David was a local politician. He was quite a successful man with a seat on the council and a career in corporate consultancy and training. David had a long(ish) term same sex partner, but that wasn’t really enough for him. He had discovered the “interweb” and it would be fair to say that the “interweb” had also discovered him. Something very dark and sinister was triggered within David and that something was feeding itself voraciously. The interweb had all the food that the something needed.
Hello, I’m your new best friend
Meanwhile, far away (but close at light speed) Larry lived with his wife in another county, same country. They were also on the interweb. For them two in a bed was not quite enough and they used the information superhighway to find many people willing to bump up the numbers. Larry had met David on line and now, today, sitting at home looking at the latest text message on his mobile phone, Larry is a very worried man, a very worried man indeed. Larry is in fact so worried that he bundles up his embarrassment at discussing the hows and the whys of David. Larry gets in his car and does the right thing. He makes his way to the local Police station front desk and demands an audience with “whoever is in charge”. Larry has a story to tell and although he starts off sounding a bit green biro and looking a lot crimson faced, by the end, the DC hearing Larry’s tale is calling the duty Det Insp.
What happened was this, on MSN David has made an indecent proposal to Larry. “Lets meet in the nearby big city, I have a plan to abduct, torture and rape a male or female child and I need your help. Let’s meet at the big department store. Lets meet today” It was a good and workable plan, infact it is so good that I won’t go into details. Suffice to say that even whilst Larry is at the Police station, David is texting him again saying “Here I am, where are you?” Cell siting would show later that David really had travelled to nearby big city and really was near the big department store.
Fast forward to a HiTech Crime Unit and they now know what is on David’s computer hard drive. The usual and expected child abuse pictures are there but there is also a lot of text stories about abducting and abusing children. There are also searches he has done in Google suggesting a strong sexual interest in hurting kids. An expert opinion based on David’s computer use is “opportunistic sexual sadist. Will offend against children and will plan to offend against children.” The telephone billing supports Larry’s account.
By the time CPS have mulled it over, a somewhat unsurprising decision has been made about not proceeding with conspiracy to abduct and David is only facing charges over possession of the child abuse pictures. He gets non-custodial on a very late and begrudging guilty plea. No prison for David. If it were my choice he is one of that group of people so dangerous that they should never be free ever again. His political career is over but he is still out there and I have heard nothing to suggest that abducting torturing and raping a child is off his menu. I believe he will do what he dreams of doing sometime in the future.
Great Blog Nightjack. I get so fustrated with CPS and their ‘if there is an chance of loosing this case we wont run it attitude’ I’m not saying we should run every tenuously linked case and waste public money but when the community is at such risk, surely it’s worth trying?
Wow, what a story. I must admit while I was reading it I was very concerned. I wondered what the ending of it was going to be.
That man david must have thought that whatever he did on the computer would be his secret and his alone.
It was until he involved Larry.
Thank god Larry had the sense to go to the police.
It’s rather like when you are driving your car you feel totally protected because it surrounds you. You feel you can do anything to anyone and just drive away.
No-one will notice you.
It must be like that with the computer, you are sat at home with four walls surrounding you and you are facing a screen that you know cannot show who you are. No-one knows what you look like, and whatever you write or look at on the screen is for you and you alone.
I am still wondering why he would want to do that to a child anyway?
Annette,
Because he’s a sick freak who needs putting down.
Nightjack, just an observation but in theory (i know it’d be career suicide hence the theory), isn’t there an obscure bit of legislation somewhere that could be dug up that suggests if CPS fails to attempt prosecution when there is a clear and present danger to the a specific target group or the public at large they are in fact acting with clear gross negligence?
A vain hope perhaps, but a hope.
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Oh.My.God.
(And by-the-by, I can’t believe how often I’ve seen ‘losing’ (as in, ‘not winning’) spelt as ‘loosing’ (as in ‘not tight’, well, almost))
But still, Oh.My.God! Political career over? Well, good but the fear is that some child’s life might also be over at some point in the future, even if the poor mite is still breathing after the event. Come on, CPS, grow some balls! Even if you lose the case at least you’ll have tried, FFS!