24 Hours in Police Custody: Ch4

[Melman Giraffe]

i recorded this to watch over the weekend, having read above i think i will give it a miss

[1602Mark]

It's definitely a tough watch in parts. That said, it was also a fascinating insight into what the Police go through in an effort to find and prosecute these people.

I found it incredible that someone would use toiler graffiti as a method to communicate with equally sick individuals and (like the Police) assumed it was most likely a trap by vigilantes.

[thetapeworm]

Mojooo said:

Undercover Police: Hunting Paedophiles

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/undercover-pol...

Bit of a shocker in the 2nd half.

I'd missed that, set the first part to download and a reminder for the second.

Not the nicest of topics but it exists sadly.

Does it just focus on the undercover police or does it cover some of the self appointed paedophile hunters too?

[nice1two]

thetapeworm said:

I'd missed that, set the first part to download and a reminder for the second.

Not the nicest of topics but it exists sadly.

Does it just focus on the undercover police or does it cover some of the self appointed paedophile hunters too?

Just the police, watched it last night was insightful as to what the police go throuh but very hard to watch.

[hungry_hog]

The worst type of people are those that torture the vulnerable - be that children, the elderly or animals, or any victim not in a position to defend itself.

Obviously this programme deals with the former.

Sickening

And the worrying thing - a couple of these people were working in schools or care homes.

[anonymoususer]

thetapeworm said:

Mojooo said:

Undercover Police: Hunting Paedophiles

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/undercover-pol...

Bit of a shocker in the 2nd half.

I'd missed that, set the first part to download and a reminder for the second.

Not the nicest of topics but it exists sadly.

Does it just focus on the undercover police or does it cover some of the self appointed paedophile hunters too?

Police
BUT it does cover the self appointed in a roundabout but pertinent way. One of the officers who has created an alter ego of a perpetrator is in communication with another perpetrator. For some time he is suspicious that the other guy may be a vigilante effectively doing similar work to himself.
I noted that at one point he says that his belief about the vigilantes is that they do it primarily for ego and self satiusfaction.

[sgtBerbatov]

hungry_hog said:

And the worrying thing - a couple of these people were working in schools or care homes.

It is a worry, but that's what happens. They put themselves in to positions of care and power in order to have easy access to the victims. But that's an age old problem, and there isn't a fat lot you can do to stop them getting there. Most who get in to those jobs don't have a record to prevent them from getting there, and often relies on the courage and testimony of the victims to actually get them brought to book over it. You can't ask them at the interview "are you a sexual predator", and even if you could how would you know they're telling the truth?

There is a well known youth "charity" in the UK that had (I'm not sure if they still have) problems with a gentleman who would offer his services to various clubs. Long and the short of it was they would travel a long distance, become friendly with parents who would offer them a bed for the night, trust is built up, said gentleman would then prey on their daughter. Chap gets found out, Police are involved, and they have everything they need to throw him in prison. Except, the parents drop the charges as they don't want the daughter's name dragged through the courts. The police can't do anything but let him go (I'm not sure on the details as to why), and said gentleman goes off to target another club in a different part of the country. The "charity" itself can't do anything, as while they know he did what he did, because there was no legal action, they can't bar him from participating like that.

As I said, I don't know whether they are still involved or not, but there were many instances of this person doing what he was doing and "nothing could be done". I'm sat in the room being told this by the child protection officer, and I'm sick as I would've thought the Police would've had enough to charge him without the involvement of the parents or children. But they couldn't apparently, so he gets away with it.

[hungry_hog]

sgtBerbatov said:

It is a worry, but that's what happens. They put themselves in to positions of care and power in order to have easy access to the victims. But that's an age old problem, and there isn't a fat lot you can do to stop them getting there. Most who get in to those jobs don't have a record to prevent them from getting there, and often relies on the courage and testimony of the victims to actually get them brought to book over it. You can't ask them at the interview "are you a sexual predator", and even if you could how would you know they're telling the truth?

There is a well known youth "charity" in the UK that had (I'm not sure if they still have) problems with a gentleman who would offer his services to various clubs. Long and the short of it was they would travel a long distance, become friendly with parents who would offer them a bed for the night, trust is built up, said gentleman would then prey on their daughter. Chap gets found out, Police are involved, and they have everything they need to throw him in prison. Except, the parents drop the charges as they don't want the daughter's name dragged through the courts. The police can't do anything but let him go (I'm not sure on the details as to why), and said gentleman goes off to target another club in a different part of the country. The "charity" itself can't do anything, as while they know he did what he did, because there was no legal action, they can't bar him from participating like that.

As I said, I don't know whether they are still involved or not, but there were many instances of this person doing what he was doing and "nothing could be done". I'm sat in the room being told this by the child protection officer, and I'm sick as I would've thought the Police would've had enough to charge him without the involvement of the parents or children. But they couldn't apparently, so he gets away with it.

Yeah fair point

Most of these hiding "in plain sight"

It's not the stereotypical random guy in a dirty mac outside the playground

[wjwren]

Bizarre episode. Bloke writing stuff on the toilet wall. Odd.

[Easternlight]

I found it staggering how obvious the peados were on the kids chat room, why is nobody brought to account for this ?
Surely if they are letting that go on they should be shut down.
I get freedom of speech but those type of forums should be very well moderated.

[kmpowell]

Uncle John said:

The Spruce Goose said:

Petrus1983 said:

I agree. Usually pretty relaxed over what I see on the tv - but feel this programme went too far on numerous levels.

Describing the 'baby', film, what was the point of describing the detail unless voyeuristic. I felt very uncomfortable and wouldnt watch it again. it felt very seedy.

Yep too much. There was the normal disclaimer at the start but it was a tough watch for any normal adult.

I will not be watching next weeks.

I totally agree - I'm by no means a prude and can watch pretty much anything on TV, but I'm not ashamed to admit that after watching this yesterday evening on catch-up I had a sleepless night last night. The 2 specific parts of the programme that troubled me the most were the description of the baby scene being discussed on the dark web, but more-so the female officer graphically describing the video found on the man's phone whilst the camera was cutting to blurred screengrabs on her screen.

Both bits were 100% unnecessary, and went far & beyond anything needed in a 'factual' show.

Perhaps as a father of a 4 year old girl, I am ultra-sensitive, but IMO there are ways & means of informing people what goes on, and this crossed many many lines, to the point I felt it was setup deliberately to provoke voyeurs rather then to inform and educate.

I won't be watching again, and if you've not watched this yet but are tempted, I strongly advise you avoid, especially if you're a parent of young children.

[CoolHands]

I only watched first few mins and switched off as it was obvious it was horrible as soon as the under cover policeman started writing about smell of knickers on that chat room. Some things are not good to watch.

[1602Mark]

kmpowell said:

I strongly advise you avoid, especially if you're a parent of young children.

I agree, this is probably too graphic for parents of young children.

I've watched it (and will most likely watch the second part) as I work in criminal justice but I was shocked at how blatant chat room contacts appeared to be.

[eldar]

1602Mark said:

I agree, this is probably too graphic for parents of young children.

I've watched it (and will most likely watch the second part) as I work in criminal justice but I was shocked at how blatant chat room contacts appeared to be.

I watched it, my kids are adults now. I think the graphic descriptions were part of the evidence, and fully justified. It showed the true face of the crime and criminals involved, and how casual some elements of prevention are.

It is graphic, but illustrates for parents how wary they must be about unrestricted internet access for children.

I don't think it descended into there is a paedo behind every bush level, it was balanced.

I'd agree, watch with care.

[Janluke]

Part of the problem with the pre show warnings are they are used so often on loads of shows with no real need(Dad's Army FFS). Ironically this episode warranted one but I reckon most viewers will have ignored it

[anonymous-user]

eldar said:

It is graphic, but illustrates for parents how wary they must be about unrestricted internet access for children. .

Saying Baby xxxxxx Video, really had to explain what goes on in that video to get the message across, ffs the title is disturbing enough without a commentary. It was gratuitous and i think went too far.

[eldar]

The Spruce Goose said:

Saying Baby xxxxxx Video, really had to explain what goes on in that video to get the message across, ffs the title is disturbing enough without a commentary. It was gratuitous and i think went too far.

Fair enough, I'm not trying to say you are wrong, it is a difficult subject to cover without displeasing someone.

For me the coverage was proportionate, for you it wasn't. A hard watch either way.

[pidsy]

eldar said:

The Spruce Goose said:

Saying Baby xxxxxx Video, really had to explain what goes on in that video to get the message across, ffs the title is disturbing enough without a commentary. It was gratuitous and i think went too far.

Fair enough, I'm not trying to say you are wrong, it is a difficult subject to cover without displeasing someone.

For me the coverage was proportionate, for you it wasn't. A hard watch either way.

A hard watch no doubt.

I think a lot of the more “gratuitous” bits were included to show just what the officers in these jobs are dealing with.
I certainly didn’t realise that they were undercover in chat rooms typing that sort of stuff.

It showed exactly how tough these officers have it.

[kmpowell]

pidsy said:

I think a lot of the more “gratuitous” bits were included to show just what the officers in these jobs are dealing with.

It showed exactly how tough these officers have it.

I'm going to chip in here and say (per my original post), that this programme was supposed to be about how they catch these people, not 100% about what these criminals get up to. Sure, I agree giving context but, the second point in my original post still stands, so I'm going to try and make reference to it in detail to try and explain what I'm saying...

In the context of the programme why did they feel the need to tell the viewer in such graphic & emotional detail that the 18mth-2year old girl who was being r**** in the video was "being held down and struggling" and "in significant distress/pain", all whilst badly blurred pictures of the police officer's screen were shown several times. The fact it was an 18mth-2yr old in a video was all that needed to be said. That extra imagery and information about how that poor little girl was reacting was grotesquely unnecessary, unneeded and deeply upsetting on so many levels. As I said, I am a 43year old with young children, and one of those is a 4yr old girl, so perhaps it hit me harder than others, but I vehemently question why it was needed. The 'extra' information, and the expressions of anger on that policewoman's face really hit an emotional nerve with me (to the point that I had a sleepless night), and I strongly believe that did not have to be included in the programme. Some things don't need to be said, and that was one of them.

IMO, the programme was set-out that it was going to educate the public on what police officers do to catch these people, to help parents, to spread awareness, and to generally inform people this problem still exists and isn't going away. But as the programme went on it became apparent that it wasn't doing what they claimed it to do, and instead in many cases it became a documentary informing the viewer in graphic detail what these people do.

Apologies, if I'm coming across as having a bit of an emotional rant, but that programme for me crossed many unneccesary lines.

[stevensdrs]

Can't disagree with the above. It went further than it should have.