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In this chapter I will explore nine fathers’ views of the impact on their children following their arrest for downloading indecent images of children. Seven of the nine fathers were living with their child or children at the point of arrest. All of the fathers were employed at the point of the arrest. All, except one (a widower and primary carer) of the fathers who were living with their children at the point of the arrest were required to leave the family home when they were arrested. One of the fathers had a previous conviction for downloading indecent images of children, but none of the other men had any previous convictions.

The fathers in the study were invited to tell me about their offending and the consequences for their family. Many of the fathers in this study found it difficult to articulate the impact of their offending on their children. It possible that some fathers were drawn to deny or avoid thinking about the level of impact of their offences on their children in order to avoid the emotional pain associated with having caused harm to their children. However, it is possible that fathers may also experience feelings of personal inadequacy and/or they might be deviant and trying to conceal abusive sexual interest.

In this chapter I will analyse the accounts to develop insight into the child’s experience from the perspective of the father. As stated in the methodology chapter, I was mindful to explore the interactions between the family members and also between the family members and the professionals involved. The findings from the interviews with fathers are revealing both in terms of highlighting potential areas for further research and in highlighting the likely experience of children within families of those arrested for downloading IIOC. They provide important sources of information for professionals to be aware of in order to support families. I will structure this chapter using the following subheadings:

• Fathers’ accounts of offending

129 • The risk fathers will attempt suicide

• Fathers’ accounts of their relationship with their child before and after the offence

• Contact

• Fathers’ observations regarding the impact on their child(ren) • Media

• Fathers’ views about professionals • Support made available

Fathers’ accounts of offending

All of the fathers who participated in the study admitted culpability for their offending. While it was difficult for the men to think about the possible impact on their own children, none of the men sought to minimise the seriousness of their offending. Furthermore, they did not seek to blame anyone for the predicament that they found themselves in. Despite the negative consequences for them and their family, most of the men reported feeling relieved to have been caught and exceptionally grateful for the support they received. In some cases the men reported feeling undeserving and guilty that they received support, especially when their children and partners did not receive any support. It is important to note that the men who engaged in this study had voluntarily engaged in intervention, and in many cases they made significant financial contributions toward the intervention. It is likely that this sample is a particularly motivated group of men who are not necessarily representative of all fathers who have been arrested for downloading indecent images. That said, it is important to emphasise that the men in this study are in father and sometimes father figure roles to 20 children under the age of eighteen, and therefore the stories are important and give significant insight into an area which is under researched.

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When I asked Respondent 9 about his offending, he told me that he would tell himself that the children in the images were often smiling and he would use this as a way of making him feel better about the abuse images. He said when he was arrested he was convinced that he had deleted all the images when the police arrived. He was not aware at that point that the images could be recovered from the hard drive even if they had been deleted. He told me that he had stopped viewing IIOC months before his arrest because of a particular image he saw:

‘Particular images bought it all home to me, what you see is a child seemingly happy and then it went off camera and the child was not happy and it was… it bought everything home to you about, what if it had been your own children?’

While all the men acknowledged the seriousness of their offending, none of them reported feeling that they represented a risk to children who were related or unrelated to them. Currently there is no available research to offer insight into the number or proportion of offenders convicted of downloading IIOC who sexually abuse their biological, or other, children through contact offences. In the literature review I have explored research regarding ‘cross over’ rates, which is the term used to describe people who download IIOC and ‘cross over’ to commit contact sex offences. The quote above illustrates a theme in the narratives given by the men in relation to their ability to demonstrate empathy and appropriate boundaries in relation to their own children.

In the literature review I also explored the potential for an early care-giving role and/or biological link between father and child serving as a potential protective factor against the risk a child will be abused. To explore this potential protective factor, I asked all of the respondents about their relationship with their child(ren) before and after the offence. Respondent 4 gave a detailed and interesting response as shown below:

‘Incredibly healthy relationship, he’s really active, lots of sports, regional tennis, he plays football, swimming, he’s a year ahead at school. I built a bike from scratch, from this old bike I bought, you know, redone all the paint on

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it, to give to him when I see him. I absolutely dote on him. I’ve had no thoughts of harming him or being sexual with him or anything like that at all. I see being a father as being, you know, a process where you know… My last offence was 2005/6, actually having a child and recognising what a child is and what’s in their world, you know Minecraft, sport and stuff, and actually having my son has made me realise they are not sexual beings at all.’ Respondent 4 alludes to the distorted thinking he used to enable him to offend, which included perceiving children as having the potential to be sexual, although the quote shows this was disproved by his contact with his own son. The participants provided some interesting insights into the pathway to their offending. A further example of the father’s perspective of the offence is provided below. This quote also demonstrates the offender’s perspective on his relationship with his children and his willingness to address his offending. Respondent 8 describes his relationship with the professionals involved in the case:

‘The police were the easiest people to deal with actually, the social workers, except the most recent one, were just horrible… I said “You can hook me up to a machine, a lie detector or whatever, I have never abused my kids and I never would”… I’ve got my motivation for coming out of this a better person and it’s paid off, it’s been hard work but as I said to you before, I’ve got a clear conscience now. I can look people in the face and say that, I still get upset but at least I feel clean.’

These quotes demonstrate a common theme among the men’s responses in that they did not perceive themselves as a risk to children, separating their offence of downloading IIOC from any possibility that they could or would sexually harm a child through a contact offence. In the next section I will offer an analysis of the men’s responses in relation to risk, harm and the protection of their children.

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Fathers’ views about risk, harm and protection

All the fathers in the study were able to recognise that there was a legitimate need for professional intervention when a person was convicted of downloading IIOC, to ensure the safety of children. However there was some confusion about how that professional intervention should work. Respondent 9 commented:

‘When you deal with the police they deal with standards, they deal with limits, parameters; when you deal with a whole group of people who I view as people who got rejected from the police, you are dealing with people without any experience, any qualifications, any background training and are capable of saying what they like. Based on the evidence of the 12 people in the room [in a professionals meeting] a number of ‘em have got children, it differs with various areas. There’s no parameters, where’s the parameters? Where’s the legislation? How far can they go with what they can say? The police would never dream of going outside of the parameters of what they can and can’t say and they are very much a professional organisation, the police, very professional. They were very unprofessional social services.’

It is evident from the quote that Respondent 9 has some prejudiced and inaccurate views regarding children’s services. He is somewhat defensive in relation to child- centred practice. He was not aware of ‘their’ professional qualifications and perceives them as ‘rejects’ from the police. It was difficult to maintain my role as researcher at this juncture for two main reasons. Firstly, respondent 9’s comment with regard to parameters illustrates his need for information regarding his rights as a parent in terms of parental responsibility, the right of the child to be protected, and the child protection processes that follow. Secondly it was difficult not to give him information about the challenges faced by social workers when they are working to protect a child, to help him understand and potentially forge a better working relationship with them. However, it is also possible that Respondent 9 has received a good quality service from children’s services and he has not engaged. It is also possible that he has had his rights explained and the procedures explained and he has been resistant to hearing or absorbing the information. The quote does help to illustrate some concerns raised in the

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literature review with regard to the danger of a lack of consistency in procedure in relation to fathers who download IIOC. I have also raised concerns in the literature review section in relation to the consistency of the risk assessments used. It is unremarkable that such inconsistency exists when there is currently no available statutory guidance for the professionals responsible for managing such cases. The self-reported experiences of the men in this study varied considerably in how much contact they had with the allocated social worker. Self-reports are vulnerable to bias and therefore there are limitations as to how much they can be relied upon. That said, my data did not evidence any consistency of the men understanding commonly used terminology in relation to risk of reoffending, risk of sexually harming a child or risk management planning. These points also highlight the need for guidance for professionals, as mentioned previously. Some insights were gleaned from the responses provided by the men. These responses are vulnerable to bias and therefore there are limitations as to how much they can be relied upon. Respondent 7 reported that he felt unable to communicate effectively with the allocated social worker:

‘As soon as I knew that new social worker’s name when I went in for my meetings with him, because I always had to go to see him in the offices in Homeville, I felt uncomfortable and awkward. He didn’t let me talk. I’m a nervous person as it is, I’ve got worse with it over this last year, but then I was right in the middle of crisis and he didn’t really let me… Well I can’t really sit here and criticise other people because it was me that was in the wrong but I didn’t get on with him, he made me really uncomfortable and the outcome of the assessment was that he thought that I posed a risk to my kids so what happened then was, I don’t know what happened, they closed it.’

The quote gives a confused picture of risk assessment processes. It is possible that this is the result of heightened emotion and miscommunication and that Respondent 7 experienced the process as confrontational. It is difficult to decipher why the case was closed if the allocated social worker considered that he was a risk to both his children. To establish a more coherent narrative I asked several

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clarification questions which revealed further issues in relation to consistency. Respondent 8 stated:

‘I don’t know what happened. I got a phone call from the new social worker to say that (the previous social worker referred to above) didn’t work there any more. I don’t know whether he lost his job or what or moved somewhere else, and this new social worker met me and she basically sat down with me and went through all that had been written and I had to correct the bits I didn’t agree with. At the end of it she chucked away the plan that he had done from our contact with my daughter. She said that from that point on they were going to close it to social services so there would be no plan, no nothing, but they were going to close it with supervised contact.’

The respondent was much more relaxed when talking about this experience of the second social worker.

It also appeared that levels of risk of sexual abuse of the children by the father were not being taken into consideration. It was evident from the parents’ responses that they were not clear about how the risk was assessed or what risk category they were placed in. The response from Respondent 11 (a father of four children) below demonstrates the complexity of risk in this scenario.

‘Whipping ‘em away might save some children from an immediate risk if that abuser relationship is in that family, but if not, it could have maybe just as negative and adverse and stressful in other ways.’

The quote above also raises an important point raised in the literature review in relation to potential for harm to be caused as a result of intervention. Respondent 11 is divorced and two of his children were living with him at the time of the arrest. Both children were required to return to live with their mother, causing significant disruption to their lives. The process as to how it was decided they needed to return home was not clear from the interviews. It was evident from the interviews with the fathers that they didn’t understand the process of how decisions were made about them. Respondent 9 commented:

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‘They cast the net very wide and that, there is no secondary and tertiary net, you know, so it’s like, you know, this guy’s a monster, see you later.’ Respondent 9

‘She (the social worker) was very clearly terrified of me… very clearly terrified like properly reeling back. She shouldn’t have been thrown into that situation, I felt, was furious. I think I think having her so out of her depth it affected the bias of the assessment.’ Respondent 7

There are a range of possibilities linked to the above quote. It is possible that Respondent 7 is undermining the social worker. It is possible that he presented differently on the day he was interviewed by the social worker. During the interviews Respondent 7 did not present as remotely threatening. However, the dynamic between a social worker and a father who has just been arrested for downloading IIOC and the dynamic between a researcher and a voluntary client are completely different and therefore it is difficult to be certain that he did not present as ‘terrifying’.

The risk fathers will attempt suicide

All the participants in this study reported, to varying degrees, a depressive mood state when they were arrested. Most of the women in this study reported that their ex or current partners experienced a depressive mood state in the aftermath of the arrest. Many of the men reported being prescribed anti-depressants. The risk of suicide was raised in the historical context section of the literature review. While I was aware that suicide was an important issue I had not intended or expected it to form part of the interviews. I was surprised when the men wanted to talk about suicide in fairly candid terms.

‘I was desperate. I took two overdoses.’ Respondent 3

Eight of the fourteen participants reported concerns about suicide. Shortly after their arrests, Respondent 3 took two overdoses and Respondent 4 slashed his wrists. Respondents 7 and 8 explicitly reported suicidal thoughts. Respondent 9

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alluded to suicidal thoughts. Respondent 12 was very concerned that her ex- partner was at imminent risk of suicide following the offence. Respondent 1 reported historic concerns about her mother wanting to walk out in front of a bus after her husband was arrested. In considering how best to intervene in order to reduce the risk of harm to a child to a minimum, it is important to contemplate the risk of suicide when a parent is arrested for downloading indecent images of children. The death of any parent has a profound effect on children and the people surrounding the children and therefore it is important to attempt to understand the perspective of the offender to avoid preventable harm to the child. I asked the men who disclosed suicidal thoughts and/or had attempted suicide to share details of what would help reduce the risk. Respondent 3 referred to strategies which helped him to avoid further attempts of suicide, including counselling. However, he also talked about the importance of being mindful and doing meditation. He commented:

‘Doing the Inform Plus course, I was very keen to get onto it, was hugely beneficial. The group thing, you’re not alone, you’re not the only person. There was a big apprehension about going into a room with other offenders, not wanting to be in a room with other offenders, but it quickly became apparent they were just ordinary people who had made bad decisions.’

Another factor which deterred the respondents from suicide was the impact on their children. Respondent 7was given some assertive advice from the early treatment team which helped him move on from thoughts of self-harm. He commented:

‘The only time I was offered help was when I was sent to the intensive early care treatment team because I was obsessed with self-harm. If it was just me I would have just done it. One of the things the early care treatment team said was, “if you do that we will be talking to your kids in ten years’ time”.’