Predatory podcast: How Natalie Walker helps partners of paedophiles through PartnerSpeak

Natalie Walker takes thousands of calls from Aussies who have just found out their partner has done the unthinkable. Listen to the podcast. Warning: Distressing

It’s a club no one wants membership to, yet hundreds join every day.

And there is “no script” for the men and women who awkwardly learn their partner is a child molester.

Three quarters of those arrested on child sex offences have a partner — and disturbingly more than half of them have children.

The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation receives 36,000 reports of child exploitation annually and last year 226 people were charged.

Natalie Walker unwittingly entered the “first lies club” in 2002 when her husband was accused of — but never charged with — possessing exploitation material.

PartnerSpeak founder Natalie Walker. Picture: David Caird

“There is no script for what to do in such a situation. No one imagines that’s going to happen to them,” she said.

Ms Walker, whose comments coincide with the launch of the fifth episode of News Corp’s Predatory podcast, founded PartnerSpeak to help people like herself, who are left with no support when the world they know comes crashing down.

“Sometimes it’s an elderly couple, and they’ve been married for 50 years. When they do the [search] warrant you can sometimes have eight law enforcement officers in your home – and then they leave and there is silence. What are you meant to do?” she said.

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A national pilot of the state-based program ends in March, but Ms Walker hopes a permanent Australia-wide service recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Abuse will be installed.

“The Commonwealth program is really important and is unprecedented and a world first and should be commended, it will be transformative,” Ms Walker said.

“The best case scenario is every state government would engage and we would have a meaningful face-to-face support program and Peer Support Hub in every state. That needs to be supported by a national resource … the helpline, research and consults.”

At the other end of the scale, Psychologist Dr Karen Owen said self-described “reformed” child abusers often wanted to enter into romantic relationships with adults.

In one case, a Victorian man who had offended 15 years prior and undergone counselling, came to her wanting clearance for a relationship with a woman he had met online.

He had told the woman on their third date of his sordid history — and she was surprisingly accepting.

Dr Karen Owen.

“I was asked to do an assessment because he established a new relationship … and he wanted to move in with his new partner who happens to have two children,” Dr Owen said.

The man also wanted to tell his lover’s mother of his past, face-to-face.

“And she’s confirmed this with me that [he said] ‘I need to have a meeting with you and your and your mum. There’s something I need you to know. So they went out next day, went out, had a cup of tea at a cafe, and he told them all about his offending,” Dr Owen said.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the woman dating the former paedophile said the relationship initially “soured a bit” but two years later they are living together.

A nationwide rollout of a service like PartnerSpeak will mean thouands more Australians can be helped.

“Everyone’s supportive and they’re very protective around the kids,” the woman said.

“He’s got very clear rules about where he is in the house and that he’s never alone in the bedrooms, with the children and all of that kind of stuff,” Dr Owen said

“I guess for me, that’s a gauge of good treatment that if you’ve got someone who’s gone through the treatment process, and they come out the other end, and they actually … if they’re establishing a new relationship, and fairly early on, they’re disclosing their offence history.”

For more details about the Predatory podcast, go to predatory.com.au

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Originally published as Predatory podcast: How Natalie Walker helps partners of paedophiles through PartnerSpeak