Detective Tells of Suspicions

By Gary Adshead
The West Australian
November 26, 2012

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/15477386/detective-tells-of-suspicions/

He was a frustrated detective who should have been a fortune teller.

On September 16, 1996, Andrew Patterson wrote a memo to his WA Police bosses about the lack of resources for fighting the evil of paedophilia.

"Our current response to paedophile crimes, including the criminal use of computers by these persons, is insufficient," he wrote. "In my view, this agency would be criticised should it become subject of an external inquiry similar to the Wood royal commission."

That prophecy might soon be put to the test by a looming royal commission into how agencies and institutions across Australia have responded to child abuse.

Mr Patterson believes his old police force has a case to answer about the poor resourcing and eventual closure of the highly successful paedophile investigations team.

"The deck was stacked," he told _The West Australian _. "It simply begs the question, why? More than that, it simply beggars belief, in my view."

After spending years as a chief investigator with the powerful Independent Commission against Corruption in NSW, Mr Patterson is now a local government ombudsman in Sydney.

He has moved on from the torment of seeing organised paedophilia "treated like a second rate crime" in WA.

He does harbour suspicions about the reasons back then for reducing proactive investigations into the most abhorrent crimes against children imaginable.

"We couldn't keep up with all the work we had and more resources would have helped," Mr Patterson said. "The more paedophiles you put in prison the less victims you have."

The paedophile team started on a three-month trial in June 1994, after then detective Patterson saw the need to go after those who actively targeted children for their deviant sexual gratification.

Together with another detective, Mr Patterson made a sudden and startling impact on WA's paedophiles.

From 53 investigations in three months, 20 men were arrested and 163 charges laid.

The team became a permanent fixture in the child abuse unit and expanded to four officers. The arrests kept coming.

Operations Amulet, Swap, Utility and others netted more than a dozen paedophiles.

In February 1995, Mr Patterson was asked before a Federal parliamentary committee.

"We currently know of the existence of at least 15 paedophile networks in this State," he said in a presentation.

"One network we are aware of has planned to set up a holiday resort in this State - one of their members having inherited a vast sum of money."

By September 1996, the computer database featured more than 900 known or suspected paedophiles and WA Police top brass were left in no doubt about the size of the problem.

Regardless, resourcing was still a major problem and in a no-nonsense memo in July 1997, Mr Patterson described it as a "critical issue".

In answers to questions yesterday, WA Police said the paedophile team was one section "rationalised during the Delta reforms, with areas amalgamating and the task being handled by other areas".

Since 2005, the targeting and monitoring of paedophiles has been left to the Australian National Child Offender Register and the Sex Offender Management Squad.