ROCK SPIDERS & THE INTERNET

As a police officer, I would often chuckle to myself when asking a member of the public for their for their personal details knowing that there’s every chance they’ll cry “civil liberties” and demand to know why Big Brother wants to watch them. The poor cop is asking for a reason, such as completing an incident report. However, those same people don’t think twice about sharing the same details - and more - on social media or the internet. The carelessness in which people, especially children, used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms is mana from heaven for a predator. I have a friend who is a doctor, so he is an intelligent bloke, but I was concerned when he had posted photos of his naked infant child splashing about in a blow-up plastic pool. The nature of the photographs were innocent, and when I asked him why they were on Facebook he explained they were so his parents in England so they could see their grandchild. He couldn’t grasp why I told him to delete them, and to use private encrypted message system to share such shots in the future, so I had to tell him in the crudest manner that there are paedophiles who’ll see those photographs and they will jerk off to them. Everyone who posts a photo of a child on social media needs to have that message in the back of their mind. As I say, it was blunt, but my friend took the tip and deleted each photo he’d posted of his child. As parents we must protect our kids, and the first step is to educate them about the dangers on the internet. When my eldest daughter Emily turned 16, I did an exercise to highlight how much personal information she’d posted on social media. When I asked her how many people, she thought had access to her personal information, like all kids she laughed it off, saying only her friends were interested in that stuff. I pretended to be bad guy wanting to find out about her and after going through her social media accounts with her we had her full name; her date of birth; we knew the school she attended; the bus route she took and the time that she went to school and returned home; we also found out where she lived and through her posts, we ascertained Emily’s mother wasn’t at home during the daytime. At the end of it Emily realised how easy she’d made life for a would-be stalker or an identity thief, and her response was ‘holy crap’. Kids must also realise if they upload explicit photographs of themselves the ‘digital footprint’ is there forever; and by the same token trusting a boyfriend or girlfriend with a compromising photograph is courting danger because once they share it no-one has control of where it might end up, and what is used for. We all need to be smarter.

It concerns me to realise paedophiles are starting to push for the right to have sex with children without the fear of prosecution or persecution. The groundswell is already starting around the world, there’s paedophiles who are adamant they are no different to homosexuals, however, I will always maintain being attracted to an adult member of the same gender is a far cry from being attracted to a child who is unable to provide mature or informed consent for sex. I have no doubt paedophiles will attempt to impose their agenda upon those in the community who push for social and political change, and those people will attempt to justify that Man-to-boy or Man-to-girl relationships fall under the category of ‘love is love’. Don’t be fooled, it’s not love, it is exploitation. .. I’ve seen what these creatures do – it’s evil, it cannot be tolerated.

The digital age has further made things difficult for police. Since the explosion of the internet and the 24hr news cycle the demands of a media that operates on a 24/7 news cycle means that the is a voracious appetite for ‘scoops’ and information to keep the news cycle pumping with interest – or as some call it ‘click bait’. I would like to point out that besides being duded many years ago by the old Derryn Hinch tabloid television program, my dealings with the media have been great, and there’s a number of journalists I respect because from getting to know them I realise they do their job for the right reasons - to unearth the truth; to keep the bastards honest and to inform the public about the machinations of the corridors of power. I personally think a robust media is healthy for our society, however, that was challenged when I worked on a case where we were set to arrest a series of child sex offenders including a schoolteacher from an exclusive private school in Sydney for downloading graphic material of children being sexually abused. We were within days of finalising our investigation when I was told arch-rivals NewsCorp and Fairfax caught wind of the story. It was a huge yarn, and despite my pleas for both newspapers to hold off until we’d affected the arrest, it seemed as though both were determined to run the story regardless of the consequences. I explained if they were to publish their stories it was more than likely we’d lose critical evidence, but more importantly could lead to children being further harmed, but they were hellbent on beating the other to the punch.

Now, while that might be great for sales or hits on their websites, it would’ve all but destroyed our chance of getting a conviction. Ultimately, to ensure our case wasn’t harmed I met with the editors of both newspapers, and while they appreciated the seriousness of my dilemma, the general distrust between the organisations was on a par with what I witnessed between warring factions in Afghanistan. To finally get them to shake hands and agree to hold off on running the story, I arranged to make the arrest at a time that was convenient for their respective deadlines . . . I was in between a rock and a hard place because if I didn’t agree I risked having the case blown out of the water. Unfortunately, these are the modern pressures the courts and public don’t appreciate is part and parcel of policing. It makes an already stressful job even more so.

The good news was…. We got them and got them all!