The Children in the Pictures, a harrowing must-see
STEPHEN ROMEI, FILM CRITIC - SEPTEMBER 17, 2021
The Children in the Pictures MA15+
In cinemas and virtual screenings.
Some sessions include Q&As.
Screening details: childreninthepictures.org
★★★★★
1/2
In 2019 I interviewed Scottish crime novelist Val McDermid, creator of Wire in the Blood. I asked whether, in the course of her research into psychopaths, she had encountered evils too shocking to put on the page.
Her reply slightly surprised me. To paraphrase, she said, “All the time.’’ What such people did in the real world, which she learned from interviews with criminal profilers like her character Tony Hill, was far too confronting to put into a book for the general reading public.
I thought of this as I watched The Children in the Pictures, an Australian documentary about online child sexual abuse that is hard to watch and should be watched by everyone.
“People have not seen what we see, and we don’t want them to,’’ says Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, head of Task Force Argos, a division of the Queensland Police Service. And we do not see it in this 84-minute film.
We do not see or hear the videos of under-fives being raped for the gratification of paid-up members of online groups such as Baby Love and Toddler Fun.
This film, co-directed by Akhim Dev and Simon Nasht, does not want people to walk out or switch off because they can’t cope with what they are seeing. The filmmakers, and the members of Argos, want people to watch, care and act.
On the few times we do see what the police see, the images are blurred. Even then you will want to look away. This is the most disturbing film I have seen, in any genre.
We do see, recreated from evidence, what people ask for when they log on to paedophilia forums. “Make her scream.” The girl being abused was three. It is incomprehensible but it is happening.
We do see the names of suspects pinned to the wall, just like in a regular crime show, but as they are all online it’s not Tony Soprano the police want to bust but perfectly naughty, skunkmonster, revenger, obey and so on. And they are not in New Jersey but all over the world, connected by the web. Most importantly we hear the officers talk about their harrowing work. “You hear the children scream,” Rouse says. “There are things that will never leave you, ever.”
Argos is a world leader in investigating child exploitation and abuse and several of its officers started working with it in their own countries before moving to Australia to join up.
Among those interviewed are Paul Griffiths, ex Greater Manchester Police, Adele Desirs, ex Interpol in France, Scott Anderson from the US, who says his previous work in counter terrorism prepared him for the job, and Warren Bulmer, ex Toronto City Police.
When Bulmer was first contacted out of the blue by Rouse it related to a case out of his jurisdiction. Asked why he decided to help, he says that when a child is being abused “there is no such thing as no”.
When Argos, named after the all-seeing, all-protecting giant from Greek mythology, was founded in 1997 its main job was to investigate historic allegations of abuse in children’s institutions. “Then,’’ says Rouse, who has worked in child protection for two decades, “the internet happened.”
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