No area safe from threat
Social-networking sites such as Facebook are a perfect storm for sexual offenders, and people living in rural areas should not be deceived by a sense of safety, because paedophiles can groom victims anywhere, a front-line investigator into sex offenders says.
Forensic analyst Matt Taylor works as an investigator at the Electronic Crime Laboratory in Dunedin, helping the New Zealand police access digital data from sex offenders and cases of cyber-bullying.
‘‘We have been seeing the same techniques with online sex offenders, just different victims,’’ Mr Taylor said. ‘‘If we can get the message of caution through to kids, maybe that’s one less child who won’t have their life ruined.’’
It was important not to be deceived by a sense of safety in rural areas, because paedophiles grooming their victims on sites such as Facebook could happen anywhere.
A high-profile Nelson case was brought to Mr Taylor’s attention by investigators in the United States, who contacted the New Zealand police about an obscene photo of an 8-year-old girl they found when they raided a paedophile in the US.
Mr Taylor has also been involved in the Marie Davis case in Christchurch and more recently the case of Cameron Stuart Hore, who used various Facebook avatars, along with promises of cash, to lure young boys and girls into his place.
Social-networking sites such as Facebook were a perfect storm for sexual offenders. Young girls pretended to be older to seem more mature, and men could masquerade as teenage boys or girls to gain access and intimacy.
The pattern Mr Taylor repeatedly saw was when a sex offender began a chat and got the adolescent to say something personal or take a compromising photo. With this information, the sex offender usually then blackmailed the teenager into meeting and threatened to their secrets if they refused.
When the victim met the sex offender, he typically plied them with alcohol and raped them.
Mr Taylor said that to reduce the risk for children, he recommended keeping the internet in a family area of the house
reveal so children could not go online in their rooms. He also suggested implementing a cellphone curfew and warned parents to make sure the nightly confiscation included the SIM card.
Communication between parents and children was essential, he said.