The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy aside of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome to another episode of I Catchkillers. If you've been an avid listener to I Catchkillers, I'm sure you've been
as confronted as much as I have. Regarding the amount of people who have been sexually abused as children, the impact pikable offense has on their lives is far reaching. It's an offense that has to stop. In today's episode of I Catch Killers, we're going to do something a little different. We're going to discuss ways in which this crime can be prevented and what to do if you become aware or concerned the child is being sexually abused.
We're speaking to retired Western Australian detective Christy McVeigh, who specialized in child abuse investigation. Christy is also the author of a very informative book called Operation Kids Safe. A couple of years ago we had Christy on the podcast to discuss a police career and I couldn't think of a better person to get back on to discuss child predative behavior, how to protect and empowered children so they don't become victims. This is going to be a very
important episode. Christy mcvee, welcome back to I Catch Killers.
Thank you well, it's.
Good to finally see you in person. We've spent so much time talking over the phone. We even did a podcast over zoom. I think that might have been back in the bad old days of no travel. Everyone stuck.
It was two plus years ago.
Yeah, yeah, you're doing some other stuff. This is I just want people to get a sense of why I've got you on, because you are a very sought after person in regards to this subject matter that you talk about.
Yeah, so I'm over here for that. I came over specifically for south By Southwest, but whilst I was here, I managed to obviously catch up with you, catching up with the Mum Club podcast, got some school presentations and early childhood presentations and just catching up with survivors and victims and other people.
Okay, Well, the work that you're doing is making a difference, So congratulations, but I'm glad in discussions we had before we started recording, you're also going to walk the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
Yes, that's my celebratory for me for all of the work that I've done this week and just to end off the week.
Yeah, well, you've got to find some light because it's such a heavy subject that you talk about and your expertise, and so I understand that why you need to recharge, and I can't think of a better way than climbing the Harbor Bridge.
Yeah.
Well, some people would think that that was a bit excessive, but I'm excited because it's one of those bucket list things to do.
Oh. I hope you're looking forward to it, and I hope you get a good day. Whether I want to ask upfront, why are you and people that have listened to the podcast heard us talk about child sexual abuse, and they would have heard your episode and your background. But I just want to ask the question up front, why are you so passionate about this subject.
It's because I can't sleep if I don't do this work. It's my soul's mission. After hearing all of the children that I heard, all of the stories that I was told, all the victim survivors that contact me even today, someone needs to shine a light on what these people do and help parents understand how easy it is for child sext defenders and predators to worm their way into their homes,
into their lives, and attack or abuse their children. And if someone like myself who has the strength to talk about it and share it, it brings forward people who can talk about it and share it, and it creates a wave of ripple effect.
Well, you come across as a driven person, and I can't think of a better thing to channel channel your energy into. But you've said, shine the light on the spotlight on this insidious offense and these predators, these creepy people that prey on children. People don't like talking about it.
Do they No, No, they do not.
Now you you're spending most of your time talking about this subject. Why do you think people are so reluctant? Is it too confronting?
Because it's for some people it's just so arborant and so horrible to consider that someone would do this. For some people, if they speak about it, it means they have to confront their own complicit behaviors. How they haven't stood up for someone. For some people, it's because they
they don't want to. They have to make changes if they actually confront it and accept that this is happening in their family or it's happened in their family, And for most people, the easiest thing to do is to ignore it.
Yeah, you nail it because well, in regards to the way I look at it, the points that you hit on there that are complicit, why didn't they do something? They're going to have to change. Their whole world's going to be tipped upside down. And that's when someone with a family member is suspected of it that if you bring that to the four it's going to turn the family structure upside down. It might be the breadwinner of the family, all sorts of things relationships complicit in it.
I think people hide behind it, Like people just turn there. It's too confronting and they don't want to don't want to speak about it or point out what they've seen. Is that your take on it? Is that what you just explained how I'm interpreting it.
Mostly, Yeah, some people are just some family members, parents, you know, loved ones. They it's happened to them as well. And if they stand up to what they see or what's happening to a child, then they have to also look at what's happened to them, and they have to admit that it's happened to them, or they have to look at how they've reacted what they've done, and not everyone's brave enough to do that, so it comes from many places. Probably the hardest one to deal with for
me personally is the wilful ignorance. The people who stand by and just pretend it's not happening, and they know what's happening, they do nothing about it, and they basically shut down the child or shut down the family member or whatever. That's probably the hardest part for me, and that's just cowdice.
Basically, I'm really what you've talked, willful ignorance and cowardice I think that should be legislated against, as in, people that do know about it should be there should be a charge. Now that sounds pretty heavy, but I'm tired of hearing about people I knew that was going on, or I suspected that was going on. Well, yeah, that's
what went wrong. When we talk these organizations, the Catholic Church, the Scout clubs, or all the other things that have been identified, people knew about it, but they didn't come forward. And for the life of me, if someone's aware of a murder and you withhold information, there's an offense there. Why isn't the same with child's sexual abuse?
We don't take it as seriously as murder. And in my opinion, child sexual abuse is just as bad. It ruins lives, it changes trajectories. You know, you just have to sit down with victim after victim of historical child sexual abuse and you have you've seen the damage it does. You know, a normal, everyday child having a happy childhood can have their whole life turned upside down from the minute that they're abused, and you know, it just does so much damage.
And it is as worse as murder. It's as bad as murder.
Should I say, well, the impact, and I've had to have a rethink about the way I look at crime and the ways of reducing crime. And you're a cop. I was a cop. We used to do it by arresting people. You're now preventing crime, which I think is a great way of not just solving the crime, preventing it by educating people and bringing them up up to date. But we really need to make a difference because the
impact of child's sexual abuse. I didn't really appreciate it until I spent some time in a time in prison doing a project, a podcast project inside prison. I always thought the hatred the prison has had for pedophiles was because of the nature of the crime. But what I learned in there was they hate them because a lot of them are in there because they were abused as children and that's dictated their behavior, which has led to
them being in prison. So if we really wanted to impact on crime, the offenses you're targeting and trying to prevent is probably the biggest biggest step we could make.
Yeah, I agree, and I've had you know, I did a small stinting proactive detective work, you know, drug doors and burglaries and stolomotors and stuff, and there would be a burglary series and I would go and speak to the person once I'd been caught, and you know, interview
them and talk to them about what had happened. And generally, you know, I reckon ninety percent of the time, they were victims of child sexual abuse and that led them down the road to subsistence abuse and you know, you know, acting out and all of the behaviors that led to their crimes.
Before we get into talking about your book, which I think, yeah, if you're a parent, you want to project your kids or educate yourself, it's a great read because it's such a practical and it's got that cop practical I feel about it, and I say that in a good way, that understanding of Okay, these are the issues, how do we address it? But a little bit about yourself, just for people if they hadn't heard you on the podcast before. What's your background? Yeah?
Sure, So I grew up in the pilbor in Well, Calgaroley, the pilbro all over the regional Western Australia. Parents separated when I was really little. I went with my dad for a while. I ended up getting kicked out at home of fifteen because of difference of opinions with parents. I ended up landing with my now in laws, my husband we've been together twenty seven years this year and married twenty three and from there basically went into you know,
at eighteen border house. I was like, because unfortunately, you know, parents only do what they know, and this is one of the things you were talking about parenting and parents. You know, a lot of people hide behind the fact that this is all they know, this is what their parents did. And my parents acted how their parents acted, you know, they used their fists, use their words, you know.
So I at eighteen, I bought a house because I was like, and I hope you don't mind me swearing how that I was like, fuck you, I'm going to show you that I can do this.
So you come from Western Australia, I believe they use the word fuck is a punctuation.
But yeah, I had someone frown at me the other day and I was like, I'm so sorry, I just can't not say it. Yeah, So I was, Yeah, I wanted to show my parents that I could, you know, prove them wrong that I was. Yeah, So I bought a house at eighteen just went about life. And then at twenty six, had my daughter, and that's when my life sort of took a change because I started looking at me as a human, as a parent, and when I don't want my daughter to have that same childhood.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So and then I saw an ad in the paper and for the police and I'm five foot one. I always joke about this, but I'm only little, and I thought I can do that, and everyone laughed at me. So then I went, fuck you, I'm going to show you. And yeah, I got into the police about eighteen months later in January twenty ten.
And how long did you spend in the police and your career in the place you found your way in the child sexual abuse or child protection squads as a detective.
Yeah.
So my first four years was general duties up in Karratha. So again I went back to the region, back to the regions that was lack baptism by fire, because once you're in the regions, and once you're in a country area and there's no squads to come and savior, there's no one to come and fix your jobs for you, you're pretty much doing everything can. I learned forensics, I went to crime scenes murders. I went to sudden death, so I went to traffic crashes, I went to child abuse cases.
So that was pretty pretty intense.
But within the first year, the detective senior sergeant said, does anyone want to go and do this training to become a specialist child interviewer?
And I put my hand up.
And at that stage, my daughter was just turning three or just turned three, and I didn't know what I was walking into.
I just knew that.
I wanted to add more more to what I was doing in the community, that I wanted to be more and so I went and did this six five six week training in Perth, which is sixteen hundred kilometers away, five six weeks away from my daughter, and I learned about child sexual abuse and how to interview kids so that their evidence can be used in courts. So yeah, it was pretty intense. And that's where I just my blinkers were blown off. I was like, I had no idea.
Okay, So that opened the world to you of what actually goes on with child sexual abuse and that's been your life mission. Yeah, well, of sense.
It wasn't at first. It was more like I just want to do more. But as I interviewed kids and I'm talking hundreds of kids, and as I was talking to children, I saw patterns of behavior and I was thinking, why doesn't anyone see this, Like why don't they see the grooming that's going on or that these.
People are acting like this.
And then after four years in the PILBRA, I went, I don't want to hand my files over to the police, to the detective anymore.
I want to be one of them. I want to lock up the bad guys as well.
So I applied for I've done the forensic training as well, but then applied for detectives at the same time and got in and did the six weeks training in Perth again, and I had to move back to Perth to become a detective probationary detective. And from there I went into a small stint, like I said, in a proactive team, and then I went into the child abuse squad.
I put my hand up to go.
Okay and the child abuse squads it's a tough gig
in whatever state you were working in. Because it seemed to be and this is my observation throughout my career underresourced, yes, because it wasn't it wasn't a headline type squad where the work that you've done gets played out in the media, and quite often the members were overworked and there was a high burnout rate, and the nature of the nature of the crimes that you're investigating to the things that you come across, there's a high turnover rate and the
high rate of people burning themselves out in those squads.
Yeah, definitely. And you know, because the work is so important, you feel like you can't stop, you know, as if you care as I mean, people that care about this work going too that work, and so you go into it knowing that it's going to be hard, but you just don't realize how hard.
And the thing is, the crime keeps continuing. If you don't pick up the ball and run with it and do your job, there's some poor kid that's probably continually been sexually abused and because you haven't had a chance to get onto it. So I can see how it's a rabbit hole that you just fall down and it's never ending.
Yeah, definitely.
Okay, you got out of the police what what brought that on the decision?
Yeah, So we talked about this on the last podcast, but I ended up with really severe anxiety and PTSD. And that was about the last eighteen months in the police. I went to another regional center where I live now, and I was interviewing kids, investigating their cases, locking up the bad guys. And then I was also part of the team that managed the sex offenders when they were released from prison. And yeah, it just was too much. And like you said, every time you did one file
there was ten waiting or twenty waiting. You know, you just never got through it, and it just was never ending, so the severe anxiety PTSD. One day, I was barely able to function at home and my daughter was about eleven at the time, and she just said to me, Mom, you're not the mum I remember anymore.
I don't want you to do this anymore.
That's confronting, isn't when your young child points out, hey, you change. It's impacting on you. But the full credit to you that you took control of it before you were too broken, and clearly you left but you still had a passion.
Yeah, so I resigned the next day, actually, but I sort of took some time to make sure I was making the right decision. And then when I left, all broken, and you know, struggling with PTSD. And I'm sure you've got lots of listeners or lots of people and the guests who've talked about it. You know, I was struggling. I wasn't sure how I was going to move on. I didn't know what else to do, but I just knew that I wanted people to know what I knew.
So I just started writing things down.
And as I was writing them down and putting them into story form, I was like, I actually think this might be a book.
And that's exactly what it became, an Operation kid Safe that you wrote, And full credit to you because it's something that I've read the book and that's so educational, and you know, some of the stuff is obvious, but it's obviously some of the obvious stuff is stuff that we ignore, and I just want to this is how the books described, because we're going to break down some of the lessons learned in the education that comes out from the book, but this is the way the books
being described. This confronting but insightful book will provide you with knowledge about child predator behaviors, tips on how to protect and empower your children through different ages and stages of child and teenage development, along with creating a healthy respect for online safety. Well, you pretty well ticked all the things that as a parent or someone that's responsible
for children you want to be able to provide. So I'm going to ask you questions and pulling stuff from that and if you could share share your knowledge with our listeners. I want this to be an educational situation where people will go, Okay, that makes sense because some of the things that are so obvious but we just don't know ignore or just slips through through the cracks child sex offenders. You've worked in the worked in the investigative part of that in policing and new work that
you've done. Now i'd ask the obvious question, who are they?
Well, they're definitely not the old man in the white van that we were taught in whenever it was that strange danger message that don't take all these from strangers, et cetera.
They are everyone, unfortunately.
And that that was part of the education that I know in my childhood growing up, it was the bloke in the rain cap with no clothes and it would flash when you walk past. That was the only image I had sort of growing up of what a child sex offender was and that was the narrative that was put out. But the message was sent with good intent, but I think it misguided us all on who these predators are. So they can be they can be anyone, can't they anyone?
Absolutely anyone in your life.
There seems to me, and I didn't create the term predators, but they are predatory in the way that they go about it. When I've locked up pedophiles, I'm surprised of how proactive they are looking looking for their victims. Part of their thing is they get people to trust them. Yes, And you look at some of the some of the areas of employment where it just sort of cries out for it, whether it's you're seeing a lot more come out about coach of kids' sports teams, like everyone do
what the coach says. You have the religious aspect of the religions that have been tarnished with the sex offenders, institutionalized sexual abuse. You have scout leaders, those type of type of people that the community look up to. But that just makes it easier for them to go about their business, doesn't.
It very much so?
And there was a recent study earlier this year, late last year by the Institute of Criminology, and they basically did an anonymous survey of men in Australia and the survey was the questions were so well put that basically they were able to work out that one in six Australian men are attracted to children and I'm sure I can.
Share that for the show notes.
And then also that anyone attracted to children is three times more likely to be in a job working with children.
Okay, let's break those figures. So one in six yes, males, Yes, attracted to sexually attracted to children. Yes. And then what was the other figure.
That they're three times more likely to work in a position where they have access to children.
Okay, do you think that's no, that's probably delving, delving too deep. But it makes sense that they're in an industry if that says sexual attraction, that's where they gravitate towards and that they get get access access to children. It was recently in I think it's Australia wide them, not even sure which state, but they well known swimming coach that was convicted child's sexual abuse. Like an environment like that is, yeah, it's just conducive to carrying out their evil ways.
Yeah. Well, any any position of power and authority. You know.
So it's like you said, it's if they're attracted, if they even have an inkling of an attraction, you know, if they like kids, they're going to be you know, heading towards that pathway. They're going to find jobs where they're surrounded by children. You know, a lot of predators and pedophiles might not realize to begin with that they actually have that attraction.
Okay, that's when I said, that's too deep. That's what I want them to talk about. So it's that environment. Maybe it's opened their eyes to they are attracted to them.
Yeah, well it also there's so many different factors. And look, I'm not a psychologist or a criminologist. I'm just someone who's very observant. And so some of them will have, you know, and not an inkling. They might think about children and then they start watching certain pornography and then they you know, and it takes years. Sometimes not always. Some people just go, I like children, I'm going to
abuse children. But sometimes it takes years to get over that that knowledge and to get past their restrictions or their beliefs and their values that they know that that's wrong. They have to get past that, and so they have to then you know, it can take years. And the other thing that research found is that the men that had admitted to being attracted and abusing children, they were in the.
Forty plus category.
The men that admitted to being attracted to children and wanting help were in the thirty minus category. And that sort of rings true with me because I saw a lot of sex offenders who had gone years without doing anything and all of a sudden they start offending.
Is the system set up? And there's so much to talk about with the men that are attracted to children, but they seek help. Is there help available to men like that?
Only just recently there was never any help. I don't even know. But there's now anonymous that word phone line called US and you can basically stop it now. Australia is the phone line and you can look up on the website. You can talk to a psychologist, but it's very underfunded, so it's very.
Hard to get people.
But there are people who know that they're gotten attraction to children want help for it.
Okay, because I know, and I'm a part to blame that pedophiles will stuff them. I don't care about them. And all that someone raised just in the philosophical discussion I had with a friend about what if someone came and said they're attracted to children and they don't want to offend, what should happen? And I'm beating on the chest all the bravado all stuff, and if they're attracted to children, but really, there's a place for a service like that, isn't there?
There definitely is.
Yeah, if we want to, if we want to fight child sexual abuse, we need to fight it from all angles. We can't just say stuff them and throw them in the jail and leave them in the corner. We need to fight it from all angles. And some of it has to be therapeutic. Some of it has to be through psychology and through understanding why.
And for someone to I think it takes courage for someone to put the hand up if they haven't offended and go, look, I'm tutoring. And that's sexual urge. Like I saw it in homicide. You see it in so many crimes. It's a powerful urge and people struggle to fight against it. If someone's got that attraction to children and they haven't offended and that they want to get help, yeah, it needs to be there.
It needs to be there. We've got to take it from all angles. But one of the things that I don't think people understand with sex offenders is that there's three types, or in study and research, there's three types, but they're they're expanding this. So the first is predatory or pedophilic. They're born attracted to children. According to this
study and basically everything, they're the classic sex offender. One of the interesting things I actually had a criminologist on my podcast recently and she said, in that pedophilic predatory, they usually abuse boys, so they're more likely to abuse boys and young children. And the next category is opportunistic, so they can have a relationship with her, female or whatever part but then they will offend against children as well.
So the first the predatory, they.
Generally won't be able to have a relationship with women or with a partner because they're.
Attracted to children in the attraction.
The second the opportunistic, they can have a relationship, they can go years with nothing happening and then something triggers it or they finally get their chance. And then the last one is situational, and we see situational offenders. They're the type that break into someone's house, to break into someone's house and steal something and then rape the person inside.
So or they lose their job and they've lost all control and power, or their wife's left them or whatever, and then they're abusing whatever because they're trying to get control back.
Does that make sense?
Make sense? Yeah?
So it's not one.
Size fits all. They're just attracted to children. They just you know, they're just a pedophile. There is multiple different ways in which they offend.
Okay, when we're talking, we'll move on. But I just want to raise another aspect. When I catch my son's socked, you had to fill out working with Children's form and that is there room for improvement on those type of documents?
Yes?
Okay, Well I'm smirking because working with children checks obviously working that they identify if someone's had an offense against a child, But other than that, it takes twenty four years twenty four to thirty years twenty four for women and thirty years before first disclosure for most people.
You know.
So, so the offend that could basically go through their whole life about it being disclosed, correct, yea, So any way that that could be improved?
Yeah, talking about it.
Okay, but like talking about how do we do the safety check, I put my hand up and want to coach my son's soccer team. Is there any any ways that you think we could improve it or scrutinize it a little bit more.
There's no ways on the without having a relationship with someone,
there's no ways to tell, right. But I think every community group, sports organization they need to have some form of child safety policy where and child safety training where, for instance, someone like myself comes in and says, hey, this is what you've got to watch out for in your members, this is what this is how you can cover your ass and make sure that your children are safe in your environment whilst they're in your care, because it's your duty of care to keep them safe.
Yeah, and it would be a big ask, and I think most people do this naturally. People like I would never be in a change room with a young kid on my own that type of stuff. So maybe it needs to be out set out. These are the rules you can't take a child or be with a child on your own, those type of things.
But it's interesting you say that that's something that you say I would never do that.
That's just that's common sense to you.
They're okay, they're in there there, And that's probably the difference, isn't it, Because the ones that would be inclined to offend probably, Oh, this is a great opportunity. I'll drive Johnny home today. Don't you worry about picking your son up. I'll drive him home. Whereas I think, no, I don't want to put anyone in that position.
Correct, And that's common sense to you, But to the average person that's not common sense.
Okay, well there's room for improvement there. How do I'm just going through some of the obvious things, But again, sometimes what's obvious isn't It doesn't jump out. How do they target children? As a parent, what are you looking out for if you're worried about a person, or how they target the children, how they find their victims.
So they're looking for children who are vulnerable, and vulnerability comes in lots of ways. It comes in that they're very young and they don't have the necessary language skills to be able to say anything. Sadly, that happens a lot.
And then they're looking for children who either don't have very good parental guidance supervision, parents who are very busy, they go into positions of power and authority of children where they're naturally trusted with children, and they just find that child that might not have very good self esteem,
might not have very good support in place. They're looking, they're searching for that victim, and they're finding those victims, and they're easy to find because as parents, they're not going to target a child who has a strong parent behind them.
Well, I'm just thinking anecdotally the people who have come on the podcast that invariably when they've been victims of child sexual abuse, it's because there's been some upturn in their family or they haven't got the supervision that the kids within a more stable home.
Yeah, and I also want to mention, you know, sadly, some of these predators will target single parents, you know, where the child is moving from one home to the other, where there's no stability or there's a lack of stability. They will target you know, a lot of those sorts of parents as well, because that means that they can come into that life and be living in that life with that child. It's an automatic trust.
Okay, So hearing what you're saying here, the responsibility in you've got to educate the children, but you've also got to create the protective behaviors of the parents. So breaking it down, how would you summarize the best way to protect your protect your child.
First of all, we need to well, I always think awareness. So this is a really uncomfortable conversation for a lot of people. And I always whenever I stand in front of a room of people and talk about this, I give them a content warning and I say, look, this is really uncomfortable, and it's uncomfortable for everyone in this room.
But I encourage you to lean into the uncomfortableness and work out why it's uncomfortable for you, because that is the answer to how we're going to stop, you know, and how we're going to stop leaning backwards and let's lean forward into it. And so the first thing is awareness, you know, listening to this podcast, reading books about understanding. Ninety percent of that is by someone known to the child. So it's not a stranger who's going to come and
abuse your child. It's going to be someone in your own home, someone you've invited into your own home or is part of your family. Sadly, forty seven percent of that and this is from last year's Australian Bureau Statistics. Forty seven percent of that is a male adult or sorry, a male in the family, and twenty six percent is an immediate family member or sorry non immediate family member, uncle, cousin, grandfather, et cetera. Sixteen percent is a father or stepfather, and
six percent is a brother or stepbrother. So that is one of the things that we need to remember. Thirty to fifty percent of all child sexual abuse is by another child, So we need to know that these are the statistics, these are the realities because whilst we if it's predictable, it's preventable, it's not someone else's child.
It can happen to It can happen to your.
Child, okay, And when you say being comfortable leaning into it, it is confronting, isn't it, Because you're okay, it could be a family member, so you're not, Oh, we're all safe, everyone's at home, a big party, we're safe in this environment. They are the times that you're just going to be aware.
Yeah.
My first job, my first child abuse job, when I was probationary constable, was a young girl had gone to her friend's house for a sleepover. The parents were having a party so that they let the kids have their friends over. And one of the guests at that party abused the girl while overnight, whilst he was drunk and there and that's no excuse. The alcohol was no excuse. But she should have been safe in that environment and the supervision should have been there and no one she wasn't.
And again, if you're that sort of awareness, and what we talked about where I said, if I'm coaching a kid's soccer team, I'm not on my own with the child if there's someone because quite often you hear it and I just remember this from a police time that Yeah, he always used to hang around the kids at the party. Everyone all the adults will be on the back deck having a drink and eating. There's one person playing down in the backyard with the kids the whole time.
Yep, that's exactly how it goes.
And we're not accusing every one of those ones playing with the kids, but let's just keep an eye on why is that person spending so much time with the children.
Yeah, So last week my mum was talking to me. It was actually quite funny because I was getting I had a photo shoot for some content stuff, and she was doing my makeup, and she said, I've seen you on TikTok and I was like wow. Anyway, so she straightaway told me this story. And the story was that they were at Christmas party. Everyone was drinking, all the adults were drinking. Her cousin, a family member, had bought her new boyfriend with her.
He's in his.
Thirties, she's in her thirties, and he did that. He was hanging around the kids all night, and she kept going like she didn't sit right with her. So she kept going, you know, to check in, Hey, leave the kids alone, like come and hang with the adults kind of thing. They're fine, they're looking after each other. And you know, later that night, whilst everyone was drunk, he tried to kiss the ten year old. And you know, luckily they had such a close knit family. She come
running out, told her mom. Mom went to make her like blow up and make a big deal about it. Everyone told her to be quiet, like it's not that big a deal. You know, this is a thing like culturally and socially, we aren't speaking up for kids. And in fact, that person come running out after the little girls like it's okay, it's okay, I'll give you the lollies, you know. And what he had tried to do was
get her close to him. He said, come here, I've got a secret, and yeah, tried to kiss her on the lips, and.
He had all the red flags gone on.
And you know, unfortunately, because she had spoken up at the party, she you know, the party shut down straight after that. She's now been ostracized by the family because they think well, and he's also still in the family making a big deal that she's the problem.
I sit here and I've got anger written all over my face because I hate those situations where people are just not and I don't know like you, and I look at it and I feel like, yeah, I'm not sure if we get that from play, like we've had to learn to. Yeah, people do bad things and sometimes action's got to be taken. But that seeckens me. That's
the way that played out. But as you're telling the story, I'm thinking how it plays out, they'll be pissed off because people are enjoying the party and we're making a big deal. There was nothing. Yeah, And I say, and the scenario there is such a typical scenario. Typical scenario.
Yeah, he chose the wrong child though, And it was interesting because she said the family member that had brought him to the party, she doesn't like kids, and he was hanging around the kids. So she was hanging around him because that was her partner, her new partner, and she was like, I don't understand how she would spend all that time with the kids and why she wasn't
dragging him back outside. And he saw it as his prime opportunity to try something on And I have no idea why he would try that with a child that obviously had But sometimes they stuff up. Yeah, sometimes they make mistakes of who they pick as a victim.
And I want to talk about but the kids making them be able to identify the dangers. We're talking more so at the parents. But you're also one of the things that you said that of the type of people of the fan, kids sexually abuse other kids. Yeah, tell me about tell me about that, because that's another aspect that we don't because, okay, well, everyone's safety because there's kids in there, but there's a big power and balance if one child's three or four years older than the
other child. So tell us that you take on that. Yeah.
So when I first joined the job, when we saw a child displaying harmful sexualized behaviors, which is harming other children, abusing other children, we naturally assumed that they'd been abused because that was used to be the norm. Right. If a child displayed these harmful sexualized behaviors touching another child, inappropriately, forcing another child to do things, coercing another child, that
meant that something's happening in the background. But now towards the end of my career and since speaking to more victims and more survivors, we're now seeing a lot more children displaying those harmful sexualized behavior is due to exposure to pornography.
Well, okay, that makes sense because the type of exposure they get to pornography is just mind blowing compared to what generation before was exposed to. So I could imagine kids acting out what they're seeing on the pornography they're watching, and there's victims to that as well.
Yeah, and if we don't counterbalance what they're seeing online by a conversation or by you know, having those conversations and education around it, then they're just acting out what they're seeing. And and you know, I think the current start on you know, first exposure to pornography is eight is the earliest age, and it's younger.
Head's way younger.
Well, and the sexualization online and all of the other stuff they're seeing online, you know, so if we don't counterbalance that with conversations around body safety and we'll talk more about that soon. Basically, our kids are just acting out what they see. They dance to what they see, they dress to what they see. So why wouldn't they be acting out, you know, seized behaviors unless we have that conversation.
Yeah, an important point. And if they're saying by eight, we'll think of all the stuff you got away with as a kid before your parents realized. I'm sure the kids have getting exposed to it at an earlier age. So how and when do you start conversation protecting the children, as in getting the children to be aware of what's going on. How does that play out?
I talk about it from birth, but that's and I realized that that's like a concept that goes why would we talk about this from birth? But I'm not meaning that we talk about this stuff as in I'm going to tell you about what sexual abuse is. What I'm talking about is consent and body autonomy. You know, when you have a young baby, you talk to them about what you're doing to their body. Hey, i'm just changing your nappy. I'm just going to wipe this part. I'm
just going to put these clothes on now. And we start verbalizing what we're doing, and you start talking to them about what you're doing to them. And then when they get to about two and they're now having much more verbalized conversations. We also make sure that we're using correct body terminology with children. You know, we name all their parts, and we also talk to them about private versus public, and you know, two seems really young, but hey,
that's our private part. You know, you're just having those conversations and reinforcing those messages that this is their body, they're in charge of their body, and these are their parts, and that this is what's private and this is what's public. And as we do everything with them, we're changing them, we're helping them toilet train, we're doing we're just reinforcing that. And eventually they get to an age around three where we start asking consent, Hey, is it okay if i'll wipe your mom?
Okay? Well, see you've educated me, because I wouldn't have thought that they even kicked in at that stage. But I understand what you're saying, because yeah, they're the form of the views, you know, two, the three, four, that type of that type of age. Okay, so that's that's the narrative starts at that early age.
Yeah, Well, we're just giving them. We're just giving them the respect they deserve and the bodily autonomy. And then what happens is is that as we're teaching these lessons and that we're you know, scaffolding them all or adding to them as they get older, we can start talking about private versus public movies, private versus public photos. We don't actually have to talk about pornography at all. We
can just say private parts. We don't show anyone our private parts, don't take photos of our private parts, and we never if someone shows us a private movie or a private photo of their private parts, what do we do.
Okay, We're going to go and tell mum or dad or safe person.
And having the parts named is that your penis your vagina, and have giving them the language instead of the stupid names. And I'm not going to say what mine was called when I was crying up. But that's the way it was. It was all ways a stupid, stupid name.
Oh my godness, I've heard them all.
But you know the thing is is we call it volver a vagina, bum bottom, you know, penis, testicle's mouth and the mouth is a private part by the way, everyone, okay, So we teach that all of these private parts are what they are because in little children, especially, predators will use games, they'll game afire their abuse in order to make the child enjoy it. Not all sexual abuse is painful, hurts, or that the child realizes what's happening.
So the child's enjoying it getting rewarded for it. Yeah. So okay, all those parts that you rattle off, they're your private parts and nipple's okay, and don't forget those, okay, no one forget that they're they're all the all the parts that the child should at an early age. And we're talking three understand they're my private parts. And then that child, be the boy or a girl, could have a conversation with a parent saying someone touched my private parts.
Yeah, and I will tell you a story that just came last week. So I created these conversations with kids body safety cards so that to help parents have conversations with their kids and to prompt them in what questions, to ask them, how to talk to them. So I've created this like downloadable resource. And so this parent contacted me last week and said, I downloaded your cards. They're amazing.
I just wanted to tell you that I was talking to my three year old daughter about body safety and she said a family member had dug into her vagina with his finger, right, Okay, And.
That's really hard to hear.
I'm sorry, but and she said, if I hadn't been having that conversation, I don't know if she.
Would have told me.
Wow. Well, well, I said at the start, you're making the difference. But those things are important. But break down this card system, you said, because again these things that I thought I had a sense of how to protect the child and the type of things. But what you're talking about this common sense and when you explain it.
So body safety is like we've got body safety rules. My privates are my privates. Someone's allowed to touch my privates. I'm not allowed touch other people's privates. You know, if I say no, adults and other people should respect that. You know, it's all about you know, just respecting yourself
and respecting other people. And that's something we should all be taught from a really young age, right, And we probably wouldn't be having the issues with consent and all of this if we were taught it from birth.
Yeah.
So some of the body safety lessons are about early warning signs, and I'm not sure it's in my book and it's in these cards. So early warning signs are the feelings we get. We call them gut feelings right where in your body you feel unsafe or safe.
But in order for a child to.
Understand what they're feeling, we need to help them learn what that is. So when I was teaching my daughter, for instance, she would say I don't feel you know, I feel sick, for instance, and that's a common thing parents hear from their children. And I would say, Okay, where are you feeling sick? What feels sick? And she would say, I have butterflies and my tummy or I feel sick, or my legs or my knees are shaking,
my hands are shaking, whatever I'm sweating. But there's multiple ways that we feel unsafe our body get how we respond to the stimuli of feeling unsafe and that's our early warning signs. That's telling us that don't feel safe in this moment, for instance. And to make it even more clearer, yesterday I had to go and sit on stage and talk to hundreds of people and I was quite nervous. I was excited, but nervous, right, So that was showing up in Butterflies.
I had the jitters.
I had a little bit of a headache because you know, that's how my body was. Yeah, those were my nerves, and I was able to understand that that's just because I was about to do something that was out of my comfort zone and exciting. We can break that down for kids so that they can understand that those feelings are either safe unsafe, and then what to do next.
So that's the first part.
Okay, I just holding on that part. I can see the benefit see it because if a child was being abused by someone and they felt uncomfortable, it didn't feel right. At Butterflies, I can imagine a young child just going, I don't want to go to the uncle such and such place. Why I feel sick. You're saying, give the child the language, the language to explain why. Yep, it makes a lot of sense.
I mean at first, we're just like trying to identify those feelings. We're just going, okay, you know when we feel what does it feel like to feel safe? Or when you give when you're with mum, how does that feel? And sometimes kids will be simple as I feel warm, you know, my heart feels bigger, or however they want to describe it, or however they describe it in their body. But you know, okay, once we know what safe feels like, how does it feel when we don't feel safe? And
there's a continuum from safe to unsafe. It's say, you know, safe fun to be scared, because sometimes it's fun to be scared, like yesterday, you know, my nerves were because I was about to do something exciting and scary. And then there's risking on purpose, you know, standing up in front of a you know, for some people public speaking is the worst thing that they could ever do, right, but they might have to do it because that's their job or that's something that they really want to do,
So you risk on purpose, and then there's unsafe. So we teach kids that some things are fun and we do them anyway. Some things we have to do because we might have a school presentation to do. All of those feelings are valid, but if we can understand which ones they are, then we're much safer.
As the children get to get older. What's the next stage that you need to provide further tools? What age are you're looking at?
Yeah, so these are like I said, scaffolding, we ad So I would then also add into that safety network, who are the five people that you feel safest with, who will listen to you, believe you, and do something if you tell them, Because, sadly, in Australia, only one in three adults believe children when they tell them that they've been sexually abused.
Run that figure by me again.
One in three adult Australians believe children.
Well, it saddens me. It doesn't surprise me.
No, And so with regards to that, you know, if a child and here's the sad thing that I have from my perspective of being an interviewer and talking to children, I have to teach children or tell children if the first person doesn't listen or do anything, you need to go to the next person. I'm teaching them persistence through, don't give up on that first person because a lot of the victim survivors. I speak to the first person they told, told them they were lying. Shut up, We
don't talk about that. They gave them a bad reaction and they never said a thing again.
Okay, so that's interesting. So five people like a child and what age are we talking here from? Three? Okay? Five people that you can trust if there's something wrong.
Or you wouldn't explain it in that full detail. But who makes you feel safe?
Okay?
For the little ones, and then as they get to like school age five or six, you know, okay, who makes you feel safe and listens to you when you feel scared.
And you give them the understanding that if they feel scared or don't feel safe, they can tell this person that person, or that you can tell all of them or any one of them. How do you explain that, Well, you just.
You ask the child to explain who they feel safe with, and then you get them. They get to name who they feel safe with. We can't tell them that because we could say, hey, go and speak to uncle.
Uncle could do the offender, yeah, and he could.
Be the one who's abusing them all about to abuse them. So we don't want to give them the idea, you know, we might suggest people, but ultimately it's their choice. And then as an adult or parent, we then go on to speak to that person say, hey, we're teaching body safety in our family and these are the lessons we're talking about. And if my little girl comes to you and says, hey, I don't feel safe around this person or this at this moment, you know they've named you
as a safe person. Your job as a safe person is to listen to them and help them and do something about it.
Okay, so it's twofold. It's giving the kid and then giving the heads up to the people safe person. Ye okay, what next?
So the other things is private versus public, as we've discussed, and then secrets versus surprises. So secrets are you know, as we know, predators and pedophiles will use secrets as a way to keep their secret that.
This is our little secret secret.
Don't tell anyone. If you tell anyone, I'll go to jail. If you tell anyone, the police will take you away, Child Protection will take you away. So we need to help children understand that secrets or safe secrets, for instance, are you know secrets are about Hey, what what are we getting dad for Christmas?
It's a secret.
We're gonna we're going to get him this. There's a timeline involved, it ends it does you know? Avenge And it's a happy secret, right, secrets should be happy. Yeah, it might be, oh, guess what, mum's having a baby, but we're not telling anyone right now.
So you're breaking it down between the secret or the happy secret.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the safe secret and then you know, and surprises basically so and then an unsafe secret. Basically some their early warning signs are being triggered because something's happening that they don't want to. They feel unsafe in that secret. And also there's no timeline involved it. Can you know, they don't get to choose when that ends. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does make sense. It does make sense.
And then that's just some of the things that we teach. But those three lessons or four lessons are really important.
I'm just looking back at what the bad parents.
No, you weren't you?
Like everything that there's been being said. It makes so much sense when you explain it.
And it's not hard.
It's not hard. It's not hard. It's just it's basic parenting, isn't it?
Well, it is, but you know, we've got to remember that we come from generations where no one talked and no one spoke, and you've seen or not heard, don't We don't backchat, we don't talk to our parents. We don't say anything even you know, having conversations with my parents now, like they go, they're still in that generation where they don't talk about their feelings and emotions. So it's no wonder we are struggling with these lessons.
And some of the saddest stories I've heard on here on the podcast is where people have been abused and they've gone to get help and the person doesn't help them, doesn't believe them, and then they've just yeah they're lost.
Yeah, it does more damage.
And I had someone to share with me the other day that they were sexually abused by an uncle and when they told their mum, they got slapped across the face and told never, we do not talk about this ever again. Like honestly, that's the type of thing you were talking about at the start, about why can't we
charge people with that? But you know the other thing that not being able to share that with a safe adult or with someone with the person that's meant to protect you and being basically told to shut up and don't say anything. Is that negligence and that neglect basically does more damage than the abuse of I could.
Well when I said some of the sayest moments, that's okay, I understand. There's an the fender, there's a victim, and then the poor victim, a child, is asking for help from someone they thought they could trust, and they get a response like that, You just articulate.
Them, and then what happens is they never say it again. They go through life, they struggle, and they never get a real chance to heal. And I probably flew through that stat but twenty four years is the average of first disclosure. They might have tried to tell someone at the start, but then they were rebutted, minimized, told to go away, and so they've never said it again and they go through their life like that.
Doesn't that say a lot about the impact of the offense too. There's not many offenses that you carry as a victim of an offense at twenty four years later, that's when you have the courage to come out and talk about or not courage, but that's when you're ready to talk about it.
How it just minutes longer. Ninety nine percent of men never tell anyone not good figures.
So we're going to try and make a difference. Look, we might we might take a break now when we get back, I want to talk about the adolescent years because that's yeah, that's a whole new ball game too, isn't it Like the world is completely completely changed for adolescents and there's a lot that can be learned there.
And we're also going to talk about what happens if you suspect someone is a child who's been sexually abused, or you suspect someone, and what happens if you actually take it to the police, and what the processes are. So I look, I'm sitting here sort the gobsmack thinking this shit. But there's so much that you've explained, and
I look back. That's why I'm sort of questioning my own parenthood in that I'm thinking that would have been such a safe thing and something good to provide children with.
So yeah, and the good thing is once you hear it, and once you know it, you can't unknow it, so you can make the changes as you go forward.
And look, I asked this question before we take a break. You've got so many people reaching out to you. Are you getting overwhelmed with it?
Sometimes?
Yeah, I have to take breaks, but it's an honor to be that person that people.
Trust with this.
Yeah, okay, well, it's very impressive how you're educating us, and I have people that are listening and getting the same thing that I'm getting from this. It's just a very practical way of approaching the problem that impacts on so many people. Let's have a break and we'll be back shortly.
Fantastic cheers.