Ana Megawati
For Emily, the first two decades of her life unfolded with what she considered a “completely normal” and close relationship with her father, Mark. “He was an ordinary man,” she recounts, “A good dad. We were really close.” This perception was violently shattered one early morning when police officers arrived at her family home, not to deliver bad news about Emily, but to arrest Mark for her sexual abuse. Emily, having recently moved out to start her first proper job, was spared the immediate horror of the raid, a measure the police took to protect her. Two years later, she shares her harrowing story alongside her mother, Fiona, their shared trauma evident in their synchronized narratives and emotional support for one another.
The Dawn of Disbelief: An Unforeseen Arrest
The events of that fateful morning began at 7 AM for Fiona. Just having risen, she was still in her T-shirt and pants when she heard the insistent knock. Peering from her bedroom window, she saw a formidable presence: eight individuals, not in uniform but unmistakably official, complete with lanyards and a police dog. A woman among them made eye contact, pointing to the door with an urgency that conveyed the gravity of the situation. Fiona knew instantly this was no friendly visit. Descending the stairs, she found Mark already at the door, his demeanor unsettlingly calm, almost as if he anticipated their arrival. Yet, Fiona’s mind, in its immediate protective reflex, did not leap to the unthinkable: abuse.
The police quickly separated Fiona and Mark, proceeding to search the house meticulously. Their focus was not only on electronic devices like laptops but also, disturbingly, on Emily’s whereabouts. “They kept asking, ‘Where’s your daughter?’ I immediately thought something bad had happened to her,” Fiona recalls, her voice still laced with the shock of that moment. It was only as Mark was being escorted to the station that a senior female officer finally delivered the devastating blow: “They said to me, ‘Your husband has been sexually abusing your daughter.’”
A Daughter’s World Shattered Remotely
In the immediate aftermath, Fiona, consumed by shock and confusion, vehemently rejected the accusation. “I am so close to Emily. I felt strongly that I would have known.” But the police presented horrifying evidence: Mark had been caught on an online chat forum, detailing years of alleged rape and sexual abuse of Emily. This was presented as a confession, chillingly using Emily’s name and referencing their home address. The "random stranger" Mark believed he was confiding in was, in fact, an undercover police officer, now standing in Fiona’s living room.
Fiona describes sitting there, shaking, feeling as if she herself were on trial. The officers, observing her disbelief, seemed to perceive her as naive. They suggested the abuse began when Emily was a little girl, during bath times. Fiona’s immediate response was a firm denial: “No, he never gave her baths.” She painted a picture of Mark as a less "hands-on" father, stating she handled such tasks. The police also claimed Mark boasted online about recent abuse at a family event, an event Fiona knew never occurred. “It was not matching with reality,” she emphasizes, highlighting the stark disconnect between the allegations and her lived experience.
The officers then revealed they possessed a photo Mark had shared in these chats. Fiona was “terrified,” fearing it would be something explicit. Instead, it was a familiar image: a young Emily in a new dress, smiling at the camera. Fiona remembered taking it. “That was the absolute worst moment, realising that he had used that photo in these chats.”
Against her better judgment, and under police instruction, Fiona called Emily. Two years on, she deeply regrets it. “I didn’t think to stop them. I didn’t think: wait, you are going to shatter her world and she’s so far away. To this day she can’t cope with calls that come out of the blue.” Emily, asleep at her shared house, was woken by a video call from her mother, her face framed by the familiar living room and the ominous presence of police. “She told me the police were there with her, that they had come to arrest my dad for sexually abusing me.”
Like her mother, Emily’s first instinct was that the police were fundamentally mistaken. The officers took over the call, barraging her with questions: Did she remember bath times with her father? Had he ever touched her inappropriately? Emily consistently replied no. The police reiterated the online "confession," describing graphic accounts of years of abuse and emphasizing that they had acted that morning because they believed Emily was in immediate danger. The call ended abruptly, with instructions for Emily to return home in a few days to meet them in person.
From that moment, Emily’s perception of her father and her entire childhood began to unravel. Plunged into a state of horror and confusion, she describes the experience as feeling “as if half of my memories had died or been rewritten.” Every interaction, every outfit, every hug from her father became subject to agonizing scrutiny.
The Unraveling Truth: Fantasies vs. Reality
The initial police conviction that Emily’s memories would “come to the surface” proved unfounded. When Emily returned home two days later, the police presented both women with the trove of graphic messages. Fiona, who had wrestled with the terrifying possibility of buried memories and her own parental oversight, found her doubts dispelled upon their reunion. While Fiona was kept out of the room, Emily was interviewed by sexual assault experts and walked through the messages by the detective in charge. “They were very graphic,” Fiona states, suggesting the intent was to shock Emily and gauge her reaction.
Despite the excruciating pain of reading her father’s lurid fantasies, Emily remained resolute. Mark, she maintained, had been an ordinary, if somewhat distant, father – never abusive. “It felt as if they were waiting for me to remember this trauma, for that specific crime to be uncovered,” Emily reflects. “I didn’t feel that they ever really believed me. I signed a form to say I hadn’t been abused and I think at that moment they began to lose interest.” This lack of belief in the victim’s testimony, particularly when it contradicts initial assumptions, highlights a critical challenge in such investigations.
Legal Labyrinth: From Sexual Abuse to Online Communications Offence
With Emily’s consistent denial, the sexual assault charges against Mark were ultimately dropped. They were replaced with a lesser charge: sending by public electronic communication messages of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character, under the Communications Act 2003. Emily and Fiona anticipated Mark would plead guilty, given his undeniable online admissions. Emily began preparing a victim impact statement, a testament to the profound harm inflicted even without physical abuse.
Fiona observed Emily’s struggle, noting how she began to refer to her father and “Mark” as two distinct entities, a clear sign of dissociation from the man she once knew. In a radical effort to rebuild their shattered lives, Fiona quickly secured a new job and initiated plans to move hundreds of miles away, physically and emotionally distancing herself from the wreckage.
During this period, Emily delved into the dark corners of the internet, researching sex chat sites. She was appalled by the ease with which individuals could access and participate in discussions glorifying child abuse. Her father’s username, she discovered, was an “obvious reference to child abuse,” openly visible. She desperately wanted Mark prosecuted for his online fantasies, and for her own experience to be recognized as victimisation, a concept the police seemed unable to grasp.
However, a devastating blow arrived just before the court hearing: a text from Mark declaring he would not plead guilty. “He said, ‘I’ve found a loophole.’ With help from his lawyer, he had found a way to plead not guilty,” Fiona recounts, highlighting his perceived lack of remorse. Days later, the police informed them the case was being dropped entirely. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), after review, concluded there was no “realistic chance of conviction.” The officer explained that, in the eyes of the law, Emily was not a victim, as no physical abuse had occurred. Astonishingly, he stated the "victim" was the undercover officer who had read the messages.
Mark walked away without a criminal record, monitoring, or placement on the sex offender register. He faces no disclosure requirements for employers or partners. Fiona’s sole encounter with him since was to secure his signature on divorce papers, where she witnessed his clear satisfaction at having escaped prosecution. He dismissed the entire ordeal as a “prudish response” to a “private fetish,” accusing Fiona and the police of being prudes. Emily echoed her mother’s disbelief: “How can he talk online about me in this way and walk away?” She also questioned why the platforms facilitating such discussions remained uncensored.
A Systemic Gap: The Challenge of Online Sexual Fantasies
The unsettling reality of Mark’s case exposes a critical lacuna in existing legislation, particularly regarding online sexual fantasies that mimic child abuse. While the arrest of approximately 1,000 individuals monthly in England and Wales for viewing or sharing child sexual abuse images (CSAM) underscores law enforcement’s active combat against this crime, Emily’s situation highlights a different, more nuanced challenge. Her father’s written fantasies, though deeply disturbing and explicitly naming her, did not involve actual images of abuse, nor did they translate into physical harm. This distinction proved pivotal in the legal outcome.
Legal experts like Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University specializing in violent and harmful pornography, argue that the CPS’s interpretation of the law in Mark’s case was flawed. The CPS, in a letter seen by The Guardian, explained that prosecution under the Communications Act 2003 was deemed unlikely to succeed because they could not prove Mark “intended the messages to be indecent or obscene, or that he would be aware of a risk that the messages would be viewed as such by any reasonable member of the public.” Furthermore, a prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act was dismissed because the messages, exchanged in a "private online discussion" with a "like-minded recipient," were not considered to have a "tendency to depravity or corruption" in the legal sense.
Professor McGlynn challenges this reasoning, asserting that established case law confirms that individuals can always be further depraved and corrupted. “On that point, they are simply wrong,” she states. “More importantly, I think they just did not take this behaviour seriously enough, or understand the danger such men pose. And that is why we need to update the law.” She points to Canada, where it is already illegal to encourage child abuse, as a model for more robust legislation.
Michael Sheath, an online child abuse expert who advises police on offender profiling, reinforces this view. He notes that the argument that individuals cannot be further depraved has been debunked since the 1960s. Sheath emphasizes the “escalating pathways” inherent in online deviancy: from passive consumption of pornography to active engagement in abusive fantasies, and potentially to real-life harm. These sites, he warns, create seductive environments where boundaries are pushed, and individuals find validation and encouragement for their harmful interests.
The increasing concern among experts about legal but extreme pornography mimicking illegal acts is a major driver of the online child abuse crisis. Convicted offenders themselves have warned that porn algorithms are leading them down “escalating pathways” to increasingly extreme material. This underscores the urgent need for a legal framework that recognizes the insidious nature of such online content, even in the absence of physical abuse or illegal images.
The Profound Aftermath: Personal and Societal Implications
The psychological toll on Emily and Fiona has been immense. Emily, despite her unwavering certainty that her father never abused her, had her entire childhood tainted by suspicion. The constant questioning from friends about her certainty of non-abuse offers her an opportunity to educate them on the prevalence of such online phenomena. She reiterates: “He was an ordinary man. A good dad. There aren’t signs and no one should be expected to spot them before it happens. He was just my dad, and I loved him.” This statement powerfully conveys the deceptive normalcy that can mask such online deviancy.
Fiona, with her background and vigilance in protecting children, found Mark’s actions even more devastating. She reflects on Mark’s controlling behavior and past online chats with women, which led them to therapy. She now realizes his recent “swagger” stemmed from a secret online life that fulfilled him. Emily highlights her mother’s “strong feminist” stance, emphasizing Fiona’s heartbreak at being unable to protect her daughter from this form of “male abuse.”
This "feminist rage" partially fueled Emily’s determination to challenge the CPS decision. She contacted her MP, presenting a compelling PowerPoint that showcased the broader societal implications of her case. This led to a meeting with Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims and tackling violence against women and girls, who subsequently pressed the CPS for an explanation. The CPS, however, stood by its decision, reiterating the legal technicalities.
Parliamentary efforts, spurred by cases like Emily’s, are beginning to yield results. Baroness Bertin, a Conservative peer, and Labour MP Jess Asato have been instrumental in pushing for legal reforms. Recent amendments to the Crime and Policing Act, banning pornography featuring “step-incest or performers role-playing as children,” mark a significant step. Asato believes Emily’s experience underscores the need for tougher legislation that adapts to the evolving landscape of online child abuse promotion. McGlynn advocates for a “specific criminal offence to advocate, counsel or glorify child sexual abuse in text,” which would directly address discussions in chatrooms and beneath porn videos.
For Mark, the lack of legal sanction has allowed him to move abroad and reinvent himself, even dating someone with children. Fiona fears his complete lack of shame and accountability. “He should have been charged for what he did, he should have been made to be accountable, and he is pleased that he wasn’t.” What he has lost, however, is his relationship with his child. Emily dreads his infrequent birthday and Christmas texts, a poignant reminder of a connection that is now irrevocably severed.
Emily, despite the profound trauma, has found strength. She has confided in friends and colleagues, helping them understand her reactions, such as discomfort with sexist older men. Crucially, she refuses to become cynical about men, holding onto the hope her mother instilled. “I would never assume men are all the same.” For her own sanity, she compartmentalizes: the loving father of her childhood is distinct from “the man who wrote disgusting things about his daughter.” She has no contact with the latter, and never will again.
Seeking Justice and Reform: A Call to Action
Emily’s story serves as a powerful testament to the devastating impact of online sexual fantasies that target real individuals, even without physical abuse. It highlights a critical void in current legal frameworks, where the psychological and emotional harm inflicted by such online conduct remains largely unacknowledged. The response from the police and CPS, while adhering to the letter of the law, failed to address the spirit of justice for Emily and Fiona.
The ongoing advocacy by Emily, supported by legal experts and parliamentarians, underscores a growing recognition that the law must evolve to encompass the complexities of online harm. The aim is to create a cultural shift, to “reset what’s normal,” as Baroness Bertin states, and prevent individuals from being drawn into extreme online content. Emily’s brave decision to share her experience, despite the deeply personal nature of her trauma, is a crucial step in shifting public and political opinion, ensuring that victims of such insidious online abuses are recognized, protected, and afforded justice.
