Mackay CPIU detective Emma Novosel speaks about her unit

Detectives work tirelessly to ensure our most vulnerable have a voice. The work ‘can be shocking, it can be emotional’, but the unit is devoted to catching child predators.

A scared little girl sits in a room trying to detail, in her own words, horrific crimes committed against her as a patient detective gently and expertly guides her through the traumatic experience.

The next day that same detective might have to sift through hundreds or thousands of graphic images and videos depicting depraved acts against children.

They are the men and women of Mackay’s Child Protection and Investigation Unit who work tirelessly to ensure our most vulnerable have a voice.

“At times it’s work that is very … trying, it can be shocking, it can be emotional,” the unit’s officer in charge Detective Senior Sergeant Emma Novosel said.

Mackay Child Protection Investigation Unit OIC Detective Senior Sergeant Emma Novosel speaks about the challenges her unit faces.

“But the group that we have here are just very focused … it is a real privilege to lead a team of really dedicated officers who are really focused on making a difference for victims.”

In the past week, Mackay CPIU arrested four men from the region over shocking allegations of child sex abuse.

“Our jobs come in from all different sources … this one from during the week was a Crimestoppers cold call about some information that we followed up on,” Det Senior Sergeant Novosel said.

The unit also receives walk-ins and follows up any mandatory reports from schools, health and child safety.

“And sometimes the tiniest little thing can just end up being a change in that young person’s life because it results in us identifying offences and commencing investigations and commencing proceedings,” Det Senior Sergeant Novosel said.

Mackay CPIU detectives work to protect some of the region’s most vulnerable people – children.

“I’d be lying if sometimes you say you’re not shocked. Just when I think that I’ve seen it all or I’ve heard it all a new job will come across my desk and … I think to myself ‘wow’.

“It’s the contact offending that is very confronting at times, especially when you’ve got vulnerable young victims and they’re being offended against by people who are charged with their care. That’s always very confronting.”

CPIU detectives go through rigorous training including psychological evaluations as part of selection for the unit followed by different courses such as forensic interviewing, specialist child protection training and investigating sexual crimes.

“Of course with this sort of work people go through peaks and troughs and sometimes people can have down days,” Det Senior Sergeant Novosel said.

“Some days where my staff are interviewing multiple child victims … it’s exhausting.

“We’ve certainly got a really strong culture here and people check up on each other all the time.”

Their caseload can be horrific but outcomes such as the arrest of four men over shocking child sex abuse allegation keep the men and women in the job.

This was why the arrest of four men last Friday was a high point for the team, even though it only marks the first phase of that case.

“We’ve had a team working on that job for a couple of months and to close it … they’re the things that keep everyone from coming back,” she said.

Not all cases end with an arrest, Detective Senior Sergeant Novosel said.

“We can work really hard and gather evidence but we may not be able to establish a prima facie case – we can’t get the evidence to where it needs to be,” she said.

“I think sometimes that’s more difficult and it’s certainly sometimes a really difficult conversation to have with … the children’s parents or carers.

“When you just know, but we can’t get the evidence that we need because we’re bound by the rules of evidence.”

‘It is a real privilege to lead a team of really dedicated officers who are really focused on making a difference for victims,’ Detective Senior Sergeant Emma Novosel said.

And not every victim wants to go through the court process, they just want to be heard.

“We give just as much opportunity to those people to tell their story and record it,” Det Senior Sergeant Novosel said.

Child exploitation material was a real challenge for the team in terms of “having people realise there’s still victims on the other end of those photos and that it’s not just a series of photos”.

“And making sure that people are happy to report those networks,” Det Senior Sergeant Novosel said, adding online offending was also a concerning trend.”

Mackay CPIU comprises 19 people including Det Senior Sergeant Novosel, 14 investigators, two officers who manage reportable offenders and two school-based officers.

“We have a lot of work in the space with young people … who are exchanging images with each other, with older people,” she said.

“We do a lot of work in schools about sexting and not sending nudes, but kids continue to do it.”

Det Senior Sergeant Novosel said her unit worked with schools on online education, including image distribution and age disparity, and prevention.

She urged parents to speak openly with their kids about the apps they’re using and even what photos are on their phones.

“If there’s a nude on your kid’s device, you have to have a question about why it’s there, how it came to be there, what you were going to do with it,” she said.

Originally published as Mackay CPIU detective Emma Novosel speaks about her unit