It’s a single mother’s worst nightmare: the idea of a man faking a romantic interest in her to access her children. So he can sexually abuse them.
This is the latest technique being used by pedophiles and Australian police have issued a formal warning to single mothers.
They’re urging single mothers to limit the amount of personal information they put on the internet.
Don’t mention your single-mother status in online dating profiles, they warn, because predators are using this to identify and ‘groom’ vulnerable women and molest their children.
The warning comes after the arrest of a 55-year-old man – a senior public servant – who travelled from the ACT to Brisbane to have sex with a 13 year old girl.
Police say the man knew of the girl because he’d spoken to her mother on a dating website.
In this case, it wasn’t a ‘mother’ at all but a fake profile set up by undercover authorities designed to bait and lure after a sharp rise in cases of this kind.
This is an interview Mamamia’s former News Editor Rick Morton did with Detective Inspector Jon Rouse about a similar case he was involved in.
Detective Inspector Rouse is the Officer in Charge of Queensland Police’s Taskforce Argos, an online crime-fighting squad of 30 active officers who trawl the net for pedophiles and predators.
Q: You’ve recently dealt with a horrifying case involving online dating?
A: That’s correct. We received a tip-off from our international agencies that a man was molesting a little girl under the age of 10. They thought she might be from Queensland. The referral relied on identifying features in photographs taken of the little girl. They might be things like a distinctive Hills Hoist clothesline, or a certain type of tree. We worked on those details and managed to find the location of where this was taking place. We moved straight away and arrested the man and removed the girl from harm’s way.
Top Comments
Oh, I see. So now, every lonely man who shows an interest in a single mother is automatically suspect. In a decent society, Rouse would be sacked for making such a suggestion, not acclaimed and rewarded.
Every time I see a man glared at for playing with his grand kids, every time I see a mans life ruined by false allegations, every time I hear of a mans suicide, then I think of people like Rouse and his colleagues. They are the blunt instrument of those who have contaminated society with so much misery, hatred and mistrust.
Others might regard them as heroes, but not me.
Detective Rouse was merely addressing questions put forward to him and stating the facts. He even said that he didn't want people to panic but to be aware.
He wasn't generalising but more cautioning women to be careful about exposing their children to potential harm. Yes, it is very sad that we live in a society where children are exploited and taken advantage of but again this is a reality and a fact. It's sad too that men in general are sometimes given are bad wrap and treated with more suspicion but statistics show that it's males who are in the vast majority of offending. This story was not about glorifying the detective, it was about alerting women to a risk, that can come with online dating and social media. My best friends 7yo daughter was repeatedly sexually abused by her partner/fiance and NO they weren't false allegations. She met him at work, not online. She loved him and trusted him wholeheartedly. In a decent society, we wouldn't need to worry at all, we could be more trusting but unfortunately, this cannot be. You can't imagine the damage that is done to a victim of sexual abuse, permanent damage and oftentimes irreparable.
What also really bothers me is that in many cases, as with my friend's daughter, the offender was never charged, due to a lack of physical evidence and now I know he is living in a different state with another woman and has had at least one child with her. I can only hope from afar that, that child is safe. I don't subscribe to fear-mongering but hey we have to look out for our kids.
I accept the fact that there are some individuals who are a danger to children, as has always been the case. What I cannot stomach is this sickening mindset that all men are in that category - an opinion that is encouraged by Task Force Argos and their media platform. If you have some kind of starry-eyed view of these people, then perhaps you should talk to a man named Chris Illingworth. They charged him for simply viewing a YouTube video of a father playfully swinging his baby, who was laughing and smiling - a video which was repeatedly shown on TV. Argos knew this, but they wanted to chalk up another scalp, so they exploited the fact that censorship classifications are tougher on the Internet. They cared not one jot about destroying an innocent mans life, and only backed off when the DPP withdrew the charges. They behave like this for two reasons - firstly because they can, and secondly because it feeds the current political view that men are inherently bad; a view which is a despicable lie. That is the kind of people they are.
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