Paedophile crime is something that's just too horrible for us to think about

Paedophile crime is something that's just too horrible for us to think about

14 October 2009

By Sarah Foster

Picture a paedophile and what do you see?

The rise in internet-based abuse might mean that you no longer imagine a man in a mac, but I'm certain that most of us do still see a man, rather than a woman.

You don't have to be a parent yourself to find even the idea that someone could sexually abuse a child totally and utterly incomprehensible.

It's the kind of sickening crime that most of us find too horrific to contemplate, and yet we know that paedophiles do exist, and that innocent children do get abused.

That said, the thought that someone like Tracy Lyons could be accused of such offences goes against every ideal we hold dear.

She's a woman, and a mother, and the last kind of person that we would expect to see charged with such abhorrent crimes.

For many of us the news of the Plymouth nursery convictions was hard to fathom, but worrying new research suggests that up to 20 per cent of suspected UK paedophiles could be women.

Among them were nursery worker Vanessa George and her accomplice, Angela Allen, convicted as part of the same inquiry that has now turned the spotlight on Tracy Lyons.

A jury must now decide whether she is guilty of the charges that have been brought against her.

What is certain, though, is that this latest development will end a shiver down all of our spines.

The all-too clear reality is that some women do abuse children. Vanessa George and Angela Allen are proof of that.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/tracylyons/Comment-Paedophile-crime-is-something.5732004.jp