Over the following four decades I would get to work with countless more individuals who sexually abused children or were worried that they might. Including the 305 men I worked with when managing Wolvercote Clinic residential assessment and treatment programme. There was, of course, a need to work out “why” they did what they did; but we started with “how” by utilising the simple but ingenious “four pre-conditions” model offered by David Finkelhor. Man by man we gained insights into their worlds - their thoughts; their planning (or absence of it); their “rewards” from the abuse; their regrets; their relationships; their futures; their risk.
These life stories demonstrated the pathways they had variously followed towards abuse. Ona was an intelligent, but socially awkward 17-year-old who had abducted a younger, female teenager who he forced into his car. She fortunately escaped when he pulled up at some traffic lights. Another, now in his late 60s, had grown up in care and served numerous prison sentences for sexual crimes against pubescent boys over nearly 50 years of offending. The Scout leader. The Priest. The stepfather. The older brother. The doctor. Some had many victims. Some had one. (Since then, others are now coming forward concerned about their sexual thoughts but are yet to act on them.)
Understanding their various pathways into offending, their sexual interests and the needs they were seeking to meet by offending was required in order to assess risk and treatment need, and to ultimately help plan for their future “good lives” – lives free from offending. None would likely be spending the rest of their lives behind bars.
Alongside offenders, I had the opportunity and privilege to work with their wives, partners, parents and other family members as well as with some victims and survivors. What all this work convinced me of was that much of the abuse I was hearing about could have been prevented. But no-one had worked out how to do that – the focus was on identifying abuse after it had happened and then responding.
2002 was my best and my worst year. It saw the closure of Wolvercote Clinic, but also the launch of the Stop It Now UK and Ireland confidential helpline – essentially like Childline, but for adults, specifically those with concerns about child sexual abuse. To date, the helpline has responded to over 75,000 adults with concerns – one half of them (so some 38,000 people) worried about their own sexual thoughts or behaviour; one quarter worried about a loved one’s sexual behaviour; one in twelve being parents concerned about the sexual behaviour of their child.
So, what has changed in the decades since that first handshake? The arrival of the internet. It has transformed the nature and scale of abuse; it has introduced new pathways into abuse, new opportunities for abuse and new risk for children and young people. The majority of those calling Stop It Now are concerned about online child sexual abuse – the viewing and sharing of sexual images of children or the sexual grooming of children online. For helpline advisers, exploring an offender’s (or potential offender’s) pathway to their current situation is vital. So often this now seems to involve early and heavy legal online pornography use, satiation, boredom, and the pursuit of more and more extreme sexual material.
The helpline provides callers with tailored support and advice, agreeing actions they will take; all with the ultimate aim of protecting children. Our online self-help intervention programme – Stop It Now Get Help – saw over 200,000 visitors in 2023.
As I hang up my professional hat, I reflect on the positive impact prioritising prevention has made in the battle against child sexual abuse. We have come to recognise that the scale of abuse is vast, and that we cannot simply arrest our way out of it. Stop It Now is one important part of an ever-growing but sadly piecemeal provision of prevention resources and services. These include programmes to educate parents and other protectors to help prevent abuse; support for children to understand their rights not to be touched or harmed sexually and efforts (as well as legislation) to galvanise the tech industry to take responsibility for, and prevent, the harms that arise on its platforms.
The scale, nature, and pathways to abuse may change, and we must adapt our responses to victims and perpetrators accordingly. But we must never, ever, take our eyes off the prize of prevention. Child sexual abuse is not inevitable.
Donald Findlater is a prevention pioneer and former director of Stop It Now at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.
