The Knock
A True Story of an Innocent Man,
a Twisted Accusation and
the Fight for Truth
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ACCUSED OF DOWNLOADING
INDECENT IMAGES?
What can be worse than being accused of downloading indecent images of children, the most vulnerable people in society, the definition of innocence, our future.
Max is one of thousands arrested every year in the UK alone, most afraid to even mention it, because even the accusation is humiliating, never mind have the courage to fight it.
What will your wife think? What will your children think? What will your boss and colleagues at work think? What will your neighbours think? ‘He was accused of downloading indecent images of children?’ What would any normal rational human being think?
It is almost unthinkable, unspeakable, but sick, perverted, vile, disgusting and depraved are probably near the top of most people’s polite terms for it.
But all it takes for judgment hell to come down on top of you may be opening an email, a pop-up or one person to point the finger at you, and the machine roars into action with jaws of crocodile teeth that will snap out your life-as-you-know-it in an instant.
It is utterly terrifying beyond belief, as anyone, like Max, who has been through it, know all too well, and many do not survive to tell the tale.
77% of the total number of deaths by suicide, of those arrested in relation to a sexual offence between 2015-16, were individuals suspected of IIOC offences.
All the more so, because if you download indecent images of children (IIOC) you are considered a sex offender and most IIOC sex offenders are not your typical common or garden thieves, drug dealers, rapists or murderers, but formerly respectable and seemingly law-abiding citizens, with no prior convictions.
Offenders were predominantly white and aged between 35 and 45. They were better educated and more likely to work in professional occupations when compared to other sex offender
populations, and they typically had few previous convictions.(Brown and Bicknell 2018).
Despite media fear-mongering IIOC sex offenders are not necessarily pedophiles, in the form of contact offenders.
Viewing IIOC alone does not necessarily place someone at high risk of committing a contact sexual offence against a child … even when they live and work closely with children (Bailey et al., 2016)
IIOC sex offenders may be people suffering from a porn addiction that got out of hand.
Perkins (2018) proposes that IIOC offending could be related to sex or pornography addiction, whereby individuals seek out more extreme material when sexual arousal can no longer be maintained with the use of regular pornography.
Like having a drink, or smoking a joint, occasionally at a party becoming a daily habit, leading to something a bit stronger as you become more tolerant, searching porn on the web can lead to dangerous places, even without conscious intent.
And even just stating that defence-for-the-indefensible here, feels risky. Downloading indecent images of children is wrong, we all know that. But still, porn is the elephant in many millions of people’s living-rooms. What if the secret got out? What if you were arrested for it?
Worse still, what if you were arrested for downloading indecent images of children and were totally innocent.
How sure are you that if your computer was taken and subjected to microscopic IT forensic examination, which even uncovers deleted files, there would be no tiny trace of any pop-up, or underage image, lurking in the hidden depths of an apparently emptied recycle bin. Max was adamant there wasn’t. He was a schoolteacher, for chrissakes!
DCI Aria Dedrick was equally adamant there must be, because she’d had a tip-off, even if there wasn’t any immediate evidence, because in her game, there was no smoke without fire. And she was determined to prove it, for professional, and personal, reasons.
Aria had seen it all before. Comfortable middle-aged middle-class professionals swearing blind till the cows come home that they were innocent, until they couldn’t deny it any longer, and often broke down in tears, begging for mercy, as if her routine questioning were torture to them.
But Max was different. He wasn’t about to take it lying down. He wasn’t just fighting DCI Dedrick, he was fighting the whole overwhelming systemic machinery that takes over as soon as you become a suspect of downloading indecent images of children, including Social Services; And their powers are almighty; practically outside the law; David versus Goliath.
From arrest-to investigation-to trial, we follow Max through his heart-wrenching and soul-searching journey through the legal labyrinth to defend his innocence, at all costs, making the ultimate sacrifices he must make, to save his family, his name and his future.
A white-knuckle ride that pulls no punches, and takes no prisoners, calls a spade a spade, and tells it how-it-is, this journey is not for the feint-hearted. It contains profanity, shocking police descriptions and references to porn, which are not in any way, shape or form gratuitous, as well as references to abuse, addiction, depression and suicide. There are few stories that tell it from both sides, but here we get it all, in a blow-by-blow diarized account, following Max and Aria, to uncover the truth on a personal, social and societal level.
The events take place between Wednesday, 11th July 2018 and Saturday 30th March 2019, and include what was happening in the world at that time, which may make you remember what you were doing while all this this was happening, like in some parallel universe, as if they were actually happening to you.
At 546 pages, The Knock, packs more than a punch for its weight over those life-changing eight months for Max. From happily married family man to social pariah. We never appreciate what we have, as the saying goes, until it’s gone. But sometimes the way you fight, even the very decision to fight, against such appalling charges as downloading indecent images of children, is the only way. However painful.
At least it was for Max.
And without doubt, DCI Dedrick, too.
It all starts with THE KNOCK: A True Story of an Innocent Man, a Twisted Accusation and the Fight for Truth.
Sources:
Key, R., Underwood, A., Lawrenson, J., Hawton, K., Marzano, L., Kothari, R., Cresswell, L., &
Farnham, F. (2017). Managing perpetrators of child sexual exploitation and indecent
images of children (IIOC): Understanding risk of suicide. National Police Chiefs’ Council.
THE KNOCK
A True Story of an Innocent man,
a Twisted Accusation and the Fight for Truth
Introducing The Knock – a relentless rollercoaster of suspense that thrusts you into the heart-wrenching predicament of Max, an innocent family man, accused of downloading indecent images.
Imagine your life turned upside down in an instant. Accused of downloading indecent images you never touched. A loving spouse, two precious children – all hanging in the balance. But the accusations won’t relent. They’re coming for you, no matter what.
Everything drops on a dime, your life can change at the drop of a hat, just like that, at any time, just like that!
And it’s how you deal with it, can you come out the other side, will it break you? Me? Why me? This is not me!
In this pulse-pounding tale, brace yourself for a gripping fight against an unforgiving system. Max’s world teeters on the edge as he races against time, battling for his freedom and the truth that will unravel this sinister web of deception. Can he clear his name and shield his family from the haunting consequences?
The Knock is an unyielding exploration of justice, loyalty, and the harrowing lengths one man will go to protect all that he holds dear. Prepare for an unrelenting, gut-wrenching journey that will leave you questioning how far you would go to prove your innocence.
WARNING
“Between 2015 and 2019, nearly 62,000 obscene publications offences against children were recorded across 39 police forces within England and Wales (Office for National Statistics, 2020).
In the same time frame, 8,318,529 unique indecent images of children were added to the Child Abuse Image Database (CAID), with over 700,000 falling into the most severe category of image …
Importantly, a substantial parallel has been identified between the volume, availability, and circulation of Indecent Images of Children and the augmentation of the internet (Carr, 2003; Wolak et al., 2011).
While possession offences of this nature are not new (the Protection of Children Act 1978 first made Indecent Images of Children possession offences illegal within England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with similar provisions in Scotland), the number of recorded offences has been growing year by year (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, 2012).
Despite the true figure not being known, it has been suggested that in 2013, around 50,000 individuals within the United Kingdom downloaded Indecent Images of Children (Giles & Alison, 2021). These growing figures have attracted public interest in recent years.”