Huge anti-child pornography raids across Australia.

Well, I'm not that huge at all.

(But where did that stain at my bottom come from?)

I thought it was a cockroach?

Parents shocked by child porn arrests
AM - Friday, 1 October , 2004 08:05:00
Reporter: Nick McKenzie
DAVID HARDAKER: First this morning, the biggest swoop ever on child pornography in Australia is not over yet.

Police are saying hundreds more are still to be arrested. Authorities have already charged more than 190 people with a total of 2000 offences and have seized more than two million pornographic images.

Teachers, police, doctors and the owner of a child care centre are amongst those who've been charged, with police saying there are links to organised crime groups in Europe.

In a moment we'll hear from investigators in the United States who did much of the work which led to the raids in Australia.

Meanwhile this morning there's alarm amongst child abuse groups and parents across the country - especially in Victoria where the owner of three child care centres was arrested as part of the operation.

Nick McKenzie reports

NICK MCKENZIE: Last night, parents arrived at one of the three Melbourne child care centres owned by Scott Thompson, whose been charged with possessing child pornography.

PARENT: Everybody's a bit shocked about this. There's no other precautions we could have taken.

PARENT: Oh it's a shock. Disappointing. I know the staff that run the centre, and they're fantastic.

NICK MCKENZIE: Police say there's no evidence Scott Thompson's offences involve any children at the centres or that there's any risks associated with their continuing attendance.

Mark Yorsten is the lawyer for Mr Thompson. Mr Yorsten read from a prepared statement last night and did not take questions.

MARK YORSTEN: Mr Thompson met with the manager of the three centres and instructed them to cooperate fully with police and with the Department of Human Services, and that has been occurring. Mr Thompson voluntarily agreed not to visit the centres and that is now been made one of the conditions of bail ? in order to further reassure the parents, he has placed the company which owns the centres into external administration.

NICK MCKENZIE: The chairman of the National Child Care Accreditation Council, John Tainton, says State licensing regimes, which involve police checks and which precede Commonwealth accreditation, are adequate to detect suspect operators.

JOHN TAINTON: That's not a total guarantee, but it is a very good starting point. Now, in this particular case, if this person concerned has no contact with children, then I would believe that parents have no cause for concern because the staff working with children would have been through very thorough police checks.

NICK MCKENZIE: Presumably the owner of the centres would have been under investigation for at least a short period of time where the parents of the children in the centre where kept in the dark ... is that a concern?

JOHN TAINTON: Look, I really have no comment on that one.

NICK MCKENZIE: The Australian operation was part of a worldwide crackdown, led by the United States customs service and which involved cooperation from the UK high tech crime centre, which is linked to Scotland Yard.

For more than five months, Australian authorities have compiled intelligence on hundreds of targets, culminating in the execution of more than 400 search warrants over the past six days.

Some suspects had been collecting pornographic images for over three decades.

Arrests have been made in every state and territory apart from the ACT - two teachers and a serving police officer have been arrested in Western Australia, while in Victoria, more than 65 individuals have been charged.

In Queensland, where almost 60 people have been arrested, police managed to identify from computer images seven children being targeted by a paedophile.

Detective Inspector Brian Huxley:

BRIAN HUXLEY: I don't want to overdramatise it all, but really, they've been rescued from further abuse.

NICK MCKENZIE: It seems the scandal that's shocking the nation is set to worsen - the Australian Federal Police says hundreds more individuals are likely to be arrested.

DAVID HARDAKER: Nick McKenzie reporting

Ok - I said I would add info re Pitcairn Island.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3705988.stm

"Rape a 'way of life' on Pitcairn


The only way to reach the island is by boat
Young girls on the tiny UK colony of Pitcairn were treated as sexual playthings and rape was a way of life on the island, a court has been told.
Seven male islanders, including mayor Steve Christian, are facing 55 charges of rape or indecent assault.

Dave Brown, the second to stand trial on the island, is accused of assaulting a series of girls as young as five.

Prosecutors told the court that he felt able to abuse his victims whenever he wanted.


Mr Brown, 49, is accused of assaulting girls over a period of 21 years from 1970.

In total, he faces 15 charges - two of gross indecency and 13 of indecent assault........."



".....All the alleged victims are now off the island and are testifying to the court - a community hall in Adamstown, the island's solitary settlement - by video link from New Zealand.


"The girls are treated as though they are a sex thing," a former Pitcairn woman, who says she was raped four times as a young girl, told the court on Thursday.

"Men could do what they want with them," she said.........


And - many women from Pitcairn are defending their men - saying it is a cultural thing - and consensual...


Life is odd...

"The tiny UK Pacific colony of Pitcairn has begun trying seven men on sex abuse charges which highlight a local culture of underage sex.
The seven, who make up half the local adult male population, face more than 50 charges of rape or indecent assault.

New Zealand prosecutors say there is an ingrained culture of using children for sex on Pitcairn, famous for its link to the Mutiny on the Bounty.

Local women have argued the practice is an island tradition and consensual.

They said that some of the alleged victims of abuse had been coerced into testifying.

The alleged victims are all now off the island and will testify by video link from New Zealand....."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3702448.stm

The end for Pitcairn"??????

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2414845.stm

Remote...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3632586.stm

More Australia child porn arrests


Some of the material seized dated back 20 years
The first Australians charged after a huge child pornography crackdown appeared in court on Friday, as police warned further arrests were likely.
A married schoolteacher was among the first in court - with other teachers, police officers and a child care centre owner also facing charges.

More than 200 people have already been arrested in the country's largest porn crackdown, which began on Thursday.

As many as 500 Australians could eventually be charged, police said.

A 33-year-old married schoolteacher appeared in a Sydney court on Friday, charged with 22 child pornography offences.

The teacher, whose name has not been disclosed, is accused of a variety of offences including setting up a video camera behind a school changing room mirror to film children.

Meanwhile 11 other men - including at least two teachers - have appeared in a court in Perth to face charges connected with internet pornography.


NATIONWIDE ARRESTS

1: Queensland - 55
2: New South Wales - 42
3: Australian Capital Territory - unknown number
4: Victoria - unknown number
5: Tasmania - unknown number
6: South Australia - 7
7: Western Australia - 21
8: Northern Territory - 9

Three childcare centres in Victoria have been placed in the hands of an administrator, because their owner - named by police as Scott Thompson - faces pornography charges.

Arrests continued across Australia on Friday, with more than 200 people now charged with a total of 2,000 offences.

But Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty warned: "It's almost certain that there will be further arrests."

"This operation has provided us information in the order of in excess of 500 Australians accessing the material," he told Australian radio.

Mr Keelty said police had already issued 400 search warrants, and more were expected in the coming days.

The Australian crackdown is part of a worldwide investigation, spearheaded by the US Customs service and also involving Interpol, Mr Keelty said.

The investigation started last year as a result of US intelligence based on information from a network of internet sites in Russia and eastern Europe.

Kyle Hutchins, the special agent in charge of the US investigation, said he was able to give names of suspected offenders to Australian officials, as well as "locations, credit card information and then what exactly these people actually downloaded''.

The information launched police raids on homes across Australia, and more than 2m images were seized.


Government shock

Prime Minister John Howard promised new legislation, if needed, to fight child pornography on the internet.

"The thing that perhaps shocks me most of all is the way in which it has spread across different sections of the community," he said.

Mr Howard's main challenger in the upcoming federal election, Labor leader Mark Latham, told Sky News that those guilty of pornography must be brought to account.

"It's absolutely disgusting, I couldn't think of anything sicker than what these people have done," he said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3706124.stm

Can anyone think of a sure way to stop these offences in future? Or is it an unfortunate case of trying to keep them to a minimum and prosecuting heavily those who are caught - "fire-fighting" in effect?

A quote from the UNICEF website "Child Protection" - Trafficking and sexual exploitation
[I hope, only some mind that's from a UN-site and don't start polemising]


It's the children, who have to be protected ...

Sadly, Grand Duke, we have a commodity (if you speak of the porn) which is worth a lot of money.

Also, again sadly, a reasonable of percentage of the folk who like it are very powerful and rich men - like lawyers and so on - who also know the system well - and are sometimes very respected parts of its upper echelons. The net has given their networks enormous reach.

Combine this with lots of poor and needy people - or folk so badly damaged themselves that they cannot adequately protect their kids - and a vistim group who are, by definition, extremely vulnerable - well, it is very hard to control.

Countries - Australia for instance - are beginning to pass laws making their citizens able to be convicted in Oz for offences against children committed overseas - but the sex tours - often targetting children - continue.

Also - if we are speaking of other forms of abuse than pornography - it is very difficult to convict for sexual offences at all - it is even easier to get away with offences involving children - for reasons such as that their testimony is regarded (to some extent justly) as less reliable than adult testimony (the younger the child, the less likely a case is even to go to court, especially with prosecution authorities aware of the terrible trauma associated with legal proceedings. Even for adults, many, many clients of mine have ended up more traumatised by their experiences in court than by the actual offence/s) - that sexual abuse of children often takes place over a long period - and it is almost impossible for them to recall a particular incident with enough detail to convince a court ( who require details of specific incident/s - they will be asked in the most intense detail about exactly what happened - whose hand was where, what time it was etc. - and being vague on a single detail, or the tiniest deviation from their original statement will ensure there is reasonable doubt) - by definition it is generally a child's word vs an adult's - with no witnesses and - (except in the case of an actual assault, or physical violence, or the child divulging while there is still semen, or some physical damage from the abuse) - no corroborating evidence, and the principles of presumption of innocence and reasnonable doubt lead even juries convinced of the truth of the allegations to find defendants not guilty - as in adult rape cases.

Children often do not divulge for years, as well.

Again, presumption of innocence ( a very worthy legal principle, I believe, by the way) also means it may be difficult to protect a child from an alleged predator - and some of the real predators are those most aware of their rights and well able to use the legal system to protect themselves.

So far 4 of the men arrested have commited suicide. I would expect there will be quite a few more.

Aaaaagh!

Not much chance of getting off the charges, I guess - since possession of the stuff is illegal - and - barring chain of custody lapses with the evidence - it isn't gonna be hard to prove they had it.

I HOPE it is no longer the case that some prison officers let "the guys" know who is a child molester when they are imprisoned...

All the ones so far have been out on bail or just about to be taken into custody. Rock Spiders know that prison is not safe for them.

Once they're inside they usually end up in protective custody and even then they aren't real safe. They won't actually put you in solitary unless someone has actually tried to get you. It can be too late by then.

I know.

I've been thinking about the suicides, too. Is it because of the fear of exposure, the fear of jail, becoming an "outcast" in society ....? But how could you expect anything else? It must be a very, very precarious existence. I don't understand it at all, I confess.

Well, many of these folk really DO convince themselves that what they are doing is harmless, or even beneficial - they consider themselves especially enlightened, "special" and such - (the real paedophiles more so than the "ordinary" punter who abuses one or two kids - usually his step-kids, or his own - but is not an habitual child abuser).

They now network extensively - so communicate extensively with like-minded folk - reinforcing their view. I imagine they also bury their pain at their own, often horrendous, history of abuse, and some of their behaviour is an acting out of this pain in avoidance of it.

When the walls of the castle of denial are penetrated by police raids and publicity, I can only imagine how this feels - plus the thought of the shame in front of people they know, facing the parents, the horrors sadly often awaiting them in prison....

Some, also, ARE fully aware of the horror of what they are doing - and have always felt great shame.

Some will go to prison protesting the beneficiality of what they have done...

Thank you for taking the time to explain that, Deb. It is really very hard for an observer to understand ...



These are the ones that perplex me the most ... The judges, the officials, the school teachers, the wealthy, the "happily married" business men, etc .....
The ones who are totally aware of what they're doing & the harm that it's inflicting on their young victims .... There is no answer to this, Deb, I know ... but how can they behave in a way that causes so much harm to such vulnerable young people? Especially when they undertand the harm that was done to them as young people ...

Hmmm - I think some of the people you mention may be some of the very ones most sure that what they are doing is ok!!!

I only know general stuff about the perpetrators - not my area of specialty...

But, I think that, for instance, when early boundaries have been broken and kids flooded with sexual stuff way beyond their developmental level, especially if done by people who have a relationship with them, that sexual feelings can become strongly paired with child abuse, and love, for that matter, is likewise paired - and so the pattern may be repeated because that is where their sexuality is sort of "stuck".

It is common in unresolved trauma in children for obsessive acting out of the traumatic material (in fact it is one of the diagnostic signs of PTSD in young children) to occur - I wonder if that is also a factor in some adult abusive behaviour?

We certainly - (unless we become very conscious of our emotions and behaviour - ie are able to tolerate thinking about what has happened to us, and fully accept our feelings and thoughts, whatever they were) - tend to act out in adult relationships our early experiences of intimate relationships - as every intelligent parent and lover (and teacher, for that matter!) tends to discover.

Also, children often experience sexual pleasure in sexually abusive situations - (if it is not violent) as well as emotional closeness and, often, a strong feeling of "specialness" - (this is especially important as many kids who fall victim to paedophiles, and go on to become such themselves, are not being raised in happy and healthy homes) - these are feelings they wish to repeat - and may do so in the adult, instead of child role.

Going out - so I won't blather any more - just some ideas.

May I just add that I think some degree of sexual attraction to children is not at all uncommon - well socialised people, with good impulse control and the capacity for empathy unclouded by pathology, and good alternative relationships, are able to deal with such feelings. The kind of folk who become child abusers commonly have not developed these things well, or at all....

I will add more later.

30% of the children of alcoholics stay not only sober all there life long but become strict anti-alcoholics.
30% drink normal like any other normal person.
30% become alcoholics, too.

When I learnt that similar happens at pedestrian crossing - 30% don't care about the lights ... _ I could think, these (about) percentages to be true in this field as well.