The media and the monsters

Thanks largely to the mass media, it is generally accepted by now that there is no crime in the world worse than paedophilia. Murder doesn't even come close. Serial killers are almost saints in comparison. Large-scale fraudsters, the muggers of old people, bombers, terrorists, multiple rapists, mass-murderers and genocidal lunatics are no more than minor social deviants compared to the man with an unhealthy interest in children.

That is what a paedophile is, and it is quite bad enough, but in the public mind it is now a man who instantly and always acts on his unspeakable urges, and indulges in his depraved and destructive behaviour at every possible opportunity.

The public and the police now appear to see no difference between the pathetic sexually-deviant loner wandering the streets (or more lately the equally pathetic Internet cruiser) and the vicious people who actually abuse children physically and mentally, and trade in morally corrupt pictures and film. By this reckoning, the man who gave us the Alice in Wonderland books (and who certainly had an odd interest in young girls) is as evil and horrific as the worst active paedophile in today's society.

Last week, a 51-year-old male nurse was warned in a British court that he faced up to 10 years' imprisonment after he admitted 20 charges of downloading indecent images from the Internet. This seems to have shocked the defendant, so he was informed that recently-introduced laws in Britain mean that downloading such images is treated as seriously as actually taking or creating the images. So the fellow who prints out a set of such pictures simply for his own unspeakable pleasure is regarded as just as evil a criminal as the person who actually took the photographs of the unfortunate children and made them universally available.

Is this fair? The distinctions of criminality in this odious area are now gone. It still remains perfectly acceptable (in terms of the law) to stare at depraved imagery on screen for as long as one wishes, but with public opinion running the way it currently is, it seems only a matter of time before the police in Britain are allowed to burst in to your study and check that you are indeed working on your master's thesis on Byzantine art, and not gratifying depraved sexual urges by means of the Internet.

Paul Stevens, the male nurse who was charged with the offences in a Wiltshire court last week, was shopped to the police by his wife. She grew suspicious when he began spending a lot of time at his computer, and her father and brother helped her find out what he was up to. After the hearing she told reporters that her nine-year marriage had been going through "a bad patch", but she had never had an inkling of his paedophile interests: "Obviously I haven't had any contact with him since. I haven't seen or heard from him since all this happened . . . thankfully we didn't have any children. I don't want anything more to do with him."

In calling the police to her home, Mrs Stevens took action which some people will see as brave and civic-minded. Others might feel that the "bad patch" in a nine-year marriage must have been particularly bad, and that her action was vindictive in the extreme. Before facing what may be a 10-year prison term (sentencing has been adjourned), Mr Stevenson must undergo psychiatric tests. In other words the court accepts the possibility that he may be mentally ill. If so, treatment will no doubt be recommended (in prison) and it may be that whatever illness he suffers from can be cured.

His wife does not appear to be interested in knowing whether he is sick or not - or curable - she simply wants nothing more to do with him. Fine. But for her to imply that any children they might have had would have been molested by her husband is quite an outrageous projection.

However, Mrs Stevens's reactions are understandable. The burgeoning army of pop psychologists in the media paints paedophiles as monsters beyond all human help. We are regularly told that they are "in denial" and do not recognise their own evil nature. We are also given to understand (quite idiotically) that they lurk everywhere, around every corner, just waiting for the chance to pounce on our children. We are encouraged to regard them as untouchables and untreatables.

It might actually be simpler to sentence all convicted paedophiles to death. The public, its opinion already well moulded in this area by the media, would probably be receptive. Paedophiles themselves might welcome the idea, because if paedophiles found themselves awaiting execution on death row, they might finally attract some genuine interest in the circumstances, background and/or mental conditions that brought them there.

bglacken@irish-times.ie