Paedophile ring hunted in the Armed Services

[ORAC]

The tabloids are going to have a field day with this, especially as it specifically pinpoints aircrew at Leeming, not exactly a large pool of suspects.

The Sunday Times- August 11, 2002:

August 11, 2002

Paedophile ring hunted inside armed forces
David Leppard

MILITARY police are investigating a network of suspected paedophiles in the armed forces who are downloading child pornography from the internet.

Legal experts say there are growing numbers of paedophile inquiries in which members of the Royal Marines, the RAF and Royal Navy are being targeted by Ministry of Defence police.....

The MoD investigations centre on aircrew at RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire, home of two frontline F3 Tornado fighter squadrons; RAF Cosford, Shropshire; and RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. In a separate case, a major working at Britain’s main military command centre has been caught with images of young girls downloaded from the internet.

The proliferation of child pornography in the armed services has led military detectives to acquire advanced computer software from America that allows them to recover material from computers, even though it appears to the user to have been deleted.................

...........Gilbert Blades, a lawyer specialising in military cases, said paedophile cases were becoming more prevalent as the use of personal computers spread throughout the armed services.

“What you have is the barrack block culture, with a lot of these young men downloading adult pornography and building up huge libraries — child pornography is getting mixed up with it,” he said.

Military detectives fear the use of pornography is likely to lead to more direct forms of child abuse. In one example, confirmed last week, a top marines officer was jailed after indecently assaulting a six-year-old girl.

Major XXXX XXXX, a Royal Marine and senior staff officer at the joint force headquarters at Northwood, north London, was caught with images downloaded from the internet of young girls involved in sexual activity. The images had been deleted from the main memory of his computer but were found on its hard drive after officers arrested him for the assault.

[Scud-U-Like]

Hmm, I mentioned in another thread that journalistic standards at The Times had gone 'tabloid' and this is a case in point.

The headline says 'Paedophile Ring Hunted in Armed Forces' and then goes onto report isolated investigations into computer misuse at various military units.

The services reflect society as a whole and, inevitably, we have among our numbers paedophiles. I hope they catch them and hang them out to dry. But to suggest there is an organised paedophile ring in the armed forces is nonsense. The only thing paedophiles are interested in is exchanging their filth with other paedophiles, regardless of their location or occupation.

From next Sunday, I'll be taking The Observer.

[Specaircrew]

As far as the RAF Police are concerned any computer that is connected to the Internet at a military establishment is a direct line to hell and spews forth all sorts of filth. Pity they haven't worked out that if you're interested in that sort of thing you'd probably not choose to use outdated pieces of kit that are subject to regular checks! Please don't let that put you off logging on to www.hotornot.com next time you're in the Falklands as there's little else to do when you're on Q :-)

[kbf1]

The fact that a man downloads child pornography does not make him either a paedophile or an aphaebophile, it merly means he has downloaded child pornography. However, if a man is pre-disposed to becoming aroused at child pornography, there is a reasonable chance that he will go on to abuse if he has a low sense of delayed (sexual) gratification or is aroused by the fear of being caught, but has found that he can get away with it once. To lay claim, as the Times has done, that anyone dowloading images is a practicing paedophile is a dangerous assertion similar to saying that a smoker is a murderer because someone may die as a result of breathing in second hand smoke. There is little proven cause and effect.

Recent studies show that the majority of child sex abusers who were not abused themselves as children are of above average intelligence. There is a reasonable chance that there are a number of members of the armed forces who may be involved in the swapping of child pornography given the size of the institutions in question. I agree with scud, find them and hang them out to dry, perhaps by dropping them off at the Sgt's mess first where a great number of the senior NCOs will be parents themselves. They will, I suspect, have a point of view they would wish to share with the perpetrators.

I hope, for the sake of the good reputation of the forces, that the allegations are unfounded, though if there is evidence to prove otherwise those involved should be named, shamed, and punished in the most punitive way possible.

[BEagle]

Scud-u-like - I'm not convinced that the Armed Forces really do represent a full cross-section of society. Selection and aptitude testing surely mean that we have a different cross-section of personality groups to those in general society?

As for paedophiles - words fail me. Hang them out to dry - but only after slow castration followed by hanging, drawing and quartering. With a very blunt and rusty implement....

[canberra]

why would anyone want to down load kiddie porn unless they're a paedophile or have paedophile tendencies?

[Jimlad]

treading carefully here, but having spent my youth working at Tesco where 14/15yr old girls were often mistaken for 18/20 I'd say it would be easy to download images of young women thinking they were "legal" and then only too late finding out that they weren't.
Also I have surfed totally legit sites before now, cliked on the wrong button and found myself being sucked into a hardcore porn site that was reluctant to let me escape (pop ups everywhere making it hard to close it down)
I have heard of people surfing mainstream girly sites who then got a dodgy link to take them into a paedophile site without their consent and then receiving calls of the police the next day.

I think the scuym should be taken parachuting without the chute myself, but we need to be careful in that a lot of our more junior guys may well fancy 15/16yr olds, especially the ones who've just come in. What happens if a 16yr old new recurit has a 15 year old girlfriend and then downloads a 'provocative' picture of her sent via email - is that considered child porn as she is underage or is common sense applied?

This is a very difficult area and I think there needs to be a lot more clarity as to when and where rules can apply myself.

[kbf1]

Jimlad.... if you re-read the initial post, we are talking about aircrew, generally they will enter in their early 20s, not late teens. By the time you get beyond 18 years of age, if you are still playing about with 15 year olds, something is wrong.

Looking at porn and actually abusing children are two seperate things, though not mutually exclusive. If you just download a pic by mistake you are unlikely to come to the attention of the police. Have thousands of pics on the HD and that is a different matter. The other thing to consider is that most child porn is swapped via "rings" where abusers take pictures of their abuse and swap amongst people whose joining "fee" is say 1000 pics of their own. This is not innocent surfing we are talking about here.

[Scud-U-Like]

kbf1

I agree with the gist of your comments, but I think it is important to point out that looking at child pornography is child abuse. The reason it is a crime to possess indecent images of children is that the trading of such material encourages the sexual abuse of children.

I think we're all agreed that the inadvertent straying upon a 'borderline' image, whilst surfing the net is quite different from methodically hoarding and exchanging child pornography. As you rightly point out, it is the latter who are targeted in police operations.

Beags

I was alluding to the sexual proclivities of society and I think the services reflect these.

Child abusers do not fit the popular stereotype and are very difficult to detect during any selection or vetting process. For example, a recent study found that the majority of those abusing boy prostitutes (aged around 10 years old) in the UK are married, apparently heterosexual men with children of their own.

[Gen. Bombdabastards]

KBF1 says that most child sex abusers are of high inteligence.


That counts the Nav's out then

[BEagle]

The French, for all their other faults, have a 'decency' guide which says that it is immoral for a man to have intimate relations with a woman who is younger than half his age, plus 7 years.

So:

Man 18, woman 16+

Man 20, woman 17+

Man 26, woman 20+

Man 36, woman 25+

Man 46, woman 30+

Man 52, woman 33+

Man 60, woman 37+

Man 70, woman 42+

Seems a pretty fair guide to me.

[Charlie Luncher]

So then Beags

I guess that you will be chasing the ladies in the 45 Yr + bracket:D

[BEagle]

Ooooooh bug.ger. Just knew I'd let myself in for that!