I don't know if you are the same but sometimes, in idle moments, I find myself using the internet to look back on things - places I went, football games or concerts I attended, people I knew. You go down rabbit holes with side tunnels that go this way and that.
Today I thought about a secondary school teacher who was once a colleague of mine. Let's call him Chris because that was his name. Chris was a dedicated and hard-working member of the Maths department. A bachelor, he lived a couple of miles from the school. He was not in a relationship and it seemed that he had simply dedicated himself to teaching. An Ipswich Town fan, Chris also supported the school's P.E. department by managing one of the boys' football teams.
In that regard, back in 1988 or 1989 he asked me if I would drive the school minibus down to Wembley Stadium in London so that his team could watch England Schoolboys play West Germany Schoolboys. It was a big ask but I said yes. Chris, who didn't possess a driving licence, sat beside me and we chatted intermittently all the way down to Wembley and back. He was an odd fish but I kind of liked the guy.
It was a year or so after that that Chris failed to return to school following the six week summer holidays. The story went like this. He had been at the coast in the seaside town of Skegness. He was spotted on the beach, near a children's paddling pool, surreptitiously taking pictures of children. He was challenged by members of the public and the police were called.
One thing led to another. The police searched Chris's terraced house in the north of Sheffield and there they found many photographs of children - mostly boys in different states of undress or nudity. They had been snapped over many years . It was said at the time that there were enough pictures to fill two or three plastic bin bags.
Chris ended up in court and was given a suspended prison sentence. There was never any suggestion that he had ever sexually abused any children. It was just the secret photos - hundreds of them. Looking but as far as anybody knows - never touching. Of course that does not excuse his paedophilia in any way though it seems that his lawyer and he himself attempted to play that card in court.
He never returned to the school. He was gone and almost forgotten. I knew that his parents lived down in Suffolk and I supposed that he had gone back there to begin a new life outside teaching.
In the intervening thirty+ years, it seems that his particular perversion continued. More photos of children were taken and of course with the advent of the internet he found another outlet for his paedophilia.
In this millennium, down in Suffolk, he has been in court for similar reasons. He was made the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order in 2005 and was banned from possessing camera equipment or a computer. Other offences were addressed in both 2011 and 2012 but on each occasion Chris managed to avoid jail - being given suspended sentences. Once he threatened to commit suicide if he was sent to prison where of course such men are treated very harshly by other inmates.
What made Chris a paedophile? I have no idea but I assume that forensic psychiatrists might be able to track back through time, past experience and family history to pinpoint the key drivers. The majority of paedophiles are most likely made and not born - that's what I think anyway.
I tend to disagree with your last statement - although environment and example no doubt create behavior, we are also all born with wired-in inclinations that may be acceptable ... or not. What people CAN do is make sure they do not hurt other people, and that includes "looking" - taking or viewing pictures, which is a different kind of hurt from hands-on contact but hurt nonetheless. People can also seek therapy and medications that can help control urges that are generally considered inappropriate. Those who refuse to do so, however, should lose their freedom because they are just as much a threat as other criminals. Just my opinion.
ReplyDeleteAs I said to Red below, I would like to think that all babies are born innocent and that the "wired in" inclinations are in fact learnt or developed in early childhood. Just my opinion Jenny.
DeleteI find this whole thing rather sad. I am not condoning his behaviour at all but I just can't help but feel what a miserable life this man must have led.
ReplyDeleteHe must have been subject to a lot of hostility. Nobody likes paedophiles or even stops to think what made them so.
DeleteI really don't know what to think about your conclusion. Not much research seems to have been done on these issues. It seems that these activities can lead to more harmful and criminal activity.
ReplyDeleteI would like to think that all babies are born innocent.
DeleteMade or born? That's a difficult question. I know of one whose home life was completely normal, nothing wrong going on there, but he "loved" his daughters far too much.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the roots of his perversion were not properly explored.
DeleteYears ago, a series of articles in my then weekly paper "Die ZEIT" dealt with how a criminal becomes criminal, how evil is possible but does not necessarily surface in every person. One of those articles contained snippets of interviews with convicted paedophiles. The gist was that they were deeply unhappy men (and very few women) who knew that their desires were wrong but needed professional help in addressing them. That help has, most of the time, not been available to them. To me it looks like your former colleague was trying to keep his urges to himself without directly harming anyone. Maybe therapy could have been really helpful in his younger years; not sure how successful it is likely to be now.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, your story shows that there is always much more to a person than what we can perceive from the outside - both good and bad. You liked your colleague who was hard-working and seemed a decent person. But there was his big secret.
I suspect that you are right. Professional intervention when Chris was young may have helped him to control his paedophilia and live a more wholesome life.
DeleteIs it illegal to take photographs in public places, whatever the subject? Surely, this in itself causes no harm. Presumably, the images in his house were of an indecent and illegal nature and did cause harm in their making. Evidently, " ‘indecent’ is not defined in [more recent] legislation but can include penetrative and non-penetrative sexual activity".
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know all of his images were taken in public places apart from a few that were taken in school changing rooms. Also, as far as I know, none of his pictures involved sexual activity.
DeleteHaving now found a report about CF in the Ipswich Star, some of his images were indeed considered indecent.
DeleteOtherwise, the matter would have been of some concern, because Avon and Somerset Police (and other sources) state: "There is no law preventing people from taking photographs in public. This includes taking photos of other people’s children. ... Unless the images which have been taken are indecent, no one has the right to: ask a photographer to stop; ask for a copy of the photos; force a photographer to delete the photographs."
One wonders at parents who let their children run naked in public fountains and then complain when someone takes a picture of the fountain, although that was not the focus in this case.
This reminds me of a similar story of a person I knew very well who used to blog all the time. His blog was always full of pictures that I thought were just probably a little too racy to immortalize on the internet of his daughters or their friends. Then one day his blog went silent. After a google search, I found that he was in the slammer for various charges that one might expect for such a person and is now serving out a lengthy sentence in prison. I'm guessing blogging is not allowed as his blog is still silent after nearly a decade.
ReplyDeleteSometimes one just never can tell what happens "behind closed doors" of someone else.
Your last comment is so true Ed. People can put on public faces that hide the truth of who they are.
DeleteAssumption: all children are all born innocent. Why are all children not born clever? or with a good memory? or? For example my brother and I had similar upbringings by the same parents. He was born with a memory gene (my maternal uncle had a perfect photographic memory 'till his death at 93) whereas I was not. Our personalities are very different. Nature or nurture? I could never be so certain, Neil, that we are born as a blank canvas ie innocent.
ReplyDeleteYou make a valid point.
DeleteIf he had these terrible urges, he should never have chosen a career that put him in regular contact with children. Period. Taking all those pictures says to me that he wasn't really trying to overcome his perversion.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he was molested as a child?
Your last question echoes thoughts I have had about Chris and people like him. By the way, I guess he entered teaching because it put him into daily contact with young boys.
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ReplyDeleteAlthough I realize that it must be a terrible thing to have sexual feelings about children, until there is some way to actually treat those with this inclination, I believe that they should be separated from society. In the US, taking pictures like the ones Chris had and being in possession of them is considered a serious offense and I think it should be.
It's considered serious here too but some perverts go way beyond what Chris did. I hoped and expected that the incident in Skegness and what happened straight after - such as being barred from teaching forever would force him to change his ways but it clearly didn't. He kept on getting kicks from his secret photography.
DeleteI keep thinking about this post. Probably because, as you know, I was the victim of childhood sexual abuse. I would like to point out that the taking of photographs of children is NOT a victimless crime. It is an invasion and if a child realizes it is happening (and how could some of them not?) it is frightening. Children know when something is "off." It shocks me that instead of banning this man from being anywhere near children, they simply banned him from having photography equipment or a computer. There is absolutely no way to know if he had ever actually had physical contact with a child. He may well have. Another thing that bothers me for some reason is the use of the words "pervert" and "perversion." These terms are misleading. The man was a pedophile. He had sexual interest in children. Even if he never did touch a child (which I highly doubt) that is the term that applies to him. "Pervert" is a lazy word, I think, connotating all sorts of different behaviors whereas pedophilia is specific and in this case, the proper word to use.
DeleteAs to what led to this man's sexual interest in children and his obsessive fascination in taking photos of them, I have no idea. Yes, there is a strong possibility that he was abused by an adult when he was a child but many people were abused as children and do not grow up to become abusers. Pedophilia is way too common to explain easily or succinctly. Vast numbers of children are sexually abused and as you well know, many times by adults in a position of authority. The odds are vast that you knew and/or know more pedophiles than you would imagine and even vaster that you knew and/or know victims of these people, especially working with children as you did.
Well said Mary.
DeleteThis got me thinking but what stuck in my mind is that "he did not want to stop". I think if he really wanted to stop, he would have sought help if he couldn't stop on his own. I think that nowadays there are lots of therapies to help with all sorts of addictions but a person has to want to do the work to stop.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what goes on in such a perverted mind or how he could justify such activity to himself.
DeleteAs a victim of one of these harmless not touchy perverts i could right essays on having to live your life hiding for fear someone will recognise your childhood self . Im 60 and i still cant be in any image or photograph without being physically sick
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that Kate. I am sorry that you have had to live with the affects of such perversion for all these years. Chris probably imagined that what he was doing was "harmless" but of course it wasn't as you could testify.
DeleteI agree with what Jennifer said. Both about not working around children and the questions about his own past.
ReplyDeleteHe must have slipped through the net into teaching. I would like to think that today - with computer assistance etc. - he would have been caught much earlier. I guess he was teaching for about sixteen years.
DeleteI always feel a little bit sorry for people who have compulsions. Something in their heads push them to do things that they know are wrong. Thankfully my little man on my shoulder only tells me to keep eating cakes, lol
ReplyDeletePleased to see that I can at last comment, did you do something your end?
Briony
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I am glad to receive another comment from you Briony. I didn't change a thing but some funny stuff has been happening across the board with regard to comments via Blogger.
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