Police and paedophilia

This article provides apersonal perspective on the issue of police protection and involvementin paedophilia. For the last five years, I have been a carer for awoman who is a victim of the organised paedophile ring recently exposedby The Age here in Melbourne. When the attacks began again in 2001, shefled to Sydney, only to find that the paedophile network was activethere as well. This article challenges the public incredulity aboutelite paedophile rings and ritual abuse.

If you don�t believeme, that�s your choice. Things will keep on going the way they are.And that scares me � not that things might change, but that theymight not.

It began in the late 90s. I moved in to my first student house, and Imet Alex. She was a few years older then I was, charismatic, beautifuland academically brilliant. Behind the force of her personality was acarefully maintained privacy. I respected her and I respected her needfor space. I didn�t pry.

But it became clear that things weren�t great in Alex�s world. Shewent for long walks at night, sometimes for five or six hours. Therewere times when her face took on a pinched or pale look. I became moreand more concerned for her. Then, one day, the flatmate who shared awall with Alex told me that she heard muffled cries coming from herbedroom every single night.

The next time I saw Alex leave the house for one of her midnightstrolls, I joined her. She didn�t particularly want me to accompanyher, but I persisted. I had all the hubris of your average 18-year-old.Within five minutes, I told her that I knew she had been sexuallyabused. Her self-control is excellent. When she looked at me, her facewas impassive, but her eyes were black with a cocktail of surprise,terror � and a strange kind of joy, perhaps a precursor to hope.

And it began to unfold, slowly, over the years. As Alex let me into herlife, I began to see the ravages of her childhood. I saw the reality ofextreme post-traumatic stress disorder. The depression, the flashbacks,the suicide attempts, the self-mutilation, the hyper-vigilance. Iwatched her as she struggled to find a vocabulary to articulate whatshe had been through.

What she could tell me was unusual, to say the least. She told me thatthere were many abusers, that they had worn police uniforms, that theyhad been organised and systematic. Sometimes, sleeping in her room andbearing witness to the nightmares and flashbacks, I would hear herconversations with people from long ago. �Did they use theelectricity on you this time?� she asked once, �Did they use theelectricity?�

When Alex began to receive threatening emails, when two policemenshowed up on her front doorstep in the early hours of the morning, Itold her that it must have been her vengeful ex-girlfriend. When shewas walking home from work one day, and she was pulled into parklandand raped at knifepoint by a man she recognised from her childhood, itbecame clear that something else was going on.

It had started. She moved houses three times to escape them. Each time,they tracked her down. After she�d been drugged and assaulted thefirst few times, she stopped resisting. They began to call her on hermobile phone and instruct her to go to a certain place at a certaintime. Like a robot, she would obey.

They knew things about her childhood. The visceral details of what hadbeen done to her, and what she�d been forced to do to others. Theytold her the same things they had been telling her since she was achlid; that she deserved it, that she was evil, that she wassimultaneously being punished and purified. And, just like they hadwhen she was a child, they wore police uniforms.

The attacks began and persisted while I was overseas; my ability tointervene was limited. I contacted the police a number of times, butthey told me that, unless Alex was prepared to make a witnessstatement, there was nothing they could do. I contacted Alex�sparents, but her father (a senior member of the judiciary) insistedthat Alex was crazy and that nothing was happening.

It�s been going on for three years now. She fled the country for ayear, but the attacks began once she returned. She fled Victoria, butthe assaults continued when she moved to Sydney. All they have to do iscall her. Then, the terror overwhelms, she becomes desperate to pleasethem, to �be good�, and she goes to them. It�s only been in thelast six weeks that we have been able to cut off their contact withher. It�s been six weeks since the last sexual assault.

Earlier this year, articles began to surface in The Age about policeprotection of paedophilia. It mentioned the theft of a key piece ofevidence; a videotape of men wearing police officers abusing children.Reading that, the hairs on the back of my neck went up. Alex�s abusehad been filmed, as well.

I contacted the Dr Reina Michaelson, the child abuse preventionadvocate mentioned in the article, and I took a step through thelooking glass. Dr Michaelson already knew what had happened to Alex,because she was in contact with half a dozen other women with identicalexperiences. She gave me the phrase that would open up an entirely newworld to me � �ritual abuse�.

I entered it into a search engine, and lost my mind for two months. Ifound victim testimony that mirrored Alex�s down to the finestdetail. In fact, with the online material seared across my brain, Ibegan to pre-empt Alex�s disclosure. I began to ask her about theelectrical shocks, the drugs, the terrible things that were done to herand witnessed by her.

I stayed in contact with Dr Michaelson. She told me that Alex was avictim of a paedophile network that ran deep and high in Australiansociety, one that had preyed on children for the last three decades.Perhaps I could have written her off as paranoid, or Alex asdelusional. But when I began to be targeted by the perpetrators, whobombarded me and my family with nightly phone calls and threateningemails, I had no choice but to believe.

Am I crazy? Is Alex? Dr Michaelson�s complaints to the Victorianpolice ombudsman has forced the police to reopen four sexual abusecases from the 1990�s, resulted in the relocation of two policeofficers from the sexual crimes unit (one of whom described a12-year-old sexual assault victim as a �little slut�), and thelaying of charges against a Sydney media executive.

If I�m right, if I�m telling you the truth, then Australia isriddled by a nationwide network of high-powered paedophiles who forcechildren to undergo a regime of coercive psychological conditioning,involving the application of electrical shocks, disassociative drugsand massive sexual trauma.

These same men wait until the victim has reached adulthood to�reaccess� them, using phonecalls and code-words to activate thevictim�s programming and coerce their involvement in gang-rape,prostitution and the production of pornography.

What about you? What do you believe? Do you have the courage to peer,just for a moment, behind the curtain? Can you share this terribleworld that I�ve found myself in? Or will you just write me off asanother internet psycho, the sort of detritus that occasionally floatsto the surface of the world wide web? What will you believe?

Alex is still bleeding from the last assault. I�ve been trying to gether to go to hospital, but she�s so ashamed of her injuries. We�vebeen able to keep her safe for a month and a half, but it�s only amatter of time until they track her down again. Even now, countlesschildren around the country are undergoing what she went through. Thecrimes are so terrible that nobody will believe us.

Will you?

For more information, please visit Dr Michaelson�s website at: www.csapp.net