There’s no such thing as a low-risk paedophile
‘Lower-risk’ paedophiles will be delighted to learn that the criminal justice system is too busy to cramp their style
Lower-risk paedophiles. Not exactly a phrase to fill you with confidence, is it? “Have you met our new parks manager, Mr Smith? He’s a lower-risk paedophile. Of course, Mr Smith does have a predilection for watching videos of children in the Philippines being raped to entertain Western perverts like himself, but he’s perfectly harmless, really. Wouldn’t touch a hair on little Harry’s head!”
Unless I’m mistaken, this is what Chief Constable Simon Bailey, Britain’s most senior child protection officer, is telling us. Mr Bailey said on Radio 4 yesterday that “lowerrisk paedophiles” – that is, men who have downloaded child pornography, though not actively commissioned it – should not always be charged or jailed “unless they pose a physical threat to children”. Instead, they could be registered as sex offenders and “managed within the community”.
Mr Bailey admits this approach will “horrify many people”, but, hey, what can you do? The policing system has reached “saturation point” after a huge increase in reports of child sexual abuse following the Jimmy Savile scandal. Alleged incidents have risen by a staggering 80 per cent in three years. Police are arresting 400 men every month for viewing indecent images of children. Following the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which began hearing evidence this week, police forces are braced for another huge influx of cases.
Mr Bailey’s answer to this obscene epidemic is to decriminalise activities like downloading child porn by “what I would describe as very low-risk offenders, who, based upon good risk assessments, pose little if any actual threat of contact abuse”. Individuals “that you can say with a degree of certainty genuinely don’t pose a physical threat” should receive counselling and treatment instead of prison terms.
I’m willing to bet that the people who will be most pleased with these proposed reforms are lower-risk paedophiles. They’ll be delighted to learn that the criminal justice system is too busy, and too overcrowded, to cramp their style.
Off the top of my head, here are a few questions for Mr Bailey: 1Does
he expect the levels of child pornography to remain stable once you’ve reduced the punishment for possessing it? Isn’t it likely to escalate? 2When
he talks about sex offenders receiving counselling, is he aware that this country is incapable of providing mental health services for tens of thousands of depressed and self-harming adolescents? How are we going to provide therapy for 400 new perverts a month, and is there any taxpayer he knows who wants to see their money spent in that way? 3When
you say that thousands of low-level sex offenders are going to be “managed in the community”, don’t you mean, “Let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best”? 4A
man who downloads “kiddy porn” may not be physically abusing a child, but he is most certainly colluding with the foul fiends who are. How does your plan help to curtail this despicable trade? 5You
mention individuals you can say “with a degree of certainty genuinely don’t pose a threat”. Who is going to decide when a lower-risk online paedophile becomes a high risk real-life one? And what is the difference between “a degree of certainty” and “wishful thinking in the face of budget cuts and overcrowded jails”?
I mean no disrespect to Simon Bailey. With millions of people descending daily into the dank caves of the internet, how is the law supposed to distinguish between warped curiosity and darkest depravity? But that doesn’t mean the reaction of a civilised society to this lawless, taboo-free online world should be to throw up our hands and say: “Sorry, it can’t be policed.”
Have you listened over the past few days to the testimony of elderly Australians who, as children, were shipped from the UK and found themselves violated in their new home? I have serious doubts about the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, with its infinitely wide, historic remit, but it’s impossible not to be moved by victims who want the villains named and shamed, long after they are dead. Some hurts will not be buried. “The culture of impunity needs to be broken,” said one heartbreaking and heartbroken old chap.
That’s why maintaining zero tolerance of child pornography is so crucial. To act as a deterrent, to make it clear that uploading pictures of a degraded little boy or girl onto your laptop is not a victimless crime.
This doesn’t mean a licensed witchhunt. Too often in the recent past we have seen innocent people pounced upon, their names blackened, families destroyed, all on the flimsiest pretext. Operation Ore, the police investigation into paedophilia and child pornography, caught a lot of wicked men, but it also convicted others based on dodgy credit-card evidence which linked them to websites called “child rape”. Thirty-five of the accused committed suicide. If the punishment for a crime is great, then so must be the burden of proof.
I suggest that Chief Constable Bailey could save money by discontinuing investigations into dead celebrities and very old soldiers. Our priority must be to focus on current abuses and protect the living. We won’t do that by removing the threat of criminal sanction from paedophiles who view hateful images of children. Mr Bailey says we can’t afford to lock them all up; I say we can’t afford not to.
Until the police are given the resources they need, and the leading search engines get serious about taking down illegal material, we’d better start teaching our children a prayer that could been designed for the internet. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.