physical relationship, this was very difficult for me because I still held this person in incredibly high regard and he had a lot of power over me. I lied and told him I had entered a monogamous relationship, and at that point he raped me.
When it was over he asked me if I wanted to date him, I laughed in his face. Only recently did I realize how strong of a manipulation tactic that was. It helped me to create a grey area in my mind in which he actually cared about me. I also feel that by the time what happened between us occured I had already sustained more trauma than I could hold and my mind made it a distant and obscure discomfort. I don’t think I was ever alone with him again and we kept a distance until he moved to Newfoundland.
I went to Newfoundland 6 years later with the intention to talk with him about what had happened. He seemed genuinely different. The person he was with was really incredible, I convinced myself he had changed, that I was an exception. I have totally ignored reality in regards to him in many ways, even spoke highly of him with people. I even had a conversation with him in Halifax in 2012 in which he owned what he had done and convinced me he was different (He was getting married) and I forgave him.
It was only 2 months ago, that the grey area I created was obliterated. I met someone who was in Winnipeg during that time who said the words; “That person raped half my friends”. It was the first time someone had spoken of his abuse in a way I could not ignore. Up until then, to acknowledge that he was a rapist was to acknowledge he had raped me, and so I didn’t.
In light of all the stories that are surfacing, I cannot believe my actions. To hear that he is continuing to hurt people after at least a decade makes me sick, there is no grey area, and no possibility he is unaware. If I had said something earlier, things would be different because that is how the universe works, if one thing is different, everything is different. I can’t go back, all I can do is this. Share if you want and I am open to conversation at: [email protected]
Personal note: None of my song lyrics are about this fuck. Also, if you have any doubts about my story, don’t email me. Kindly take a deep breath, hold it, now count to infinity.
From a former partner, bandmate and survivor (submitted June 28th 2015):
This will be the first time I’ve shared all these details with anyone. Mostly because I still feel pretty ashamed and stupid. I still haven’t really dealt with all of this, and honestly am still struggling from the damage of this relationship.
It took me years and years to be able to have a normal, healthy relationship with anyone. Trusting people is hard. My self-esteem still blows. I really don’t wish Dave any harm, and I honestly hope that he learns how to be healthy and honest with people. I struggled with deciding whether to share this for that reason, but if it forces him to deal with these abusive behaviours, or saves someone some trauma then it will be worth it. But, here it goes.
I first met Dave at a show the Brat Attack played in my town when I was 16 years old. He was 26. We communicated via email and msn messenger, and he had me send him naked pictures at this time. I guess because I was only 16 this made me feel special and cool that someone who was older and in a cool band would be interested in me (retrospectively, this is gross). We continued to talk this way, and over the phone until the next year when the Brat Attack came back through my town. At that point we slept together multiple times, I was 17. I had said that I would only have sex if we were using a condom, which he removed part way through without telling me. I cried a lot about that.
I started university that September, but in December I quit school and moved to Winnipeg to be with Dave because he was my boyfriend and I wanted to be with him. Everyone told me not to go, but I did. Dave told me to lie about my age to his friends and family; because there had been some “nasty rumours made up about him and young girls”. I don’t really know why I didn’t believe that they were true, given that I was a young girl, but…there it is.
He was not well liked in Winnipeg. After a little while there were some things that were really concerning me, like Dave’s secrecy with emails and his phone (like turning off the computer if I walked into the room, or not responding to phone calls when I was around). When I asked him what was going on and if he was cheating on me, he made me feel like I was crazy. He told me over and over that everything was fine and that I was just jealous and crazy. I eventually believed that.
One day while Dave was in the shower his phone rang and it was the number that he always hung up the phone if I was there. I answered it. There was a girl on the other end who sounded confused and asked for Dave. I asked who she was, and she told me her name and asked who I was. I said that I was Dave’s girlfriend. She sounded just as shocked and confused as I was. I felt so sick. Dave walked into the room and I was crying and told him who I was talking to. He grabbed the phone from me. I wanted to keep talking to this girl to find out what was going on and he held me down on the bed to keep me from talking to her. There was no where I could go but this stupid fucking room in his Dad’s house in Winnipeg, and I felt trapped. I did call her back later that day and met up with her and we talked for a long time. She didn’t know about me, she felt just as wronged as I did. She was also really upset to know how old I was. He had been having unprotected sex with her and who knows who else when I would go to work. I didn’t know what to do because I was provinces away from home, and I didn’t want to prove my family and everyone else right and go home. I cried a lot for a few days. Dave cried a lot too, and somehow eventually made me feel like this was my fault and made me feel sorry for him. I don’t really understand how, but it happened. We went out with some of his friends later that night for late night food. I remember feeling sick, tired and ashamed.
I stayed in Winnipeg. I saw more photos of naked girls in his email, I don’t know who they were or how old they were. I assume it was more girls he met on tour. I stayed with him for a long time after that. He made me feel stupid, I felt like garbage who probably was unlovable and not good enough, so at least this way I had someone.
We moved back to my home province eventually, which Dave thought would be good because he would have a fresh start there where no one would know about his history in Winnipeg. Based on what I am hearing from others it sounds like the pattern of behaviour continued regardless. I eventually left him, not in a way that I am proud of. I fell for someone else, and emotionally left before I physically did. I still feel terrible about that. Most people in the punk scene in my city (who were the people I cared about a lot) wrote me off because Dave painted me to be such an asshole. I left the band we were in together. I couldn’t really bring myself to defend my actions in any way, and I don’t blame anyone for writing me off because I felt that what I did wasn’t cool or okay either, and I knew that Dave was very manipulative and convincing. I stood up for him a number of times after we broke up also, I don’t really know why. I think I felt guilty about how I acted in the end of our relationship.
I’m sorry to the people who I stood up for him to. I’m sorry to the people who were hurt by him that I didn’t warn. I’m truly sorry if other people have experienced similar things with him, and I hope you’re okay.
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Repost from FB, from a former partner, bandmate and survivor:
Recently in a city not so different from yours or mine, a person has been accused of sexually assaulting someone. I dated the accused for just over three years and made music with him for two of them. We wrote songs about anarchy, friendship, gender inequality, and community. His name is Davey Brat Zegarac. Since we separated many people have come forward and told me about the bad things he has done to them. No one ever wanted to say anything publicly, myself included. He has so many friends all around the world who support him. Honestly I didn’t say anything because I was/am embarrassed. Two years into our relationship I found out he had been cheating on me with many women and often. He was sleeping with all of us and not using any protection. When I confronted him about it he cried. We stayed in our room for an entire day, talking, yelling, crying. Every time I tried to leave (my bags were already packed) he would stop me, block the door and punch himself in the face over and over again. It made me scared and confused and after hours of this, the situation had turned around to the point that I was concerned about him and his feelings. By the early hours of the next morning, still in that fucking room, I was actually in a place in my head that I believed I had created this mess and it was my fault that he had to cheat. He had convinced me that I was messed up and was ruining what would be, otherwise, a beautiful relationship. If I could just be more affectionate, have sex with him more often, we would be ok. I didn’t want to be with him sexually but had been successfully convinced it was because there was something wrong with me, that I had a problem. The first time we were together after that day I didn’t want to but went along with it. I was crying and he was watching me cry but told me what was happening was a good thing and kept going. I stayed with him another year. He said he would be faithful and we could work it out. I just had to keep up my end of the bargain. He didn’t keep his promise. He was sleeping with a lot of the girls who would come to our shows, sing my songs, dance in front of the stage and drink shots with me afterwards. I didn’t know about them, they didn’t know about each other. He would tell each of them that things with us were almost over and he was going to be with them someday soon. He slept with some of them on a weekly basis over the course of our entire relationship, they kept their lives on hold waiting for him to one day be with them. I am so embarrassed, I took pride in being strong but was actually weaker at that time than I had ever been in my entire life. He had me truly convinced that this was happening because I wasn’t good enough. I drank more during that year than I have ever drank in my life and was available to him whenever he wanted me, which after time became less and less. After another year of this we finally ended it. I told him he needed to change before he could sing songs and profit (profit as in travel, make new friends, and be welcomed into new communities) off an idea of love respect and equality without practicing the very principles of the songs we had written together. He promised me he would not restart our band (something he does with every band once the majority of the members leave and he finds fresh new people to replace them). He didn’t keep that promise either, he still sings those songs, with new people to new faces. A few days ago I heard about the accusation of sexual assault. I threw up. If you ever reading this, I am sorry for what happened to you. My heart is broken for you. I wish I could put it all out there, but I can’t. I’m sorry. If you want to talk to me please reach out to Patty, he will connect us ([email protected]) I can feel in my heart there are more of you out there, not saying anything, thinking maybe what happened to you isn’t that bad, not that significant. I know that my past is not relevant/equal to the struggles that are happening to that person and in that particular city right now. I am talking about my past now because I didn’t ever talk about it before and I feel like that may have further validated and enabled him. I know him very well and do believe that he is capable of what he has been accused of. He is most dangerous because he presents himself as an ally, in safe places, in the company of good people who are respected and trusted. He is a bully who has pressured, manipulated and intimidated me into having sex with him. He is really good at lying and is very smart. He caters to his audience and when confronted about things like this he will meet that confrontation with whatever reaction he thinks will work best… violence, intimidation, or in cases where his audience are compassionate he will say he needs help and will seem eager to get support. I am aware of at least three provinces in this country where he has been accused of hurting someone, please protect your friends so that there is never a fourth.
If you find it difficult to read accounts of abuse, this tells of Davy Zegarac’s crazy long history of being a perpetrator and rapist. Posting because I know friends follow me who may not know this.
