Predatory Podcast unravels sick reasons paedophiles commit child sex abuse

Parents are being warned — the profile of what a paedophile is has changed — and some of their motives are being driven by revenge. Listen to the podcast. Warning: Graphic

Parents are being urged to be hyper-vigilant of those in their inner circle, as there is no such thing as a “typical profile” of a child sex offender.

And, troublingly, experts who study the minds of paedophiles have found their deviant behaviour isn’t always driven by sexual pleasure – in many cases, it is revenge.

Forensic psychologist Dr Karen Owen said every paedophile or sex offender she had met was different.

“Our task is trying to establish exactly what led them down that path. For some, there’s about 20 per cent whose primary arousal is to children and it is about sexual gratification,” she said.

Dr Owen, the former Manager of Corrections Victoria’s Sex Offender Programs who now consults to the Department of Justice, is one of a number of forensic psychologists featured in the second episode of News Corp’s Predatory podcast.

The eight-part series, hosted by actor Madeleine West and former NSW Detective Gary Jubelin, aims to provide a road map for parents and victims, in an all-to-often shunned subject area.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST BELOW:

Queensland University of Technology criminologist Dr Kelly Richards, who has studied some of the nation’s most repulsive child sex offenders, said she was constantly “baffled” by the reasons given for their behaviour.

Dr Kelly Richards, is a criminologist who is studying paedophiles and sex offenders and trying to figure out their motivations. Picture: Steve Pohlner

“I think we assume that people do this because they are sexually attracted to children. But when you ask perpetrators they say extraordinary things, they’re saying ‘I did this to get back at my ex wife’ or ‘I did this to get back at my mother-in-law’ [or] ‘I enjoyed the risk taking’, [and] ‘I got a real buzz out of doing something really deviant’. I mean, just extraordinary and baffling explanations,” Dr Richards said.

One sick case involved a man who subjected his stepdaughter to abuse “because she wasn’t sort of the perfect little feminine girl”.

“It’s ghastly, there’s no other way of explaining it,” Dr Richards, who has embarked on a $1m four-year study looking at motivations of child sex abusers she hopes will save children from abuse, said.

Dr Owen said there were other reasons behind the offending, though – men who have trouble forming relationships, or are avoiding their own personal dilemmas.

Robert Hughes, Brett Petter Cowan and Gerald Ridsdale are some of Australia’s convicted paedophiles

“They’ve managed to create these distortions about how, you know, it’s not hurting the kids and they really enjoy the sexual contact and all of those kinds of things,” Dr Owens said.

Forensic psychologist Dr Sarah Yule said of biggest concern to parents was that there wasn’t a typical profile of a child sex offender.

“You can’t spot them by looking at them, but there can be certain grooming behaviours that they engage in, when they’re kind of testing the waters, when they’re first trying to target a victim,” Dr Yule said in the Predatory podcast.

Dr Sarah Yule, former Senior Forensic Psychologist with NSW Police pictured with Gary Jubelin. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

She said child sex offenders often lurked under the radar because of continued naivety that someone close to a person’s family or friendship group could be capable of it – which meant “addressing some of those myths and broadening people’s understanding”.

Forensic psychologist Dr Katie Seidler said she found child sex offenders polite and compliant, but defensive, as many suffered shame and guilt for what they’d done.

“The best word to describe them is ‘pathetic’, they’re pathetic people,” Dr Seidler said.

“At the core of what drives sexual offending behaviour is attachment and intimacy problems, it’s not sexual deviance. For some it is obviously, but the main driver is attachment intimacy problems.

Psychologist Katie Seidler has dealt with child sex offenders. Picture: Tim Hunter.

“They’re not nasty. The rapist in jail can be a bit misogynist and nasty and not particularly pleasant to deal with. But on the whole compared to other groups, they’re actually quite pleasant, quite compliant, and accommodating.”

Dr Seidler said child sex offenders were usually the product of incidents that occurred in their upbringing – which led to poor social skills in adulthood where “people can end up online looking at pornography 10 hours a day the way to get their needs met”.

“It’s about insecurity and not targeting bullying properly, it’s poor parenting practices … People are not raising their children in ways that help them understand relationships, intimacy and emotions,” she said.

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

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Originally published as Predatory Podcast unravels sick reasons paedophiles commit child sex abuse