Phase 1: Primary Skill Acquisition Sexually abused as a child
Sexually abused others from an early age
Exploitive of other young children/ peers at an early age Frequent masturbation
Use of pornography at an early age Own abusers viewed as role models Children can make adult decisions Sex = Love
Love is a natural progression of friendship Phase 2: Lifestyle
Superficial relationships
Established network of paedophile friends Phase 3: Offence Related Competencies
Confident Detailed scripts
Goal oriented Accurate appraisal of victims Versatile Experimental –tested boundaries Used network to identify further victims Risk- taker
Effective use of feedback
Main Strategy „ignore/ reward/ secret/ test/ escalate‟ Created & easily detected opportunities
Identified victims early & made quick assessments Phase 4: Offence Related Behaviours
Countless victims (male & female) Multiple victims at one time Intrafamilial and extrafamilial victims Found „no‟ a challenge
No force used Detection and exploitation of victim vulnerabilities Phase 5: Masking
Masked offending Avoided detection Ability to multi-task
Ability to reassure others and disarm potential outside risk Phase 6: Reflection
Highly reflective and self-evaluative
Kept a log of victims and their sexual preferences and ratings Internal Moderators
Easily able to regulate emotions Portrayed seemingly normal life Contextual Features
Creates own opportunities
Always prepared and ready if an opportunity presents itself Triggered by physical attraction to victim
General
Offending evolved over offending history Long offending history (15 years)
Table 7.2: Summary of features specific to “George” described in Case Study Two
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Sexualisation
George reported having been sexually abused from the ages of 8-12 years of age by a cousin and also by friends of his mother‟s and their associates who were paedophiles. During that time he reported first starting to abuse other children. Case files indicated that George first began abusing his cousins, although he considered his first victim to be a friend who participated in mutual masturbation and oral sex. George described his own sexual abuse as a child as mostly enjoyable, and any activities which were not he made sure were never performed on his own victims.
“…Some of the abusive experiences I went through as a kid I look back on and think of as still being pleasurable…”
The sexual satisfaction and enjoyment that George gained from his own abuse was such that he wished it to continue. George offended against children his own age and younger while he was still being sexually abused. When George turned 14 he became a male escort until the age of 17, all the while continuing to offend against boys younger than himself. George stated that at the age of 13, he took the techniques that he learnt from his abusers and refined them, including the grooming of victims and how to manipulate them.
“…Stuff that I learnt when I was younger I refined really, like the whole grooming process…I saw the guys doing it to other younger people and I thought „hang on‟ and I refined it from there…”
George was exposed to all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation including participating in photographic and film images. Whilst he indicated that much of his abuse was enjoyable, there were aspects of his abuse which he hated and was forced upon him.
“…there were ones that just weren‟t pleasurable and I would have done anything I could have to get out of them…”
George stated that he masturbated daily from age eleven, and reported having used pornography on almost a daily basis for self stimulation up into adulthood.
Deviant Norms and Schemas
George‟s mother worked as a prostitute in a massage parlour and had a range of associates that would come and go in the home and throughout George‟s
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developmental years, leading him to become increasingly desensitised to adult sexual practices.
George‟s role models growing up became his abusers.
“It was what all of the adult role models or male role models in my life were doing… These men were introduced to me by my mother. It was my life. It was normal. There was nothing wrong with it. It was the rest of society that had issues…”
Because his own father was not present in his life and his mother was often working, George looked to his mother‟s male associates, who were also his abusers. By George‟s own admission, when those men weren‟t abusing him, they were able to provide George with a sense of belonging and with emotional support and guidance through his formative years. The sexual abuse George was subject to and the attention and support he was receiving created a belief structure where George understood intimacy to equal sex, and sex to equal love. Thus, he viewed sex as a natural progression of friendship, and the giving and receiving of pleasurable sexual activities was acceptable as long as all parties were consenting.
The early introduction to the sexual practices of adults prematurely gave George the responsibility of making adult decisions as to the consensual nature of those activities. For although those sexual activities were not entirely consensual on George‟s part, coercion, bribery, and the desire to maintain the friendships of his abusers assured its continuance. He quickly learnt that for immediate gratification at minimal personal cost, the fastest way to get what he wanted was to take it by any means available.
When George became too old for his abusers „tastes‟ he quickly realised that by bringing other children to the attention of his abusers he was able to maintain a close relationship with them, effectively insuring that emotional ties were not severed as well as maintaining his status within the group.
“…I met young people through them and ultimately started introducing more kids to them as I got older…”
Material and emotional goods which George gained through his associations with his abusers became a currency which he also learnt could be used to exploit others to fulfil his needs.
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“…Gained the resources of the older guys…started getting money coming in that I would use to expedite the process of buying people around to my way of thinking…by resources I mean, the cash, the people that they know, the places to go to get things…”
George initially began applying learnt manipulation techniques with the ruse of convincing his friends that they would need to practice sexual activities on each other for when they had girlfriends. Though the ruse was quickly dropped, the sexual activities continued. Those foundational beliefs continued to guide him through his teenage years and were deeply entrenched by adulthood, greatly impacting on his lifestyle choices.
Phase II - Lifestyle
George‟s day to day living and social interactions were guided by his childhood experiences, values, attitudes, and beliefs, and proved to have a dramatic influence on his lifestyle choices and associations through to adulthood.
George considered that he had a bad relationship with both of his parents. George was raised by his grandmother and mother, and his mother had become pregnant with him at age 17 years. His father left at his mother‟s announcement of pregnancy, and he had no contact with his father until age 15 years. His relationship with his father after their reunion quickly deteriorated when his father became aware of George‟s offending. His relationship with his mother had bordered on ideation of killing his mother for introducing him to his offenders. In addition, he felt resentment toward his mother because she informed many of his friends and acquaintances (including schools he attended) of his offending. George considered himself to be closest to his grandmother, though it appeared from his case file that he used to steal money from her and threaten her.
George had limited romantic relationship experience as he saw monogamy as boring and dull, although when he was in a relationship his offending was less prolific. George considered himself to be bisexual but found female companions uninteresting and unable to fulfil his sexual needs. He had been in two homosexual relationships during which time he continued to commit offences against underage boys, though not at the same rate as when he was single. Prior to his current
imprisonment George established a relationship with a man considerably older than himself.
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George‟s relationships with friends also extended to his victims. He reported having remained in contact with a few of his victims as they shared many
commonalities. George also considered friendships with past victims to be an additional safety net to minimise disclosure of offending, and felt that those victims that did disclose did so out of spite because he did not like them or because George terminated the offending. George‟s friendships, like his intimate relationships, were superficial, and were essentially an additional form of manipulation and control.
George became embroiled in a network of adult males committing sexual offences against children (initiated by his own abusers). He continued to be friends with his abusers from childhood through to adulthood, and later became an adult member of the network and considered those people to be some of his closest friends. He reported playing games and having bets with his friends to see who could get the most phone numbers off of young boys.
“..We would go to the swimming pools and have competitions to see who could pick up the most young guys in one day, not to offend against them there, but to pick them up for grooming at a later date…”
George‟s association with sex offenders further solidified his beliefs that offending was a natural curiosity exhibited by young boys and that if they were consenting then sexual connection was acceptable.
“…It was something that I never looked at negatively because there were so many people around me doing it…I mean, we‟re not hurting these guys, these guys are coming back and seeing us. These guys are instigating it, how can it be wrong?...”
By George‟s own admission, his associates considered him to be very good at identifying and grooming children, and he believed he was respected by his paedophile friends for his abilities.
He was not employed in a full time capacity with any employer and was receiving a government benefit prior to incarceration. George reported having a variety of jobs from the age of 15 years but was unable to hold down a job for any length of time due to his habitual drug usage. His drug use was high and on a daily basis. He considered himself to be an addict and found that he was unable to function without the use of some form of illegal drugs (marijuana, methamphetamine, speed, and cocaine). His drug use also maintained his offending and chaotic lifestyle, and he