A couple of us have been reading up on police investigation into crimes against children .....
Here is a transcript of an excerpt from a VERY long article in this weekend's Telegraph, Advertiser & Gold Coast Bulletin. (No breach of the copyright rule here on WS, there are pages and pages in this article - providing examples of various crimes against children, as well, and a basic outline of how they caught the offenders.)
“It’s impossible to prevent everything, that would be a perfect world. Rest assured that what does go through the system when it’s investigated, it is all stops out, it’s given absolute priority and I make no apologies about that.”
The little lives destroyed in these vicious attacks are difficult to investigate. The young victims are unable to speak up for themselves following brutal assaults.
“The hardest thing with this is, we are talking about little, little kids, day old, month old, year old children,” Supt Johnson said. “As investigators, we’ve got extremely gifted people, but there is a certain point where we can’t get a version of what has happened from a child, because they are too young, they can’t speak.
“These children can’t speak, some of these kids who are victims of grievous bodily harm might never speak. If they’ve been killed, they’re silenced forever.”
The investigation that follows can be time-consuming and exhaustive, often taking two years before an alleged offender will front a court.
“People often ask, a child was harmed or died two years ago, why are we only making arrests now,” Supt Johnson said. “We have to treat everything in a certain way, a thorough investigation right from the beginning, because if in 12 to 18 months time we find out that it wasn’t an accident, there’s foul play, we can’t go back in history and recreate an investigation.
“As much as it’s hard on families and other people as well, we have to be thorough and do an A grade job, because we don’t have the luxury to go back in time and do it again.
“When we collect our evidence for a deceased or seriously injured child, it has to be forensically examined.
“Some of these jobs take two, to two and a half years before they go to court. Sometimes with the nature of injuries, there are a lot of people who have access to a child, whether it’s daycare, medical, school, neighbours, uncles, aunties, whatever.
“We have to go through every one of those persons and that’s where the thoroughness of the investigation takes place.”
He said police officers become detectives because they have a calling to this type of work.
“You are in this game as an investigator for those bigger investigations, that’s what our calling is,” he said.
Advertiser
True Crime Australia: How to catch a child killer
August 18, 2018