Paedophiles Behind A Face Of Respectability

Daily Telegraph (Australia)

September 21, 2009 12:34AM

A PAEDOPHILE lives at 10B McNeagle St, East Ryde*. He doesn't have a facial tic or a stutter. He doesn't look like the sex offender from central casting. And his name is not Dennis Ferguson.

He is one of tens of thousands of paedophiles, living in the suburbs, who don't walk around with big signs on their foreheads.

In about 90 per cent of child sex abuse cases, the perpetrator is a family member or friend, not some rock spider who abducts kids in the street.

"Offenders look like everybody else," Carol Ronken from Bravehearts, a support group for child sex victims, said.

"We need to be vigilant within our own four walls."

Six year old Naomi*, who drew the picture at the bottom of this page, is among the one-in-five Australian children who have been molested.

There's no way of sugar-coating this.

The drawing shows Naomi in bed, watched by her father and a man she calls "grandpa" who rapes her in a way too gruesome to describe.

Five years ago Naomi's mother Debbie* found child pornography on the home computer. She called the police, who convicted her husband.

He was later charged with sexually abusing his young niece.

It was then that Debbie found semen on her 18-month-old daughter's clothing.

The family fled to Adelaide but, under the controversial shared parenting laws, Debbie was forced to return to Sydney where her ex-husband had access to Naomi, supervised by his new wife.

When Naomi turned three, she began complaining of a sore vagina. She behaved in sexually explicit ways that no three-year-old should know and told her mum: "Daddy did this."

Doctors discovered her hymen had been broken.

Despite all this, Debbie is still forced to give the father access to Naomi every second weekend, from 9am on Saturday to 6pm on Sunday. God only knows what happens between those hours.

According to the National Council for Children Post-Separation, there's a hidden epidemic of child sexual abuse in the home. If mums raise concerns which can't be proven in court, they risk having more time awarded to an alleged perpetrator - or losing custody of kids.

Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant wrote to Attorney-General Robert McClelland demanding urgent changes to protect at-risk children.

During protests about Dennis Ferguson last week, a neighbour said it was "unacceptable how a person of his calibre was placed in there", as the Government scrambled to find alternative housing.

While I applaud these residents for protecting their children, where were the concerned neighbours - and authorities - when little Naomi was being sexually abused?

And where were they when a man in Victoria's Latrobe Valley was allegedly raping his daughter for 30 years, producing four children? It seems we're ready with the pitchforks when an obvious predator is in our midst - but we turn a blind eye when the offender looks like Joe Average.

There's an old saying that you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

But we've all had our suspicions.

It's just easier to look the other way.

Neighbours of the man dubbed "Australia's Josef Fritzl" said "a lot of people knew about this" and "something should have been done sooner".

Having lived in the Latrobe Valley for two years, I wouldn't be surprised if there are dozens more Aussie Fritzls.

In the hills around Morwell and Moe unemployment is high, families are broken and incest is rife.

The daughter reportedly took out a restraining order against her father two years ago but authorities were deaf, dumb and blind.

It's the same story in Sydney where Naomi remains at risk during each access visit despite numerous interviews with police, doctors and the Department of Child Safety.

Why is it that government departments do nothing then try to clean up the mess when the damage is done?

There are three reviews under way into shared parenting laws, with calls for interim measures now before any more children are hurt.

In the meantime, we all have a role in keeping our eyes and ears open - and being brave enough to stand up and report something if it doesn't seem right.

That caricature of a child molester, Dennis Ferguson, will be moved on to another community, which will no doubt try to evict him.

But how many others are living in the same suburb? The same street? Or the house next door?

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/paedophiles-behind-a-face-of-respectability/story-e6frezz0-1225777180646

Good heavens have you seen this video where he is kicking out at everyone?

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/inside-the-mind-of-evil-predator-convicted-paedophile-dennis-ferguson/story-e6freuy9-1225776838465

The pedo has been housed right next to a primary school!