AFP warn parents about children falling victim to ‘capping’

A Queensland father has revealed the shocking way a paedophile trapped his son as perverts force children as young as eight to perform live-streamed sexual acts.

Exclusive: Australian children as young as eight are being forced into performing live-streamed sexual acts by perverts posing as teenage boys, with federal police warning parents that predators are targeting new platforms.

Specialists within the Australian Federal Police’s victim identification unit fear hundreds of thousands of children in Australia and around the world are falling victim to “capping” – one of the fastest growing trends of online child sexual abuse.

The act of “capping” (for capturing) involves abusers duping or coercing children into producing sexualised videos which are then recorded or live streamed on the dark web and among paedophile groups.

Detective Sergeant Svetlana Palmer, from the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE), said in many cases “cappers’ used fear, coercion and manipulation to keep the crime going”.

Queensland Police Service victim identification specialist Scott Anderson. Picture: Supplied

Victim identification specialist Detective Sergeant Svetlana Palmer from the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE).

Queensland Police Service victim identification specialist Scott Anderson is on the frontline, monitoring online forums to identify victims and offenders.

He said the team was finding “cappers” posing as teenagers or modelling agents to gain the trust of their young victims, mostly aged 12 to 15.

“These offenders are highly manipulative and in extreme cases, they have tricked children into undressing and performing sexual acts on camera within 10 minutes of contacting them through a video streaming platform,” Mr Anderson said.

Dozens of children can be targeted by a single capper in a matter of hours, producing high amount of videos in what police say dispels perceptions that offenders carefully identified victims and spent months or years grooming them.

“These offenders are highly manipulative and in extreme cases, they have tricked children into undressing and performing sexual acts on camera within 10 minutes of contacting them through a video streaming platform,” Mr Anderson said.

The AFP is urging parents to have regular conversations with their children about their online activities and not to share their personal information with ‘friends’ they meet online

Child victims are also often subjected to “sextortion” where they are blackmailed or threatened into forcing friends or siblings to take part.

In May last year, Sydney man Kurtis Whaley from the northern beaches, was sentenced to almost 10 years in jail for his “cruel and relentless” manipulation of 49 children and teenage boys, whom he lured online and blackmailed into sending sexually explicit content.

Posing as a 16-year-old girl named “Beth”, Whaley saved Snapchat and Instagram photos and secretly recorded Skype and Omegle live streams of naked boys, collecting 700 videos and images of 49 victims aged between eight and 15.

When raiding his house in 2019, officers from the AFP discovered sexually depraved material depicting a further 250 unidentified kids aged as young as four on Whaley’s external hard drives.

Manky vale man Kurtis Whaley.

Whaley was sentenced for 54 offences stretching from June 2014 until his arrest in February 2019.

Speaking out for the first time, the father of one of his victims is urging parents to take precautions to protect children from online predators.

“The moment I found out my son was being groomed was when he abruptly got up to his room and wouldn’t leave his phone with me,” John, (not his real name), said.

“The mobile phone was used as an electronic chain and shackle making my son captive to the paedophile for nearly a month where he was repeatedly abused with no way to escape on his own,” the Queensland father said.

“These predators demand horrible things and it only ever gets worse. And when kids feel too scared about something, that’s the moment they need to speak up,” he said.

“My son was fortunate that he got justice, but many never do and they remain in constant fear that this abuse material will resurface again and the perpetrators are still free.”

Marking the end of National Child Protection Week, the AFP’s education program, ThinkUKnow, is on Saturday releasing a new guide to help parents and carers keep their children safe online during lockdowns.

The guide can be found at www.thinkuknow.org.au and www.accce.gov.au.