Dealing with the dark side

Hard task: DIA Censorship Compliance Unit national manager Steve O'Brien. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Internal Affairs staff who investigate child abuse internet traders are family men.

Steve O'Brien, national manager of the Censorship Compliance Unit says: "A lot of people don't seem to understand how bad the images are."

Interpol, he notes, has observed that the most common images distributed today are of children aged between 0 and 5, because that age group can't talk. "You can't get your head around zero to five can you? No one wants to."

Dealing with having to view such depictions of child abuse is difficult O'Brien says. All unit members are under a supervision programme with a clinical psychologist which includes individual and group sessions. Most of the unit have young families which O'Brien says can make it particularly tough when there's a case where the images are the same age as an investigating officer's children.

"You compartmentalise. 'This image relates to the Act under section 3.2a. This is where it comes under the Act. This is what I'm going to charge him with'."

O'Brien says sometimes the worst material is in text files, such as a 17-page document on how to rape an infant. "You have to read the whole document and that leaves a much more lasting impression on you than a still image."

Another officer, Jon Peacock says it helps that the office is an open, informal environment so that "everyone is continually debriefing each other". There's also "a fair bit of dark humour".

Often, after finishing a search warrant, the team will get together at the motel they're staying at and watch a movie.

Not surprisingly many quite like the CSI television shows and NCIS. That's how Peacock got his "DiNozzo" nickname - because apparently he has the same mannerisms as the NCIS character Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, says a team-mate. "DiNozzo has an investigative mind and also a technical mind. He can put the pieces together quite quickly and that's exactly what Jon can do."