Police fighting child porn brace for 2007 after a year of shocking firsts

Mike Oliveira Canadian Press
Tuesday, December 26, 2006

TORONTO (CP) - After a year of shocking firsts that featured precious few reasons to celebrate and a never-ending list of predators to pursue, the front-line officers in the fight against pornographers who abuse and exploit children on the Internet are bracing for a difficult 2007.

In addition to several Canadian cases of Internet-based sex abuse that garnered headlines around the world, police say 2006 will likely go down as the year that the webcam became a torment tool of choice for pedophiles who are no longer content to look at photos or video clips.

It's the latest disturbing frontier in the rapidly evolving cyber-world of online child porn - one that has investigators not only looking for the bad guys, but also for their young, innocent and anonymous victims.

Live online abuse has become a badge of honour for Internet pedophiles, said Toronto police Det.-Const. Warren Bulmer, one of two officers in the city's world-renowned child exploitation unit dedicated solely to identifying and finding victims.

"You have these individuals who feel their status or reputation as a pedophile can be brought to that next bar or next level because they're actually bringing a child onto a webcam live and abusing that child," Bulmer said.

In November, a 34-year-old man from St. Thomas, Ont., was arrested after he was allegedly witnessed by an undercover officer sexually assaulting his preschool-aged daughter during a private show live on the Internet.

It was the first known arrest in Canada based on alleged live abuse, but it most certainly won't be the last, police warn - pedophiles who are far more interested in videos than photos have discovered a dangerous new thrill: starring in their own homemade child pornography.

"You're watching a crime occur for (many) straight minutes - and sometimes that has sound," Bulmer said.

"When you have a situation where people are sexually abusing a child to make more friends or become more popular in a chat room, that concept is what scares us."

Some pedophiles, many of whom relish the attention and hero-worship they receive within the child-porn community, are even offering interactive shows to their audiences, said Staff Sgt. Mike Frizzell of the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre.

"Now you get instant feedback; you get instant gratification from your peers with comments like, 'Wow, what great pics, man! You have any more of those?"' Frizzell said.

"When you're a pedophile, you will always look to be reinforced on what you're doing, and if it's from other pedophiles, who cares? They're seemingly educated and articulate and the rest of society is the problem, they tell themselves."

Webcams also played a key role in the exploitation of more than 100 young girls in Canada and England. A 21-year-old man from Kingston, Ont., allegedly convinced victims to expose themselves or perform sex acts on camera, and then used the material he gathered to blackmail them for more.

The victims, all between the ages of nine and 15, were threatened with rape and death if they didn't comply.

"This is the first time in human history we've had to rely on the laws, the investigators and other countries to keep our kids safe in their own bedrooms," Frizzell said.

"There can be extortion and harassment from another continent away - keeping our kids safe in the privacy of their own homes has now become an international issue."

Indeed, webcams are at the forefront of a concept called compliant victimization: young people are seduced by online predators and convinced that exposing themselves online is OK and normal, said Rosalind Prober, president of the non-governmental organization Beyond Borders.

"Young people often argue with you that what they're doing is what they want to do and the person on the Internet is really their boyfriend, they weren't sexually exploited and they wanted to raise their shirts and show their breasts over the Internet," Prober said.

"It takes a lot of debriefing and deprogramming to get those children to view themselves as victims, which they truly are, a compliant victim."

But despite the mostly long, depressing days for child exploitation investigators, there were some moments to celebrate this year, particularly in March when an Edmonton man named Carl Treleaven went to jail.

Treleaven, 49, was a key member of a global child-porn ring that operated in at least six countries and distributed images and videos of incest, bestiality and rape. Treleaven pleaded guilty even before he had a lawyer; with his help, police arrested about 40 suspects from around the world.

He received the longest-ever prison term in Canada for distribution of child pornography: three-and-a-half years.

But those victorious moments were all too brief compared to the herculean task that faces investigators each day. It's believed child pornography documents the abuse of an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 victims worldwide; to date, fewer than 500 have been identified and rescued.

"Law enforcement traditionally has always been a little bit behind, especially when it comes to technology," Bulmer said.

"We're under the guidance of budgets and rules and regulations and other things that (pedophiles) are not, so for us to get into the game has taken a while. But we've become much better doing what it is that we're doing now in such a short period of time."

Unfortunately, so has the enemy, said Prober.

"These individuals really end up so sexually addicted that they devote their whole lives to their technologies and mastering them in order to sexually exploit children," she said.

"What do you do to protect more children? It's getting more difficult all the time."

© The Canadian Press 2006

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