child sex abuse images on computer

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kh2010
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2019 10:50 am

child sex abuse images on computer

Post by kh2010 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 11:48 am

Hello,I was arrested in November for the above topic (please don't judge) I am a loving family man with two adult children and one eight year old,I admitted the offense in the police station and was given conditional bail which was supervised contact at home with my youngest and to sleep at my parents,shocked as I was I did just that,then ss got involved,he came to my home for a chat and me and my partner of 30 years saw him separately at the main offices,he also wanted to see all my children separately to conduct a risk assessment,unfortunately he didn't see my youngest before a meeting and I was told I couldn't have any contact Whatsoever,we were heartbroken,I've made a huge mistake,anyway after a long week he had seen my children and sat in my living room with myself and partner and said he had no concerns whatsoever and he was recommending that I came home,but it was up to his manager,hopes up I was called the day after and was told it can only be supervised visits at my parents and inlaws,this is now causing all levels of stress and have asked the social worker involved to see if we can change the agreement,we have no confidence in him as every decision he makes he says its up to his manager,why send him to my home if he can't make his own decisions,please help

Miserylovescompany2
Posts: 220
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2017 6:55 pm

Re: child sex abuse images on computer

Post by Miserylovescompany2 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:31 pm

Hello,

You are not alone in your current struggle - there are past and present FRG members who have similar stories. You are at the beginning of a long battle - I won't sugar coat it. Right now CS view you as a risk - they will no doubt wish to undertake a risk assessment - during this time it isn't uncommon for CS to ask you to leave your home and have no unsupervised contact with your child(ren). I don't mean to frighten you but some families are still only permitted to have supervised contact years after the initial offence.

I do worry that the SW has been somewhat misleading - they've told you one thing and essentially given you hope only to have it abruptly taken again. The SW can not make such decisions and their recommendations only play a part in the decision making process. Management make the big decisions - for the majority of parents the only time they see a manager is at a CPP conference or if they make the request themselves.

My advice would be to get a good solicitor with experience in this area - otherwise CS will stampede all over you.

PerfectlySafeDad
Posts: 171
Joined: Tue Aug 23, 2016 2:57 am

Re: child sex abuse images on computer

Post by PerfectlySafeDad » Thu Jan 10, 2019 8:04 pm

Great advice by miserylovescomoany. That said, don't despair; cases are individual and vary a lot in how they work out.
Kh, I have utmost sympathy for your position, and as one convicted of similar offences I certainly do not judge! It's brave of you to put it as 'child sex abuse images' in your title, which is the favoured term of all children's charities and safeguarding authorities these days, even though in law and on the charge sheets it will say 'indecent images' which sounds less awful. It will stand you in good stead if you use the harsher terminology with everyone you work with, together with expressing the regret and pain, as it demonstrates understanding and remorse. True, many images are outright abuse, whereas many are also merely 'indecent', but I think the whole let gets lumped together and we are painted as badly as possible, all part of the demonization. Agree with it, though, and your outcome will be better. That is only half the issue; our wider alleged risk ie to our own kids, is the other half.
I am convinced you are indeed a loving family man and no risk whatever to your youngest child (and obviously not the elder ones, as any idiot should be able to see). I say this from experience, understanding the offences (which SS do not, but pretend they do), being able to 'read between the lines' in your tone, and observations and the stories of others. It is quite simply abundantly clear that where image offences are involved, serious though it is, it is so DIFFERENT. Rarely does this cross over into contact offence against anybody, and extremely rarely in any way at all to offensive tendencies against one's biological children. In cases where it 'might', it should be pretty obvious, and I firmly believe wherever there is no evidence of an actual incident or 'thought' towards one's own, it should be a GIVEN that you in the clear from such a horrible slur and children's services should back out and go where they are urgently needed. The fact they don't is, I believe, an abuse of our and our children's human rights and into the bargain they should be prosecuted for letting genuinely in-need children down by failure to allocate desperately thin resources.
In your case, what has happened here is that you were given the knee-jerk 'no contact whatsoever' order as a response to your offences; this would come from management, to cover their backs and assume the worst about you until your details were known better.
Then, you were indeed known better, by your social worker who concluded in person what I have gleaned from afar - that you are a perfectly normal and safe Dad. However, management - this time with much less excuse - have again stepped in with draconian conditions, albeit this time with the magnanimity to allow 'supervised' contact. I, and many others of us (but not these alleged experts in an alleged caring agency), know only too well that these conditions are in fact awful (for the families) to manage, deeply stressful for ALL the adults, de-humanizing for the 'offender' (I use quotes because he's not, by definition, an offender towards the children in question), and insidiously harmful to the children who over time are made to grow up with the lie Daddy is not 'safe' in some awful way, and missing out on formative bonding time.
Do not be hard on your social worker; clearly he has seen sense and sounds like a fair guy. So much of our situation depends on people (I am 3 years in to my story), their judgements and the luck of timing, who you get and when. Be sure, this social worker of yours is an ALLY, if not for his report you would now probably be in a position of no contact at all with your youngest for a very long time, save for periodic supervised meets at a contact centre (if there is a functioning one within 30 miles of you). Keep him onside; also ask if there is written evidence somewhere of the assessments HE made, and can you have it, because this at least is your evidence in your favour for the future. Any negative snippets of info about you, no matter how casually or stupidly acquired, will sure as hell get absorbed into the system and used against you by management in years to come, so be on your guard (and the rest of your family at all times) to avoid letting slip any faults whatsoever, even things which are normal in any human's life.
Your case confirms what I've always thought; management are the draconian element; they are, I'm afraid, unfeeling pigs, jealously guarding their positions and unwilling to take what in their mean view is the slightest risk (even though all life is a slight risk - how can you escape that one?), and instead of trusting in the evidence they do have of your safeness, they have the arrogance to pretend they have personal expertise on the case. This is not only slanderous towards you and parents like us, in effect a false accusation of an 'imagined' (by them) future or (without evidence) past crime towards your own child.
Possibly the most damning thing of all on their behaviour is that they patently do not have faith, in your case, in their own qualified staff. This decision is in effect a vote of no confidence in their ranks. How on earth can a professional body expect to function efficiently and fairly towards the public it is mandated to represent if it does not even have trust in itself, in effect management belittling its own employees - basically to protect their fat position, whilst claiming it is all about children. No doubt they would have a clinical retort to this, like 'assessments must be made on a collected range of evidence'; yet they do not have resources to make and gather this, at least not for a very long time, so instead of being willing to go with the positives they do have (professional at that!) they shut the door and drag it out; the time-span in itself surely a human rights abuse regardless of the eventual outcome.
No wonder workers leave in droves or continually go off sick, when their hard work on the scores of cases they are forced to handle (again, so management can cover themselves totally) is dismissed or hits a brick wall (as when they try to get urgent help for some child but are stalled by impenetrable bureaucracy).
Thanks for bearing with me, as I used your story to kind of give my manifesto on this issue, but it struck a close chord with me.
Advice: reserve your resentment for management and the system itself (though don't show it to them, or they'll make an enemy of you, that's what they are like - so much for objectively caring about children), but work with whatever you've got; supervised contact is a start, and might progress quite quick if your offences were not too massive. Avail yourself of every support or friend you can to help you stay patient and calm with your family in all the contact meetings; you must make them run as smoothly as possible, let out no emotion and no hint of depression or self-harm tendencies if the going gets tough. CS will just use those things as excuses for tighter conditions, depressing you further still, which they'll act on further still..and so on.
Much depends on what charges you end up with, and how honest and repentant you are about them. That said, do not admit to anything that is NOT a crime - such as having fantasies that you did not act on - in the mistaken belief that this is 'ok' and proves you are 'only a fantasist'. They'll jump all over it, bumping.up your risk assessment. Make no mistake, although you have committed actual offences on the internet that you should be sorry for, you are also in a witch hunt. Tread wisely. Good luck, with common sense and a good support network you'll get through and get your family back

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Suzie, FRG Adviser
Posts: 4207
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:57 pm

Re: child sex abuse images on computer

Post by Suzie, FRG Adviser » Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:39 pm

kh2010 wrote: Wed Jan 02, 2019 11:48 am Hello,I was arrested in November for the above topic (please don't judge) I am a loving family man with two adult children and one eight year old,I admitted the offense in the police station and was given conditional bail which was supervised contact at home with my youngest and to sleep at my parents,shocked as I was I did just that,then ss got involved,he came to my home for a chat and me and my partner of 30 years saw him separately at the main offices,he also wanted to see all my children separately to conduct a risk assessment,unfortunately he didn't see my youngest before a meeting and I was told I couldn't have any contact Whatsoever,we were heartbroken,I've made a huge mistake,anyway after a long week he had seen my children and sat in my living room with myself and partner and said he had no concerns whatsoever and he was recommending that I came home,but it was up to his manager,hopes up I was called the day after and was told it can only be supervised visits at my parents and inlaws,this is now causing all levels of stress and have asked the social worker involved to see if we can change the agreement,we have no confidence in him as every decision he makes he says its up to his manager,why send him to my home if he can't make his own decisions,please help
Dear kh2010

Welcome to the parents’ discussion forum and thank you for your post.

I from your post that you were arrested for having indecent of children on your computer, you admitted the offence and it appears that you are currently on bail, which I assume means that the police are carrying out further investigations.

The bail conditions required you to reside at your parent’s home and you could have supervised contact with your 8 year old.
As is normal, children’s services received a referral from the police because there is a young child in your family. Children’s services have to act on a referral in respect of safeguarding, please see our advice sheet An introductory guide to Children’s Services for more information.

I can understand that it was difficult for you to be told that you could not have contact with your child but this was probably because there was concern that he could be told how to respond to questions or not to. Once the social worker had an opportunity to speak with your son, he concluded that he had no concerns. However, he explained that he would have to discuss this with his manager.

You are concerned that the social worker cannot make a decision without going to a manager. I think it is important that you understand that the social work team manager have oversight of all cases and is responsible for all of the decision making. Individual social workers would, I believe, have to advocate strongly for any decision he or she makes to the team manager but the final decision will rest with the manager who is likely to be a more experienced social worker.

If the police investigations has not been completed it may be that the team manager take a view that until this is done contact should remain supervised. You do not say in your post what the outcome of the social worker’s meeting with his manager.

It is important to work with children’s services cooperatively as their role is to ensure that children are being brought up in a safe environment.
You may wish to consider making contact with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation who offers advice and support to families where there are issues in relation to sexual offences.

Should you wish to speak to adviser, do telephone our free confidential advice line. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday.

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

Fa235
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2018 8:43 pm

Re: child sex abuse images on computer

Post by Fa235 » Sat Feb 02, 2019 10:47 pm

I can relate to this with my social worker. My children were put on a CP plan and he said he was there to help us get off it. However, everything he says is vetted by his manager who is actually making it harder and harder with the constant moving of goal posts. I would make sure write everything down with the dates. I wish I had because what has been said in my home has been totally twisted on paper in the reports.

May12345
Posts: 65
Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:03 pm

Re: child sex abuse images on computer

Post by May12345 » Fri Feb 08, 2019 7:43 pm

Hi KH wife of a man charged with iioc on his laptop back just over a year ago. He has been out of the family home for almost 21m not by choice but due to the length of investigation, charge, endless assessments and work through Children’s services.

I second the Lucy Faithfull organisation have been an amazing support and resource as has this forum. To meet people in the same situation has helped a lot. Out children are now 14, 12, 10, 8 and just turned 1. I was just pregnant when we had the knock.

We can’t change the past all we can do is reflect, learn and change. There is life afterwards and I hope some possibility of family life again in different shapes and forms. Try to be strong do what is required it’s a v slow process. Do the LF Inform plus course if you can, try to understand why you did it this will help you not reoffend. Try not to get photographed when you go to court as my husband was and in paper lost his job and some friends.

Check my numberous posts if you have time and your wife too.

PerfectlySafeDad
Posts: 171
Joined: Tue Aug 23, 2016 2:57 am

Re: child sex abuse images on computer

Post by PerfectlySafeDad » Sun Feb 17, 2019 2:49 am

The common denominator is management isn't it. Utter *short word for part of female anatomy*s.
'Senior social worker' indeed. So that means they think they know better than the worker on the ground? From their plump little office, they can cast a quick decision amidst the other 2,000 cases they have on the books? Hell of a lot of power, that. Hope they feel good about themselves.
They make the decision that best covers their back and protects their job, full stop. The children are incidental

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