In Dublin senior officers from the Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence unit based at Harcourt Square are still conducting a major investigation into an organised child sex ring involving girls as young as 12.
One alleged ringleader is presently before the courts, but gardai have now widened their investigations in their efforts to crack a significant paedophile network for the first time. Further arrests are expected. Some vulnerable children, many of them homeless or in care, have been drawn into `survival sex' selling their bodies for money.
Along the east coast a core group of about 30 serial paedophiles have been identified so far, many of them professional, middle-aged married men. Businessmen, managing directors and wealthy property-owners who are willing to travel long distances to indulge their sick perversion are major figures in the network.
Evidence began to emerge in Dundalk two years ago when suspicious activities at a phone box in the centre of the town came to the attention of youth workers. As darkness fell each evening the youngsters, of both sexes emerged from the side streets and outlying housing estates around Dundalk.
Drawn by the promise of money, gifts and alcohol, the children would wait for a phonecall to the coinbox. Arrangements would be made. Many of the paedophiles had their own favourites and would be checking on their availability.
Within moments a car, sometimes a top of the range executive saloon would pull up and the victim would step quickly into the front seat. From there they would be taken to secluded locations around the town, the racecourse, the industrial estates, and the coast, where they would be subjected to the vilest forms of sexual abuse.
Although many of the paedophiles operated independently, some of the youngsters say there was also collusion between groups of men. They told childcare workers they were video-taped during group sex sessions.
Brian Doyle, a youth project manager based in Dundalk, has been highlighting the sexual exploitation of children in the area for more than two years. He believes that Dundalk is the geographic centre of a major paedophile ring operating along the east coast.
``The dogs in the street know about it and who is involved. It is not confined to Dundalk but it would seem to one of the central locations.''
Doyle believes that since the problem was first highlighted, it has worsened but the perpetrators have gone further underground. The phone box is no longer the focal point and meeting places change frequently. ``The situation seems to have disimproved. What happens is that when these men feel they are at risk of being caught, they become cleverer and get more of a thrill out of it.
``They may even become more active. The higher the risk the greater the buzz for them but they also become more dangerous. These men are by no means on the dole. Many of them are professionals who arrive in Mercedes and BMWs.''
Re: BBC Watch!
Originally Posted by bernadette
That's the sad thing. We investigate and expose them, at great expense, and then we file it somewhere deep and dark. I don't know why we bother with the investigation at all at all.
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