SAPOL, AFP discuss JACET arrests amid SA surge
After a flurry of seven arrests of SA men over alleged child exploitation, the specialist police task-force behind the investigations has revealed a worrying trend.
North & North East
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Within the space of a month and a half seven northern and western suburbs men were arrested and charged over a series of unrelated child exploitation offences.
The specialist police task-force involved in most of those arrests are unable to talk about the cases themselves, but they say the alleged distribution and possession of child exploitation material is indiscriminate, “constant” and experiencing “exponential growth”.
And the sheer amount of alleged material circulating online and in vast cloud storages on the internet means their jobs are critical in keeping children safe from accused child predators.
Of the seven men arrested, five were from suburbs across the north of Adelaide including Virginia, Elizabeth, Salisbury East and Gawler.
The charges for two of those men - 55-year-old Salisbury East man Ronald Gary Dubois and 52-year-old Gawler man Dennis Malcolm Rayner - included communicating to make a child amenable to sexual activity.
The Elizabeth and Adelaide Magistrates courts heard Mr Dubois and Mr Rayner, the former of who was released on bail, had been arrested after allegedly communicating with a covert police officer who was posing as a child - there is no inference the cases are linked.
Virginia man Eric Pierre Jourdin, 57, was arrested on November 10 and charged with two counts of possessing child exploitation material, completing the trio of northern suburbs men charged in the space of two weeks.
A day before Mr Jourdin was arrested, 29-year-old Seaton man David Andrew Marshall was arrested and charged over possessing the same form of exploitative material. His arrest came a week after Elizabeth North man Jordy Hay was charged with two counts of possessing child exploitation material.
Mr Hay’s arrest, on October 28, would kick off the spate of charges laid relating to the alleged online exploitation of children and end with two further arrests, those of a western suburbs man on December 7 and Elizabeth Vale teenager James Osker Edison McDonald in mid-December.
None of the men have entered any pleas to the charges.
The specialist police task-force behind a majority of those arrests was the Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team (JACET), which is a collaboration between SA Police and the Australian Federal Police.
Speaking broadly, SA Police Special Crimes Investigations Section Detective Chief Inspector Richard Lambert said JACET investigations in the current financial year were “on par” with the 137 investigations chalked up in the previous year.
Eighty-one of those investigations had led to arrests, and those arrests had seen 44 children “saved” in South Australia alone.
Detective Chief Insp Lambert said since January 1 last year, 24 children had been “saved” by JACET.
He said while Australia was at the forefront of investigating the type of alleged crime - which included agreements with online dating services, communication with internet providers and links with organisations across the world - the amount of alleged child exploitation was increasing rapidly.
“This crime, generally across the world, is experiencing an exponential growth,” he said.
“I think that’s because more and more people are getting access to the internet ... when that starts happening there’s this growth and this huge volume of people (allegedly) offending in relation to child exploitation online.”
Detective Chief Insp Lambert said JACET investigations varied, but could go on for years.
“Investigations can vary depending on the information we’ve got, but if it’s our own investigation it could take a number of months - and possibly years,” he said.
“It could involve investigating people over a long period of time who are communicating on the internet, and sometimes it takes time to identify and get information about certain people operating on the internet.
“Then there’s other information, particularly if it’s local, tends to be a lot quicker because we can get access to information very quickly.”
That access to information and ability to investigate can be aided by the AFP, of which Melinda Adam is the Detective Superintendent in charge of Investigations at Central Command.
Detective Supt. Adam said alongside investigating and arresting alleged criminals, education and prevention was critical to JACET’s success.
She said the AFP helped co-ordinate a suite of resources for parents and caregivers to help mitigate their children’s exposure to alleged online predators.
Those resources can be accessed at www.accce.gov.au and www.thinkuknow.org.au.
Anybody with information about child abuse or exploitation is encouraged to contact Crimestoppers or call police on triple-0 on 131 444.
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