Rachel and her team generously put aside the entire day so they could share with me their knowledge, experience and projects. Rachel noted that in 1996, after the public outrage over the crimes of the notorious Belgium paedophile, there was a great deal of interest in the Internet and its role with paedophiles, although of course in that particular Belgian case the Internet had not been involved. At that stage, Rachel was a paediatric nurse specialising in oncology. She was particularly interested in aspects of children's vulnerability and resilience. Rachel then studied Psychology, and Bosnian orphanages became a special interest. The future direction her studies and career would take her was influenced by Professor Max Taylor (University College of Cork) and Bob McLaughlan (Head of the Paedophile Unit). They suggested she combine her special interests and look into the area of keeping the Internet safe for young people.
For four years Rachel worked investigating chatrooms in the European Community and with European Community funding. She worked with the UK Police Paedophile Unit, as well their Belgian and Dutch counterparts.
At the influential Brussels Conference, Rachel was part of the group working to convince people that anything involving paedophiliac images should be viewed as a crime scene.
Police Officer Terry Jones in Manchester carried out ground-breaking work in 'cyber trails', and in the importance of ISP's keeping records to provide a forensic trail.
Rachel discussed how one thousand child pornography images were analysed and it was found that when a paedophile has, for example, over 20,000 images, he will put his 'favourites' into a 'favourite folder' as he finds it impossible to regularly visit all of his 20,000 images.
Rachel's information on paedophiles is that the sexual act and the interaction are equally as important as the gender, race etc of the victim. She has done both quantitative and qualitative studies and mapped the results. There is a correlation between preferences and the actual activities involved. It was noticeable how quickly the men made the move to sexual activity.
"Education is the only way forward", Rachel stated.
At the time Rachel was doing her initial research in this area, it was possible in Ireland to store pornography to use for research, but this is not able to be done now. Rachel was on the Irish Government's Sub-committee Working Group on 'The Internet and Pornography', which met in 1996 and 1997. She then moved to the University of Central Lancashire and set up the Cyberspace Research Unit. Rachel made herself known to the UK government and since then has been very involved in forensic and research activities in the UK.
In May 2000, Rachel was involved in the House of Lords conference on 'Kids Helping Kids'. European Union funding was given, and the work included Ireland, Belgium and Greece. Online Children's Education (ONCE) for parents and teachers was involved. There was separate information for children on www.fkbkonline.net; this was prepared for young people by young people.
Rachel is a member of the Home Office Internet Task Force and has been doing research for that group.
Rachel believes there is a need to strongly emphasise the fact that intent should be enough for someone to be charged. There is a UK law change under consideration at present. Rachel mentioned the example of the mother who had permitted her child to meet another 'child' who had befriended her on the Internet and dropped her daughter off at the meeting place. But to her horror, as she drove away she saw an extremely seedy looking man approaching her child. The mother got out of the car and ran back in time to prevent the man making the planned contact with her daughter. This is an example of the intent alone needing to be enough for someone to be prosecuted.
The Lucy Faithful Foundation (the sexual offender's treatment unit mentioned by Stephen Quick) discovered the horrifying fact that some paedophiles actually network with each other. The offenders involved seek the assistance of other paedophiles if children they are attempting to prey on via the Internet, seem to be breaking out of the grooming process. That is, they will instantly call in help from other paedophiles who, also in the guise of children, move in on the child to add to the persuasiveness of the initial paedophile!
When Rachel has posed as a child on the Internet she has found that the paedophiles behave like men in a pub boasting about their conquests. They rationalise that the child initiated the sexuality of the activity. In their minds, this leads to the abdication of all responsibility on behalf of the adult paedophile. Rachel said the way the paedophiles talk, shows that their activities are all about the despoiling of innocence. Rachel's role in that chatroom environment was limited to making 'prompting words' e.g. "ah huh", and so it was not actually a sting operation on her part.
The forensic work Rachel is doing is on-going. Terry Jones is co-ordinating the work of the Police High Tech Unit. They met the day before my meeting with Rachel, and plan to produce training materials for law enforcement officers. Rachel emphasised the child must be at the centre of any plan or programme - it is important to teach those in contact with young people to watch out for, and be savvy about, the Internet.
I mentioned the excellent teaching material and the superb video 'Caught in the Web' from the Peel Regional Police in Canada, with whom I put Rachel in contact.
I discussed with Rachel the fact that one of the problems in the UK, as I see it, is that contrary to what occurs in the secondary schools in New Zealand and many other countries, it is not the norm for there to be trained Guidance Counsellors in UK secondary schools. Thus, this whole vital area of support for children is not available at the only place where they are, and where support and advice would be most easily accessed.
I was very interested to learn that the Cyber Patrol people have contacted Terry Jones (Manchester Police) to develop the software to capture IP addresses in child porn trading. Rachel's www.fkbkonline teaches kids how to trace their emails. The new site is excellent for them. Rachel said she is happy for the New Zealand Internet Safety Group web-site to link to this delightful programme.
The site launch date for the cartoon was set for 14 May 2002 and there was going to be a competition for the name of the characters. There will be a different name in each country, as well of course as the whole programme being translated into the language of that country. The programme includes a 'website-rater' which allows young people to rate websites themselves so there is a list available of good sites of which children themselves have approved. This whole programme empowers children. There is work to be done in booklets too, as part of the launch. (Rachel later sent me copies of the booklets. They are informative, colourful and creative; a pleasure for young people, and their parents/teachers, to read).
Rachel stated that the special educational programme is going to 42 schools across the UK and the schools listed are a representative sample. It is a brilliant programme for children and adults - especially parents. One of the values of this programme is that children learn that they themselves can be identified, leading to a decrease in peer harassment.
