Married to a Paedophile (2018) Movie Script
1
This programme contains descriptions
of sexual behaviour which
some viewers may find disturbing.
So tell me quietly,
who's nice, who's not?
Lovely over there with the van.
Horrible to the right,
horrible to your left.
The guy in the bungalow there spoke
to me very awkwardly but said
I had nothing to be afraid of.
Enemy, enemy.
Hello. OK? Yes, well, cold,
how are you? Yes, I'm fine.
Nice one or horrible?
Yeah, nice.
No, she lives at the end.
Do people tend to know each
other's business?
Yeah, of course, people
notice things,
it's not like police cars turn up
every day round here.
What's the thing you're really
worried about?
I have visions of people coming up
the Close with machetes
and all sorts, poisoning my cats.
Because that's what people
do, unfortunately.
Look at that, the one I was telling
you about, look at her, smug.
And what had she written?
This woman she starts an
absolute vendetta
against this couple in the village.
He'd been convicted of viewing
indecent images.
Here we go, here we go.
"He has no fucking rights, he should
be shot on sight", 92 shares.
"Sick twisted evil bastard,
needs castrating and his eyes
covering in tape".
"Cut his bits off, and choke him
with them, dirty bastard".
"Sod their human rights",
'their' you notice, the two of them,
"got to wonder about the wife".
"This woman must be a whore".
Nice, isn't it?
"His wife is probably as sick as
him. This disgusting pair have no
remorse for what he has done,
please share this with all friends,
so that we can get the maximum
exposure of dirty scum".
Look at this.
"I hope they both get beaten badly,
knock the shit out of them, sickos".
You know that could be me.
So is this the room? Yeah.
This is the part of the house
that was Alex's,
and that's the chair that he used to
sit on and he would have his
computer on that desk over there.
So that is where he used to
retreat in the evenings.
When the police came they did spend
quite a lot of time in here,
as you can imagine, and
they did remove
quite a lot of items from here.
What do you use it for now?
I don't really have a use for it,
I mean you can see at the moment
there's books, CDs
and family photograph albums,
but I don't feel comfortable
in here any more.
Actually, made a conscious decision
to keep the door shut.
Six weeks ago Kate had just got
dressed and was coming downstairs
for breakfast when there was a
knock at the door.
Five police officers came in and
arrested her husband, Alex,
on suspicion of downloading sexual
images of children.
He was shaking, he kept repeating
"I'm not a paedophile,
I'm not a paedophile".
They took Alex into custody and
seized all the computers from
the home, including Kate's
personal laptop.
They wanted to do a deep scan.
It's pretty upsetting and shameful
to have to go to a police station
and beg for my stuff back.
What are they thinking?
Are they thinking I'm somehow
associated with this crime?
I can feel my stomach going.
It is the place where everything
that I was certain of
was taken from me.
He was questioned for over 12 hours
and then, eventually,
they ushered me and Alex into this
horrible little concrete room,
very sort of stark, couple of
plastic chairs and a table,
and bare walls, echoey
little room, and said,
"Alex has got something
to tell you".
That was when he confessed.
Alex was released on bail that night
and the couple drove home.
A week later he packed a car load of
his possessions and moved out.
Does anyone want a cup of
tea, or...? Love one, please.
What have you got in the kitchen?
Um, I've got fridge freezer,
microwave, kettle, gas cooker.
It's quite small, isn't it? I don't
suppose you could
put a big roast in there? Oh, the
guy who sold me it
reckoned he'd made Yorkshire pudding
in there, but he was a liar.
Well, appreciate you letting us come
and have a look at it,
because I don't think you were that
keen initially were you?
Mm, do you want milk?
Yes, please.
Since leaving the family
home of 20 years,
Alex has been living here,
170 miles away.
I mean how have your
circumstances changed?
Not so long ago, I mean, what were
you? Six bedroom house,
large gardens.
Good job. Good job,
respected in the community.
And now?
Yeah, and now... Yes.
And the shame of what I did,
I didn't expect any more than this.
All the way through the arrest and
time in the cells and things,
the police were asking
'was I going to kill myself?'
It helps you realise that, actually,
this is pretty
socially unacceptable.
I certainly find it very hard to
think about it, I've looked
through the police reports, and
filed them away the other day
and had a quick glance and
was horrified
at some of the descriptions.
Felt guilty at making the police
officer look at these images.
It was children, yeah? Some of them?
Yeah, all ages.
When you start to think about what
it is you've actually been looking
at, you can see why, you
know, people...
..can go off you.
You all right? Shall we go?
I did ask about ages of children,
and things like that.
What he told me was that he'd seen
pretty much everything.
Which just came as something I
couldn't quite comprehend, really.
As far as I was aware we were a
happy, ordinary couple.
Don't really see any pictures of
Alex around here then. No. No.
I've got photo albums,
but I haven't really been back to
those to have a look.
That's my mother.
That's me getting married.
So, that's the acceptable wedding
photograph to still have out now?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Because it's just you and your mum.
Because it's mum, yeah.
Was it a good day? It was actually,
yeah, it was a lovely day,
it was a real country wedding.
That's the wedding dress,
and the veil.
Brilliant.
Oh, my God.
It's real 1990s isn't it?
It's great.
Got a few marks on it but
I made the veil.
Can you forgive him?
No.
"My darling.
It was nice not having to queue up
so long in the visitor centre today.
I hardly recognised you at first
with your new haircut,
and different clothes. Would he do
your beard as well, do you think?"
I just generally tell him about
what's happening.
I printed a lot of very mundane
pictures of the chickens and
things, but things that we would
normally have been involved with,
and I couldn't send him pictures of
the grandchildren
because he wasn't allowed
to receive them.
Robert is near the end of
a 16 month prison sentence
for downloading sexual images
of children.
Do you still love him? Yes.
"It's a lovely day today."
You sound quite chipper. Yeah, and I
am feeling chipper at the moment.
Which is good, he's coming out in
three days
and you're feeling chipper.
Yeah. "Can't wait to collect
you on Monday,
and start our lives together again."
"Love..." Are you going to use your
real name?
No, of course I'm not.
Well, what are you going to be
called then? God knows.
"Can't wait to collect you on Monday
and start our different lives
together again, love, Helen."
And I'll put a smiley, I think.
There we are.
# And as I walk along the sea
# Need you to know, I'm on my way
How did you sleep last night?
I didn't.
I was up at four, came down and had
a cup of tea,
I just couldn't sleep
for excitement.
While he's been in prison,
Helen has visited her husband,
Robert, every week.
He's being released later today.
That is a lovely dress.
I wore this, this is a special dress
because we bought this for I
think my grandson's first birthday,
and they had a garden party and it
was a really lovely, fun day.
Don't know if he'll remember that
but just like it, you know.
I only wear it on special occasions.
Were you partly feeling like
you were dressing...? For a date.
Really? And I have felt like that
before, when I've gone
to the prison, and I've made an
effort, dressed up a bit,
shaved my legs and things like that.
Does sometimes feel a little
bit like that.
He got quite a long
sentence didn't he?
Well, most of my husband's images
were in the most serious category.
Were they young?
Very young. Yeah.
Children the age of
my grandchildren.
I know that he bitterly
regrets that he did it.
Do you think he's a paedophile?
I think he genuinely... He tells me
has no sexual interest in
children, and that he would never
have progressed to doing anything
to a child in real life.
But you know, many women if they'd
discovered that their husbands
had been looking at those images,
would have had nothing to do with
him right from that point
really, and yet what makes you
still want to have him in your life?
I do love him.
You know, you can't just switch
off those feelings,
and I've loved him for 44 years, and
you can't just switch that off.
As a condition of his release
Robert's not allowed
to sleep in a house where there
are children.
Helen has rented him a place nearby.
I've said to him "You're not going
to be able to live with me
when you come out". And that's
because of your grandchildren?
Because of the chil...
the grandchildren.
And the only way around that was for
him to live somewhere else,
and that's what we've arranged.
So it's not far, this flat, is it?
No, four minutes.
It's just far enough away though
that, hopefully,
nobody will know him.
You all right?
When I came to view this was all
shielded off, and you couldn't
see what this was going to be
and now I see
there'll be children living there.
I bought a new set of sheets
yesterday, washed them overnight.
Washed them to make them
more soft for him?
Yeah, because they're all stiff
when they're brand-new.
That's beyond the call of
duty isn't it?
I know that when he is alone here,
for the first time he's going
to feel very bleak, very unhappy,
and the more I can do to make him
feel comfortable, the better.
When I was looking for flats this
jumped out of at me, if he fears
that a vigilante wanted to attack
him, at least he can check who's
at the front door before he answers
it, which might be important.
One of my neighbour's daughters told
me that in her block of flats
there was a young man who had been
released from prison after
similar offences, and he lived there
with his elderly mother who was in
a wheelchair, and people broke in
and beat him up
in front of his mother.
Do you think he's worried
about that?
He is worried about that, yeah.
They could firebomb,
they could smash his windows,
throw excrement at the house.
PHONE RINGS
That's my husband.
Hello, darling.
Oh, will you?
We'd better go then soon.
How does he sound? Happy.
Same as me, really.
He said his stomach's churning,
he didn't sleep very well.
He thinks he'll be out
in 40 minutes.
See you later. Bye.
Three months on from his arrest,
Alex has received his
sentence from the Court.
He's not been sent to prison,
instead he's been given a 12 months
Community Order, and must
attend weekly counselling sessions.
My Community Order says that I
should sign
the Sex Offender's Register, I can't
delete my internet history,
I've got to tell the police if
I buy new computers.
What about teaching?
Is that it for teaching now?
As part of the sentence the judge
announced that I'd be barred
from teaching, so that's an end
to that career.
So what's your set up now? Where...?
Working nights in a manual job.
I managed to get a job from an
employer who values... well, they
don't value me, they probably
haven't even noticed I work there
but... but who know that I've got a
conviction but aren't worried.
What about your workmates
do they know?
No. Oh, no.
No, I think if people knew there'd
be horrible suspicions and...
..there's always that,
sort of, worry
about people taking direct action.
Do you worry about that? Yeah.
Which is why it's so important
that I remain anonymous.
So Alex was a teacher here,
how long was he here for?
About 15 years.
I do know that the police, at some
point, went into the school
and removed his laptop.
He didn't do anything in the school,
there was nothing on his school
laptop, but there will have
been people who will have seen what
was going on,
and perhaps speculated.
Yeah, that could get tongues
wagging couldn't it? Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, I mean I've had people
shouting at me
to leave their children alone.
One minute, somebody said
what to you?
Yes, I have had people shouting at
me to leave their children alone.
And what did you do?
Left their children alone.
OK, so it's next left. Is it? Yeah.
It's that one, no, it's this one,
not that not that one.
Not that one? Oh, I'll
turn round here.
That's it. Cor.
You all right? Oh, dear, my
stomach's flipping out. It's here.
Now this is it, you know.
Every time I sort of think what's
going to happen in a minute,
my stomach goes... flips over.
Is that him?
CAR HORN
Oops. What are you doing out here?
Waiting. I know, I can't help it.
I was worried. Why were you worried?
I don't know.
HE SOBS
Oh, no.
What, thinking I wasn't coming?
Just took time.
Yeah, but I didn't think you were
going to be this late. I'm sorry.
It's nearly... look,
it's gone 11 o'clock.
Have you got Wi-Fi here?
No, there's no Wi-Fi here.
I have a 3G dongle with...
Is that allowed?
I think the realisation from the
authorities is that, actually
they can't stop you.
But I've set some rules for myself.
I don't sit on the internet for
more than half an hour.
Before I use the internet I know
what I'm going to do and things,
because that's where the
problems came in.
By the time Alex was arrested both
his daughters
had finished school and left home.
His eldest, Lucy, will be
21 tomorrow.
About 200.
You've got lots of your daughters
actually here, look.
They'd hate to see that.
Would they, why?
Aren't people embarrassed by their
old school photos?
How would birthdays go when you were
at home with your daughters
and Kate? My mum would come over and
make a cake, so, which was nice,
a lovely tradition.
To be honest, I...
I was always a bit tired, you know,
and some of that
will have been down to porn use.
I knew I had a problem with porn,
probably ten years ago, and at
the time I was just looking at
normal adult material,
but as I got bored with that I
looked for more extreme material.
I kept trying to stop but would
always end up going back to it
when things went wrong at work, or
in other parts of my life.
If I make excuses it sounds as if
I'm not taking responsibility
for my actions, but I've got to
try and find an explanation because
if I am the immoral person it'll
be very hard to live with myself.
I've got a pretty good idea from
what he has told me that,
you know, these images were
very extreme.
He kept talking about how he'd seen
images and I got really angry,
I said "No, you haven't just
seen things,
no, you went looking for things,
it was an active process".
I'm really angry that he would want
to look at this stuff,
when he had me, what was
wrong with me?
Why not just stick with what
was right,
what he should have been looking at,
which was me?
Kate has been living on her own
since the week after Alex's arrest.
She's now decided to take lodgers
in, and rent out her spare room.
It's a relief, really,
have a bit of income,
and, obviously, I'm not working,
so I do need to cull, really.
Will you tell your new lodgers what
happened with Alex? No.
They'll make friends with, or at
least, they'll certainly meet
your neighbours won't they?
They will find out at some point.
Just really hope they don't.
I mean...
They will though won't they?
I don't know. What makes you
think they won't?
I can't imagine them just bringing
it up in conversation "Oh by
the way..." but my best hope
is they'll just keep themselves to
themselves.
That will be my hope.
It is a tricky one.
I can't imagine, I mean, even if
they did find out,
I can't imagine they'd turn round
and say "We want to finish our
tenancy because an internet offender
lived here", can you, really?
It's not me, I didn't do
it, you know.
They're dealing with
somebody honourable,
it's not like I'm leading a
secret double life.
No, but it's so interesting isn't it
as to whether you feel that
that that's something
that you need to... Conceal. Yeah.
Got a lot of albums there. Yeah.
I don't really want to go through
the photo albums. Why is that?
I don't really want to look at
pictures of us as a family,
at the moment.
How do you think the girls are
coping at the moment?
They've got so many distractions in
their lives,
they've both got boyfriends, I just
think they feel
that their life's not here.
Are your daughters seeing
much of Alex?
I don't ask them too many questions
about it...
but I think so.
Hello. Hello.
I apologise for wearing my uniform,
I came straight from the
night shift.
I'm training at the moment,
I'm learning how to load lorries.
How exciting.
We don't hug, do we? Or do we?
Yes, we do, it's just
usually awkward.
Ah, it looks good.
Apart from the bit on the floor.
Yeah, well it's much better than
it was last time. Yes. Yeah.
I did that picture yesterday.
You should do something
with your art.
Yeah, I spend a lot of my time
considering possible careers
I could still go down.
Well, so am I. Yeah.
# Happy birthday to you
# You look like a monkey
# And you smell like one too.#
Thank you. Shall I blow out the
candles? I think you're meant to.
Who's that from? Charlotte.
My sister, yes.
She's still angry with me, I think.
Refusing to have contact, basically,
and refusing to attend the
same family functions.
Which is the stigma of the crime.
At some level it seems appropriate
that there is an awkward thing
there that means that I am reminded
that this is serious,
and it has affected a lot of people,
you guys in particular.
Ooh. It's a non-stick wok.
Some people that go through this,
they do lose family members.
Did you worry that you'd
lose the girls? Oh, definitely.
I thought they'd want
nothing to do with me.
And certainly after this all came
out I was too embarrassed
to try and keep contact with you for
a little while anyway.
I was scared.
I have put off speaking to
him, basically.
I remember sitting in the kitchen of
my flat,
having an hour long conversation
with him, it was very odd.
I'd not heard him cry before.
That was hard and there was just a
lot of confusion,
I remember just going back and forth
between 'how could he do this?'
to 'at least now he's getting
some help' and
'I feel sorry for him, I empathise
with him...
..and I'm angry at him'.
There's always going to be a part of
me that thinks,
I don't understand... I understand
him becoming addicted to a thing,
but it's very hard to understand
becoming addicted to that.
It's very difficult identifying what
the underlying cause was.
I was depressed, I became addicted
to the use of pornography.
Do you think that whatever it was to
drove you to look at the images,
do you think it's something that
you can be cured from?
I am recovering, I hope, and part of
my recovery is the fact
that I've got to be the best
father that I can be.
I wrote a very long letter to
you in the aftermath...
..which you've never seen,
I wanted to explain things a bit.
I don't know whether you'll want
to address it or not.
If you wanted me to read a letter
I'd probably read it. Yeah.
I don't think you should punish
yourself on our behalf,
or anything, like that's yeah,
I don't think of your crimes when I
think of you, you know.
Afterwards when several
things have come up,
the one thing that's been handled
badly is I never got the phone call
to Lucy was the one to pass it
on to me,
it's just been 'Oh, I'm too young
to understand',
I think there's been that
kind of attitude,
and I'm not young, you know.
We handled that terribly badly.
It's been a devastating experience
for everyone.
I ended up harming the people
I love the most.
You've both been very kind to me.
You've allowed me to bumble around
on the periphery of your lives,
popping up every now and again to
fix a broken chair or...
You decide what you do want for
your birthday.
I can give you driving lessons if
you want. Bye, darling. Bye.
CHICKENS CLUCK
No, you don't, Violet.
CHICKENS SQUAWK
Here you go, love, here's your tea.
Door's broken now.
Robert has been out of prison
for two weeks now.
He sleeps in his rented flat,
and comes to the family home
on days when the grandchildren
aren't there.
Do you think Robert might be up for
talking to us about what's happened?
He might,
but he doesn't at the moment.
Do your neighbours know
where he's been, and what he did?
My immediate neighbours do.
I can see your neighbour there now,
actually. Yeah.
What do they think about him
being back here?
She just made it clear that,
while I was having Robert
visiting the house,
she is not to be involved with me.
So, have you got on well with this
neighbour in the past?
Oh, yes, we used to be quite
close friends.
I took round some rhubarb yesterday,
which I've always done.
And she was rather taken aback,
rather reluctant to speak to me,
and was looking around obviously
to see if Robert was around.
And I...naively said to her,
"Well, it's all going well,
"and he's settling into
his new flat".
And she said,
"Well I'm afraid I don't think
"he's been punished enough at all.
"He shouldn't have been allowed out,
and he shouldn't be allowed anywhere
"where there are children."
And I do like feel like saying,
"Well, what do you think should have
happened, then, what do you think?
"Should he have had the
death penalty?"
Did you have any inkling of
what was going on? Not at all.
My husband had always spent a lot
of time on the computer
looking at train-related things
and his hobbies,
so I never looked into what he was
looking at, at all.
So, what's up there?
That's his territory, and it's all
untouched, really...yeah.
Do you not go up there now?
Well, there's nothing up there
to interest me.
Can we have a look?
SHE GRUNTS
Oh, dear...it's a bit cobwebby.
The children think this is absolute
fairy land up here.
So, how much time would he
spend up here?
Several hours at a time.
I don't know half of what's up here.
My neighbour did tell me,
"Oh, do you know your husband stands
"and stares out the window at us"?
They're very unhappy at the idea
that my husband might have watched
children in the garden.
But I know that what he was
interested in
is watching the red kites.
We get a lot of red kites around
this area, and he like...he was
interested in watching birds,
and that's what he was watching.
But people interpret everything
in a different light,
once they know what's happened.
LAWNMOWER IN DISTANCE
I did ask him what he was watching,
and he said it was the birds,
and also, he watches the trains.
Cos you can see a train line
from here.
Apparently.
I'd never really know what he's
thinking, not really.
And some questions are too
painful to ask.
Like what?
Like whether he had
any inappropriate thoughts
of our grandchildren.
It's too unbearable...I don't think
I can cope with knowing.
DOOR OPENS
Hello!
SHE LAUGHS
It's been six months since
Kate's husband, Alex,
moved out of the house.
And their divorce has just
come through.
Do you need to put...
"I'm a woman,
and I'm looking for a man."
Oh, he looks nice. Which one, him?
Oh, look, every eight minutes,
a single finds love.
"I have a great sense of humour."
Goes from "doesn't apply at all"
to "completely applicable",
and you've got seven options
on that.
Slightly applicable.
Slightly applicable, yeah.
Next? What's that one?
"I laugh often."
I'm not sure that I laugh as much
at the moment, as I did before
everything kicked off with Alex.
Erm...
Maybe not completely applicable.
"My emotional state is stable."
Erm...
Whether it is...
as stable as it...should be.
So that's...again,
it's a difficult one, isn't it?
Do you think you're actually ready
for a new relationship?
I suppose I've got two choices
I can make.
One of them is I can assume that,
because somebody let me down
in the past,
I'm going to be let down again.
Or the alternative is I can
actually trust somebody,
take the risk, and...
..if I'm hurt again,
then that will be the price I pay.
I just want to kind of go
for it, really.
Alex is still living alone, and
doing night shifts in a warehouse.
In his spare time, he's working
his way through the 12 steps
of a treatment programme
for sex addiction.
What's that?
This is my sex addict recovery pack.
HE CHUCKLES
What have you got in there?
Oh, just sort of...reading stuff,
and books, and notes, and things.
So, how's it all going, then?
At the moment,
I'm concentrating on...
..getting clear of the addictive
stuff, and living in the present.
I don't want to have any risk of
going back into...
..having a porn addiction.
I try not to spend lots of time in
the caravan, so most of the time,
I'm out there...walking, or...
I met a heron this morning.
And how do you feel about how it's
going with the girls?
It's always nice to see them, I'm
incredibly proud of their courage
in sort of keeping up contact
with me, and...
..you know, it'd be very easy for
them to bury themselves
in their own lives.
Do you think they may have
questioned whether you'd ever had
any inappropriate thoughts about
them or their friends?
This is...
HE CLEARS THROA This is a letter to Lucy and Jess
that I wrote
shortly after my arrest.
"Dear Lucy and Jess...
I am not a paedophile.
"I am not sexually aroused
by children.
"The things I have done are
all virtual,
"the other side of a glass screen.
"I don't relate images on a computer
screen with the actual acts.
"I realise that this will make me
seem immoral,
"but this addiction of mine has led
me to some very disturbing images.
"Unfortunately, the further
I explored, the more obsessive
"and compulsive my behaviour became.
"Much of the thrill was finding
new things, and this certainly led
"to the current situation.
"I'm going to get treated now.
"Looking forward, I hope that you
will think, 'My dad was OK
"'90% of the time, but he did
something so unbelievably stupid
"'the other 10%.'
"This is like a car crash,
which is all my fault."
Here we are.
And don't get crumbs on the floor.
Let's just shut the door, so they
don't overhear what we're saying.
It's two months since
Helen's husband, Robert,
was released from prison.
His grandchildren still
haven't seen him.
What do you think they've picked up
about what's going on?
Now look at this.
Whether that's their grandfather
crossed out, I... I don't know.
They apparently were very upset when
they were told
that they weren't going to see their
grandfather at the moment.
My son said he asked
them, you know
"What do you think happens to people
if they do something wrong?"
and the children said "Oh, they go
to jail" and that's where they
said "Well grandad's done something
wrong, and he's gone to prison".
My granddaughter is quite enquiring,
and wanted to know a lot more
detail, and she's quite angry that
she hasn't been told why he
went to prison.
"Do cats eat bats I wonder?
And here Alice began to get rather
sleepy, and went on saying to
herself in a dreamy sort of way,
'Do cats eat bats?
Do cats eat bats? Sometimes..."
So Robert can't sleep here,
but he's not he's not forbidden
from seeing the grandchildren at all
is he? No.
There is no restriction on him
spending time with them.
It's our son and daughter-in-law who
don't want him
to see the children at the moment.
They want answers.
My daughter-in-law is not prepared
to allow him
to see the grandchildren, until
she's had those answers.
What questions does your
daughter-in-law
want the answers to?
There were some details that came
out at the trial,
that she is absolutely haunted by.
Like what? Horrible things.
One of the videos that he looked at
was of a breast-feeding baby
who was taken from his mother,
and the man masturbated and
ejaculated all over the baby's face.
My daughter-in-law used to
breast-feed in front of Robert,
in the house, and she's
absolutely haunted,
worrying what he was thinking,
and was he having fantasies
when he was witnessing that.
She wants reassurance that he
never, ever thought
of actually carrying any of
these things out.
Is that them?
Is that your daughter-in-law?
Yes, it is, yeah, don't know how
they're feeling,
but I'm feeling rather apprehensive.
Ever since his trial Robert's son
and daughter-in-law
have been reluctant to see him,
but they have agreed to mediation to
confront him with his offences,
and to decide whether to allow him
to see his grandchildren again.
Take a seat Robert, there.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Dr Campbell.
So the first point is to know from
everyone, what do you really
want to achieve with this meeting?
Are you worried about him?
I just wondered how he is.
He, of course, feels awful about it.
And he's really unhappy about how it
all turned out obviously,
and starting over has been
hard, on his own.
You know, hopefully he'll find
a partner.
Do you think it's realistic that
he'll find a partner?
Surely, at some point he'd have to
tell that partner about the past.
Yeah, but loads of
people have pasts,
I think he'd just have to find
someone who could understand
the crime he committed isn't a
defining feature of his personality.
But I think that very few people
would be comfortable knowing that.
Your complete discomfort with
it, maybe, makes you think that
other people would be always
equally as uncomfortable.
Hmm, well, it is such a taboo,
it instils such feelings
of revulsion, just that
association, sex and children.
Yeah, I think it's more complicated
than just the crime with him.
I think that came out of a product
of him being mentally ill,
and unhappy, and not thinking.
I think you're,
perhaps, oversimplifying
the nature of what he did.
Anybody who views images
that are illegal,
are consciously committing a crime.
They're adults, they know the nature
of what they're looking at,
and they know that it's not
acceptable, and there must be
something rather unpleasant that is
prompting them to do it.
But that unpleasant thing is
still an illness.
Well, there must be a point at which
your morality,
or your conscience speaks.
I think that's probably quite a
simplistic view of mental illness.
Perhaps, you don't really understand
the idea
of, kind of, taking responsibility
for your own actions.
You know we are in control
of what we do.
We come at it from very different
perspectives because you're...
you don't really understand,
like, depression.
I think I can join a lot of the dots
which make sense for me,
and I... What do you mean by join
the dots, what do you mean?
Join the dots of how illness
led to action and...
What, you can sort of imagine how
that would happen?
I can see how it might happen.
You sound very forgiving.
You know it's different for me
because I'm a partner,
rather than a child.
You're flesh and blood, it's a
different...
..betrayal, really.
Let's try to come with
some scenarios.
The therapist went round and asked
why they were there,
and what they wanted to get out of
the meeting.
What did Robert say he wanted
to get out of it?
That he wanted to be able to see
the children again.
Sally drew back into her corner and
was saying,
"Well, that's not going to happen
unless I see
real signs of change within you".
His view was 'Well, I didn't
actually touch a child
and they were all old videos,
and it's all exaggerated'.
He's adamant that he didn't watch
a lot of the videos,
that he collected them, downloaded
them, looked at them sufficiently
to categorise them, and then put
them away to watch another time.
I said to him "But you did watch
some didn't you?"
He reluctantly admitted that he did.
Sally breast-fed both her children
in front of him, how did he feel
about that and was he thinking about
those images when he watched her?
He denied it completely,
he's denying completely that
he saw that video.
He says that he cannot remember
viewing it at all.
We don't know.
We'll never know.
Try and get some sleep.
I'll see you tomorrow.
You all right?
I haven't quite got over the feeling
that he's betrayed me,
and I've got this 'how could you?'
feeling in relationship to
our grandchildren.
I just... I'm struggling with it.
It's been almost a year since Alex
was arrested and the whole
family had to start dealing with
the trauma it caused.
You seem happy. Yeah.
Got a new man.
You've got a lot of photos of him,
are you still
taking lots of selfies?
Yeah, we do take quite a few.
You're still in that
honeymoon then ? Yes.
I woke up one morning and my iPad
was just going absolutely
insane, going 'ding, ding, ding,
ding, ding'.
My partner, as he is now, was liking
all of the statements
that I'd written on my profile.
What about this one? That's quite
nice. Stunning gardens.
It may be a bit sort of overlooked
outside, I don't know.
Top end of our... Oh, it is isn't
it? ..budget, really.
This is quite exciting, so you're
going to move in together? Yes.
It is exciting, because it feels
like a new start.
What about that one? A walled garden
and an orchard.
Kate is there anything that you're
looking for, that's different
from this house, particularly?
I'm certainly looking for somewhere
that we have absolute privacy.
I don't particularly want to have a
lot of neighbours too close.
No neighbours or nice neighbours?
Prefer no neighbours really,
because I don't really want to
have that pressure.
Richard, you've had to take all of
this onboard as well haven't you?
Yeah. It has been hard at times.
Yeah.
It was something that, you know,
I told you about fairly
early on, wasn't it?
We didn't... you knew what
my past was. Mmm.
I think it would have been very
difficult if it had emerged
a long way down the line.
People did warn me that it's
probably not something you
mention on a first date.
We'll just stick the L-Plates on.
Yeah. You stick one on that side.
There you go.
OK.
Oh, I can't even remember all the
stuff we did last time.
Check the hand brake's on.
Put the clutch all the way in.
Wait that's the... Accelerator.
So just put it into first gear.
CAR OVER REVS
No. It's not subtle at all.
Right, let's listen for the
biting point.
Ah, hah. And off we go. Yeah.
Let go of the handbrake, let go!
The handbrake yeah, sorry.
OK steer, come on, down the middle.
Leave a good distance on the left.
Yeah, sorry. OK.
Look out for that cyclist.
Signal left again. OK.
Still in first gear.
I find I'm a lot more interested in
their lives than I was before.
I'm enjoying hearing about
their lives.
In the past I was more in
my own world.
And has that in any sense led to a
better relationship?
In a way I'd hope so, but...
That's nice.
Yeah, but it was the only photo she
could find
of the three of us together.
I have a lovely life now in a way.
You know you've got enough money
to have a night cap,
decent piece of cheese and
some Maltesers.
I don't want to sound too happy
about it, because of all the
misery and everything else that it's
caused but I think life's a
bit simpler for me now.
PHONE RINGS
Sorry. Apologies for that.
Who's that? That was a sex addict.
Friend of yours? Yeah.
Mike's in a very similar
situation to me actually,
he... slightly different crime but
a similar outcome.
I was given his number as someone
who needed support and was
able to support him over the phone a
bit, and chat and things.
In terms of recovery you know I'm
building a life now,
I'm very much bottom up.
I can't answer questions like
'what are my plans for the future?'
What I can say is I've got a list of
things to do tomorrow,
that I know will keep me out
of trouble.
No, I want to throw that one!
"Dear Robert. We had a good journey
and got here early evening.
The cottage is really nice with
lovely views from the windows.
The children are very excited about
taking Pippa for walks,
and paddling in streams with her.
My feelings haven't
changed and they won't.
Keep your chin up, Helen."
It's been seven months since Robert
was released from prison.
The relationship between him and his
son and daughter-in-law
hasn't improved.
Come on then.
Good girl.
So who's this? This is Pippa.
She's... oh, she's made life so much
more bearable for me.
She's just lovely. The children love
her and...
Does your husband like dogs?
Not much.
There's a good girl.
So how are things with you
and Robert now?
We are now fully separated.
We are still friends but we
are separated,
and every day I have to remind
Robert about that.
He's gradually coming round to it.
So what changed?
I felt I had to choose between my
husband and the grandchildren,
and I have chosen the grandchildren.
He's never really accepted what
happened, and would like to
pretend that it
didn't really happen.
And how do you feel about that?
I feel free.
Yeah, my end down.
It's kind of like a dividing line,
a watershed,
you know this is my new relationship
now and I don't want it
tainted by association
with Alex and the past.
Do you feel you'll ever be
completely rid of this? No.
It's always just there, that little
bit in the background, of unease.
When I meet somebody,
how much they know,
are they looking at me thinking
'Yeah, she's the woman who was
married to the sex offender'
and all the rest of it?
So when you unpack at the other side
what are you going to do with
the photo albums? I think they'll
probably just go up in my loft.
They can sit there for a bit and
then at some point
I'll go through them, I guess.
This programme contains descriptions
of sexual behaviour which
some viewers may find disturbing.
So tell me quietly,
who's nice, who's not?
Lovely over there with the van.
Horrible to the right,
horrible to your left.
The guy in the bungalow there spoke
to me very awkwardly but said
I had nothing to be afraid of.
Enemy, enemy.
Hello. OK? Yes, well, cold,
how are you? Yes, I'm fine.
Nice one or horrible?
Yeah, nice.
No, she lives at the end.
Do people tend to know each
other's business?
Yeah, of course, people
notice things,
it's not like police cars turn up
every day round here.
What's the thing you're really
worried about?
I have visions of people coming up
the Close with machetes
and all sorts, poisoning my cats.
Because that's what people
do, unfortunately.
Look at that, the one I was telling
you about, look at her, smug.
And what had she written?
This woman she starts an
absolute vendetta
against this couple in the village.
He'd been convicted of viewing
indecent images.
Here we go, here we go.
"He has no fucking rights, he should
be shot on sight", 92 shares.
"Sick twisted evil bastard,
needs castrating and his eyes
covering in tape".
"Cut his bits off, and choke him
with them, dirty bastard".
"Sod their human rights",
'their' you notice, the two of them,
"got to wonder about the wife".
"This woman must be a whore".
Nice, isn't it?
"His wife is probably as sick as
him. This disgusting pair have no
remorse for what he has done,
please share this with all friends,
so that we can get the maximum
exposure of dirty scum".
Look at this.
"I hope they both get beaten badly,
knock the shit out of them, sickos".
You know that could be me.
So is this the room? Yeah.
This is the part of the house
that was Alex's,
and that's the chair that he used to
sit on and he would have his
computer on that desk over there.
So that is where he used to
retreat in the evenings.
When the police came they did spend
quite a lot of time in here,
as you can imagine, and
they did remove
quite a lot of items from here.
What do you use it for now?
I don't really have a use for it,
I mean you can see at the moment
there's books, CDs
and family photograph albums,
but I don't feel comfortable
in here any more.
Actually, made a conscious decision
to keep the door shut.
Six weeks ago Kate had just got
dressed and was coming downstairs
for breakfast when there was a
knock at the door.
Five police officers came in and
arrested her husband, Alex,
on suspicion of downloading sexual
images of children.
He was shaking, he kept repeating
"I'm not a paedophile,
I'm not a paedophile".
They took Alex into custody and
seized all the computers from
the home, including Kate's
personal laptop.
They wanted to do a deep scan.
It's pretty upsetting and shameful
to have to go to a police station
and beg for my stuff back.
What are they thinking?
Are they thinking I'm somehow
associated with this crime?
I can feel my stomach going.
It is the place where everything
that I was certain of
was taken from me.
He was questioned for over 12 hours
and then, eventually,
they ushered me and Alex into this
horrible little concrete room,
very sort of stark, couple of
plastic chairs and a table,
and bare walls, echoey
little room, and said,
"Alex has got something
to tell you".
That was when he confessed.
Alex was released on bail that night
and the couple drove home.
A week later he packed a car load of
his possessions and moved out.
Does anyone want a cup of
tea, or...? Love one, please.
What have you got in the kitchen?
Um, I've got fridge freezer,
microwave, kettle, gas cooker.
It's quite small, isn't it? I don't
suppose you could
put a big roast in there? Oh, the
guy who sold me it
reckoned he'd made Yorkshire pudding
in there, but he was a liar.
Well, appreciate you letting us come
and have a look at it,
because I don't think you were that
keen initially were you?
Mm, do you want milk?
Yes, please.
Since leaving the family
home of 20 years,
Alex has been living here,
170 miles away.
I mean how have your
circumstances changed?
Not so long ago, I mean, what were
you? Six bedroom house,
large gardens.
Good job. Good job,
respected in the community.
And now?
Yeah, and now... Yes.
And the shame of what I did,
I didn't expect any more than this.
All the way through the arrest and
time in the cells and things,
the police were asking
'was I going to kill myself?'
It helps you realise that, actually,
this is pretty
socially unacceptable.
I certainly find it very hard to
think about it, I've looked
through the police reports, and
filed them away the other day
and had a quick glance and
was horrified
at some of the descriptions.
Felt guilty at making the police
officer look at these images.
It was children, yeah? Some of them?
Yeah, all ages.
When you start to think about what
it is you've actually been looking
at, you can see why, you
know, people...
..can go off you.
You all right? Shall we go?
I did ask about ages of children,
and things like that.
What he told me was that he'd seen
pretty much everything.
Which just came as something I
couldn't quite comprehend, really.
As far as I was aware we were a
happy, ordinary couple.
Don't really see any pictures of
Alex around here then. No. No.
I've got photo albums,
but I haven't really been back to
those to have a look.
That's my mother.
That's me getting married.
So, that's the acceptable wedding
photograph to still have out now?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Because it's just you and your mum.
Because it's mum, yeah.
Was it a good day? It was actually,
yeah, it was a lovely day,
it was a real country wedding.
That's the wedding dress,
and the veil.
Brilliant.
Oh, my God.
It's real 1990s isn't it?
It's great.
Got a few marks on it but
I made the veil.
Can you forgive him?
No.
"My darling.
It was nice not having to queue up
so long in the visitor centre today.
I hardly recognised you at first
with your new haircut,
and different clothes. Would he do
your beard as well, do you think?"
I just generally tell him about
what's happening.
I printed a lot of very mundane
pictures of the chickens and
things, but things that we would
normally have been involved with,
and I couldn't send him pictures of
the grandchildren
because he wasn't allowed
to receive them.
Robert is near the end of
a 16 month prison sentence
for downloading sexual images
of children.
Do you still love him? Yes.
"It's a lovely day today."
You sound quite chipper. Yeah, and I
am feeling chipper at the moment.
Which is good, he's coming out in
three days
and you're feeling chipper.
Yeah. "Can't wait to collect
you on Monday,
and start our lives together again."
"Love..." Are you going to use your
real name?
No, of course I'm not.
Well, what are you going to be
called then? God knows.
"Can't wait to collect you on Monday
and start our different lives
together again, love, Helen."
And I'll put a smiley, I think.
There we are.
# And as I walk along the sea
# Need you to know, I'm on my way
How did you sleep last night?
I didn't.
I was up at four, came down and had
a cup of tea,
I just couldn't sleep
for excitement.
While he's been in prison,
Helen has visited her husband,
Robert, every week.
He's being released later today.
That is a lovely dress.
I wore this, this is a special dress
because we bought this for I
think my grandson's first birthday,
and they had a garden party and it
was a really lovely, fun day.
Don't know if he'll remember that
but just like it, you know.
I only wear it on special occasions.
Were you partly feeling like
you were dressing...? For a date.
Really? And I have felt like that
before, when I've gone
to the prison, and I've made an
effort, dressed up a bit,
shaved my legs and things like that.
Does sometimes feel a little
bit like that.
He got quite a long
sentence didn't he?
Well, most of my husband's images
were in the most serious category.
Were they young?
Very young. Yeah.
Children the age of
my grandchildren.
I know that he bitterly
regrets that he did it.
Do you think he's a paedophile?
I think he genuinely... He tells me
has no sexual interest in
children, and that he would never
have progressed to doing anything
to a child in real life.
But you know, many women if they'd
discovered that their husbands
had been looking at those images,
would have had nothing to do with
him right from that point
really, and yet what makes you
still want to have him in your life?
I do love him.
You know, you can't just switch
off those feelings,
and I've loved him for 44 years, and
you can't just switch that off.
As a condition of his release
Robert's not allowed
to sleep in a house where there
are children.
Helen has rented him a place nearby.
I've said to him "You're not going
to be able to live with me
when you come out". And that's
because of your grandchildren?
Because of the chil...
the grandchildren.
And the only way around that was for
him to live somewhere else,
and that's what we've arranged.
So it's not far, this flat, is it?
No, four minutes.
It's just far enough away though
that, hopefully,
nobody will know him.
You all right?
When I came to view this was all
shielded off, and you couldn't
see what this was going to be
and now I see
there'll be children living there.
I bought a new set of sheets
yesterday, washed them overnight.
Washed them to make them
more soft for him?
Yeah, because they're all stiff
when they're brand-new.
That's beyond the call of
duty isn't it?
I know that when he is alone here,
for the first time he's going
to feel very bleak, very unhappy,
and the more I can do to make him
feel comfortable, the better.
When I was looking for flats this
jumped out of at me, if he fears
that a vigilante wanted to attack
him, at least he can check who's
at the front door before he answers
it, which might be important.
One of my neighbour's daughters told
me that in her block of flats
there was a young man who had been
released from prison after
similar offences, and he lived there
with his elderly mother who was in
a wheelchair, and people broke in
and beat him up
in front of his mother.
Do you think he's worried
about that?
He is worried about that, yeah.
They could firebomb,
they could smash his windows,
throw excrement at the house.
PHONE RINGS
That's my husband.
Hello, darling.
Oh, will you?
We'd better go then soon.
How does he sound? Happy.
Same as me, really.
He said his stomach's churning,
he didn't sleep very well.
He thinks he'll be out
in 40 minutes.
See you later. Bye.
Three months on from his arrest,
Alex has received his
sentence from the Court.
He's not been sent to prison,
instead he's been given a 12 months
Community Order, and must
attend weekly counselling sessions.
My Community Order says that I
should sign
the Sex Offender's Register, I can't
delete my internet history,
I've got to tell the police if
I buy new computers.
What about teaching?
Is that it for teaching now?
As part of the sentence the judge
announced that I'd be barred
from teaching, so that's an end
to that career.
So what's your set up now? Where...?
Working nights in a manual job.
I managed to get a job from an
employer who values... well, they
don't value me, they probably
haven't even noticed I work there
but... but who know that I've got a
conviction but aren't worried.
What about your workmates
do they know?
No. Oh, no.
No, I think if people knew there'd
be horrible suspicions and...
..there's always that,
sort of, worry
about people taking direct action.
Do you worry about that? Yeah.
Which is why it's so important
that I remain anonymous.
So Alex was a teacher here,
how long was he here for?
About 15 years.
I do know that the police, at some
point, went into the school
and removed his laptop.
He didn't do anything in the school,
there was nothing on his school
laptop, but there will have
been people who will have seen what
was going on,
and perhaps speculated.
Yeah, that could get tongues
wagging couldn't it? Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, I mean I've had people
shouting at me
to leave their children alone.
One minute, somebody said
what to you?
Yes, I have had people shouting at
me to leave their children alone.
And what did you do?
Left their children alone.
OK, so it's next left. Is it? Yeah.
It's that one, no, it's this one,
not that not that one.
Not that one? Oh, I'll
turn round here.
That's it. Cor.
You all right? Oh, dear, my
stomach's flipping out. It's here.
Now this is it, you know.
Every time I sort of think what's
going to happen in a minute,
my stomach goes... flips over.
Is that him?
CAR HORN
Oops. What are you doing out here?
Waiting. I know, I can't help it.
I was worried. Why were you worried?
I don't know.
HE SOBS
Oh, no.
What, thinking I wasn't coming?
Just took time.
Yeah, but I didn't think you were
going to be this late. I'm sorry.
It's nearly... look,
it's gone 11 o'clock.
Have you got Wi-Fi here?
No, there's no Wi-Fi here.
I have a 3G dongle with...
Is that allowed?
I think the realisation from the
authorities is that, actually
they can't stop you.
But I've set some rules for myself.
I don't sit on the internet for
more than half an hour.
Before I use the internet I know
what I'm going to do and things,
because that's where the
problems came in.
By the time Alex was arrested both
his daughters
had finished school and left home.
His eldest, Lucy, will be
21 tomorrow.
About 200.
You've got lots of your daughters
actually here, look.
They'd hate to see that.
Would they, why?
Aren't people embarrassed by their
old school photos?
How would birthdays go when you were
at home with your daughters
and Kate? My mum would come over and
make a cake, so, which was nice,
a lovely tradition.
To be honest, I...
I was always a bit tired, you know,
and some of that
will have been down to porn use.
I knew I had a problem with porn,
probably ten years ago, and at
the time I was just looking at
normal adult material,
but as I got bored with that I
looked for more extreme material.
I kept trying to stop but would
always end up going back to it
when things went wrong at work, or
in other parts of my life.
If I make excuses it sounds as if
I'm not taking responsibility
for my actions, but I've got to
try and find an explanation because
if I am the immoral person it'll
be very hard to live with myself.
I've got a pretty good idea from
what he has told me that,
you know, these images were
very extreme.
He kept talking about how he'd seen
images and I got really angry,
I said "No, you haven't just
seen things,
no, you went looking for things,
it was an active process".
I'm really angry that he would want
to look at this stuff,
when he had me, what was
wrong with me?
Why not just stick with what
was right,
what he should have been looking at,
which was me?
Kate has been living on her own
since the week after Alex's arrest.
She's now decided to take lodgers
in, and rent out her spare room.
It's a relief, really,
have a bit of income,
and, obviously, I'm not working,
so I do need to cull, really.
Will you tell your new lodgers what
happened with Alex? No.
They'll make friends with, or at
least, they'll certainly meet
your neighbours won't they?
They will find out at some point.
Just really hope they don't.
I mean...
They will though won't they?
I don't know. What makes you
think they won't?
I can't imagine them just bringing
it up in conversation "Oh by
the way..." but my best hope
is they'll just keep themselves to
themselves.
That will be my hope.
It is a tricky one.
I can't imagine, I mean, even if
they did find out,
I can't imagine they'd turn round
and say "We want to finish our
tenancy because an internet offender
lived here", can you, really?
It's not me, I didn't do
it, you know.
They're dealing with
somebody honourable,
it's not like I'm leading a
secret double life.
No, but it's so interesting isn't it
as to whether you feel that
that that's something
that you need to... Conceal. Yeah.
Got a lot of albums there. Yeah.
I don't really want to go through
the photo albums. Why is that?
I don't really want to look at
pictures of us as a family,
at the moment.
How do you think the girls are
coping at the moment?
They've got so many distractions in
their lives,
they've both got boyfriends, I just
think they feel
that their life's not here.
Are your daughters seeing
much of Alex?
I don't ask them too many questions
about it...
but I think so.
Hello. Hello.
I apologise for wearing my uniform,
I came straight from the
night shift.
I'm training at the moment,
I'm learning how to load lorries.
How exciting.
We don't hug, do we? Or do we?
Yes, we do, it's just
usually awkward.
Ah, it looks good.
Apart from the bit on the floor.
Yeah, well it's much better than
it was last time. Yes. Yeah.
I did that picture yesterday.
You should do something
with your art.
Yeah, I spend a lot of my time
considering possible careers
I could still go down.
Well, so am I. Yeah.
# Happy birthday to you
# You look like a monkey
# And you smell like one too.#
Thank you. Shall I blow out the
candles? I think you're meant to.
Who's that from? Charlotte.
My sister, yes.
She's still angry with me, I think.
Refusing to have contact, basically,
and refusing to attend the
same family functions.
Which is the stigma of the crime.
At some level it seems appropriate
that there is an awkward thing
there that means that I am reminded
that this is serious,
and it has affected a lot of people,
you guys in particular.
Ooh. It's a non-stick wok.
Some people that go through this,
they do lose family members.
Did you worry that you'd
lose the girls? Oh, definitely.
I thought they'd want
nothing to do with me.
And certainly after this all came
out I was too embarrassed
to try and keep contact with you for
a little while anyway.
I was scared.
I have put off speaking to
him, basically.
I remember sitting in the kitchen of
my flat,
having an hour long conversation
with him, it was very odd.
I'd not heard him cry before.
That was hard and there was just a
lot of confusion,
I remember just going back and forth
between 'how could he do this?'
to 'at least now he's getting
some help' and
'I feel sorry for him, I empathise
with him...
..and I'm angry at him'.
There's always going to be a part of
me that thinks,
I don't understand... I understand
him becoming addicted to a thing,
but it's very hard to understand
becoming addicted to that.
It's very difficult identifying what
the underlying cause was.
I was depressed, I became addicted
to the use of pornography.
Do you think that whatever it was to
drove you to look at the images,
do you think it's something that
you can be cured from?
I am recovering, I hope, and part of
my recovery is the fact
that I've got to be the best
father that I can be.
I wrote a very long letter to
you in the aftermath...
..which you've never seen,
I wanted to explain things a bit.
I don't know whether you'll want
to address it or not.
If you wanted me to read a letter
I'd probably read it. Yeah.
I don't think you should punish
yourself on our behalf,
or anything, like that's yeah,
I don't think of your crimes when I
think of you, you know.
Afterwards when several
things have come up,
the one thing that's been handled
badly is I never got the phone call
to Lucy was the one to pass it
on to me,
it's just been 'Oh, I'm too young
to understand',
I think there's been that
kind of attitude,
and I'm not young, you know.
We handled that terribly badly.
It's been a devastating experience
for everyone.
I ended up harming the people
I love the most.
You've both been very kind to me.
You've allowed me to bumble around
on the periphery of your lives,
popping up every now and again to
fix a broken chair or...
You decide what you do want for
your birthday.
I can give you driving lessons if
you want. Bye, darling. Bye.
CHICKENS CLUCK
No, you don't, Violet.
CHICKENS SQUAWK
Here you go, love, here's your tea.
Door's broken now.
Robert has been out of prison
for two weeks now.
He sleeps in his rented flat,
and comes to the family home
on days when the grandchildren
aren't there.
Do you think Robert might be up for
talking to us about what's happened?
He might,
but he doesn't at the moment.
Do your neighbours know
where he's been, and what he did?
My immediate neighbours do.
I can see your neighbour there now,
actually. Yeah.
What do they think about him
being back here?
She just made it clear that,
while I was having Robert
visiting the house,
she is not to be involved with me.
So, have you got on well with this
neighbour in the past?
Oh, yes, we used to be quite
close friends.
I took round some rhubarb yesterday,
which I've always done.
And she was rather taken aback,
rather reluctant to speak to me,
and was looking around obviously
to see if Robert was around.
And I...naively said to her,
"Well, it's all going well,
"and he's settling into
his new flat".
And she said,
"Well I'm afraid I don't think
"he's been punished enough at all.
"He shouldn't have been allowed out,
and he shouldn't be allowed anywhere
"where there are children."
And I do like feel like saying,
"Well, what do you think should have
happened, then, what do you think?
"Should he have had the
death penalty?"
Did you have any inkling of
what was going on? Not at all.
My husband had always spent a lot
of time on the computer
looking at train-related things
and his hobbies,
so I never looked into what he was
looking at, at all.
So, what's up there?
That's his territory, and it's all
untouched, really...yeah.
Do you not go up there now?
Well, there's nothing up there
to interest me.
Can we have a look?
SHE GRUNTS
Oh, dear...it's a bit cobwebby.
The children think this is absolute
fairy land up here.
So, how much time would he
spend up here?
Several hours at a time.
I don't know half of what's up here.
My neighbour did tell me,
"Oh, do you know your husband stands
"and stares out the window at us"?
They're very unhappy at the idea
that my husband might have watched
children in the garden.
But I know that what he was
interested in
is watching the red kites.
We get a lot of red kites around
this area, and he like...he was
interested in watching birds,
and that's what he was watching.
But people interpret everything
in a different light,
once they know what's happened.
LAWNMOWER IN DISTANCE
I did ask him what he was watching,
and he said it was the birds,
and also, he watches the trains.
Cos you can see a train line
from here.
Apparently.
I'd never really know what he's
thinking, not really.
And some questions are too
painful to ask.
Like what?
Like whether he had
any inappropriate thoughts
of our grandchildren.
It's too unbearable...I don't think
I can cope with knowing.
DOOR OPENS
Hello!
SHE LAUGHS
It's been six months since
Kate's husband, Alex,
moved out of the house.
And their divorce has just
come through.
Do you need to put...
"I'm a woman,
and I'm looking for a man."
Oh, he looks nice. Which one, him?
Oh, look, every eight minutes,
a single finds love.
"I have a great sense of humour."
Goes from "doesn't apply at all"
to "completely applicable",
and you've got seven options
on that.
Slightly applicable.
Slightly applicable, yeah.
Next? What's that one?
"I laugh often."
I'm not sure that I laugh as much
at the moment, as I did before
everything kicked off with Alex.
Erm...
Maybe not completely applicable.
"My emotional state is stable."
Erm...
Whether it is...
as stable as it...should be.
So that's...again,
it's a difficult one, isn't it?
Do you think you're actually ready
for a new relationship?
I suppose I've got two choices
I can make.
One of them is I can assume that,
because somebody let me down
in the past,
I'm going to be let down again.
Or the alternative is I can
actually trust somebody,
take the risk, and...
..if I'm hurt again,
then that will be the price I pay.
I just want to kind of go
for it, really.
Alex is still living alone, and
doing night shifts in a warehouse.
In his spare time, he's working
his way through the 12 steps
of a treatment programme
for sex addiction.
What's that?
This is my sex addict recovery pack.
HE CHUCKLES
What have you got in there?
Oh, just sort of...reading stuff,
and books, and notes, and things.
So, how's it all going, then?
At the moment,
I'm concentrating on...
..getting clear of the addictive
stuff, and living in the present.
I don't want to have any risk of
going back into...
..having a porn addiction.
I try not to spend lots of time in
the caravan, so most of the time,
I'm out there...walking, or...
I met a heron this morning.
And how do you feel about how it's
going with the girls?
It's always nice to see them, I'm
incredibly proud of their courage
in sort of keeping up contact
with me, and...
..you know, it'd be very easy for
them to bury themselves
in their own lives.
Do you think they may have
questioned whether you'd ever had
any inappropriate thoughts about
them or their friends?
This is...
HE CLEARS THROA This is a letter to Lucy and Jess
that I wrote
shortly after my arrest.
"Dear Lucy and Jess...
I am not a paedophile.
"I am not sexually aroused
by children.
"The things I have done are
all virtual,
"the other side of a glass screen.
"I don't relate images on a computer
screen with the actual acts.
"I realise that this will make me
seem immoral,
"but this addiction of mine has led
me to some very disturbing images.
"Unfortunately, the further
I explored, the more obsessive
"and compulsive my behaviour became.
"Much of the thrill was finding
new things, and this certainly led
"to the current situation.
"I'm going to get treated now.
"Looking forward, I hope that you
will think, 'My dad was OK
"'90% of the time, but he did
something so unbelievably stupid
"'the other 10%.'
"This is like a car crash,
which is all my fault."
Here we are.
And don't get crumbs on the floor.
Let's just shut the door, so they
don't overhear what we're saying.
It's two months since
Helen's husband, Robert,
was released from prison.
His grandchildren still
haven't seen him.
What do you think they've picked up
about what's going on?
Now look at this.
Whether that's their grandfather
crossed out, I... I don't know.
They apparently were very upset when
they were told
that they weren't going to see their
grandfather at the moment.
My son said he asked
them, you know
"What do you think happens to people
if they do something wrong?"
and the children said "Oh, they go
to jail" and that's where they
said "Well grandad's done something
wrong, and he's gone to prison".
My granddaughter is quite enquiring,
and wanted to know a lot more
detail, and she's quite angry that
she hasn't been told why he
went to prison.
"Do cats eat bats I wonder?
And here Alice began to get rather
sleepy, and went on saying to
herself in a dreamy sort of way,
'Do cats eat bats?
Do cats eat bats? Sometimes..."
So Robert can't sleep here,
but he's not he's not forbidden
from seeing the grandchildren at all
is he? No.
There is no restriction on him
spending time with them.
It's our son and daughter-in-law who
don't want him
to see the children at the moment.
They want answers.
My daughter-in-law is not prepared
to allow him
to see the grandchildren, until
she's had those answers.
What questions does your
daughter-in-law
want the answers to?
There were some details that came
out at the trial,
that she is absolutely haunted by.
Like what? Horrible things.
One of the videos that he looked at
was of a breast-feeding baby
who was taken from his mother,
and the man masturbated and
ejaculated all over the baby's face.
My daughter-in-law used to
breast-feed in front of Robert,
in the house, and she's
absolutely haunted,
worrying what he was thinking,
and was he having fantasies
when he was witnessing that.
She wants reassurance that he
never, ever thought
of actually carrying any of
these things out.
Is that them?
Is that your daughter-in-law?
Yes, it is, yeah, don't know how
they're feeling,
but I'm feeling rather apprehensive.
Ever since his trial Robert's son
and daughter-in-law
have been reluctant to see him,
but they have agreed to mediation to
confront him with his offences,
and to decide whether to allow him
to see his grandchildren again.
Take a seat Robert, there.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Dr Campbell.
So the first point is to know from
everyone, what do you really
want to achieve with this meeting?
Are you worried about him?
I just wondered how he is.
He, of course, feels awful about it.
And he's really unhappy about how it
all turned out obviously,
and starting over has been
hard, on his own.
You know, hopefully he'll find
a partner.
Do you think it's realistic that
he'll find a partner?
Surely, at some point he'd have to
tell that partner about the past.
Yeah, but loads of
people have pasts,
I think he'd just have to find
someone who could understand
the crime he committed isn't a
defining feature of his personality.
But I think that very few people
would be comfortable knowing that.
Your complete discomfort with
it, maybe, makes you think that
other people would be always
equally as uncomfortable.
Hmm, well, it is such a taboo,
it instils such feelings
of revulsion, just that
association, sex and children.
Yeah, I think it's more complicated
than just the crime with him.
I think that came out of a product
of him being mentally ill,
and unhappy, and not thinking.
I think you're,
perhaps, oversimplifying
the nature of what he did.
Anybody who views images
that are illegal,
are consciously committing a crime.
They're adults, they know the nature
of what they're looking at,
and they know that it's not
acceptable, and there must be
something rather unpleasant that is
prompting them to do it.
But that unpleasant thing is
still an illness.
Well, there must be a point at which
your morality,
or your conscience speaks.
I think that's probably quite a
simplistic view of mental illness.
Perhaps, you don't really understand
the idea
of, kind of, taking responsibility
for your own actions.
You know we are in control
of what we do.
We come at it from very different
perspectives because you're...
you don't really understand,
like, depression.
I think I can join a lot of the dots
which make sense for me,
and I... What do you mean by join
the dots, what do you mean?
Join the dots of how illness
led to action and...
What, you can sort of imagine how
that would happen?
I can see how it might happen.
You sound very forgiving.
You know it's different for me
because I'm a partner,
rather than a child.
You're flesh and blood, it's a
different...
..betrayal, really.
Let's try to come with
some scenarios.
The therapist went round and asked
why they were there,
and what they wanted to get out of
the meeting.
What did Robert say he wanted
to get out of it?
That he wanted to be able to see
the children again.
Sally drew back into her corner and
was saying,
"Well, that's not going to happen
unless I see
real signs of change within you".
His view was 'Well, I didn't
actually touch a child
and they were all old videos,
and it's all exaggerated'.
He's adamant that he didn't watch
a lot of the videos,
that he collected them, downloaded
them, looked at them sufficiently
to categorise them, and then put
them away to watch another time.
I said to him "But you did watch
some didn't you?"
He reluctantly admitted that he did.
Sally breast-fed both her children
in front of him, how did he feel
about that and was he thinking about
those images when he watched her?
He denied it completely,
he's denying completely that
he saw that video.
He says that he cannot remember
viewing it at all.
We don't know.
We'll never know.
Try and get some sleep.
I'll see you tomorrow.
You all right?
I haven't quite got over the feeling
that he's betrayed me,
and I've got this 'how could you?'
feeling in relationship to
our grandchildren.
I just... I'm struggling with it.
It's been almost a year since Alex
was arrested and the whole
family had to start dealing with
the trauma it caused.
You seem happy. Yeah.
Got a new man.
You've got a lot of photos of him,
are you still
taking lots of selfies?
Yeah, we do take quite a few.
You're still in that
honeymoon then ? Yes.
I woke up one morning and my iPad
was just going absolutely
insane, going 'ding, ding, ding,
ding, ding'.
My partner, as he is now, was liking
all of the statements
that I'd written on my profile.
What about this one? That's quite
nice. Stunning gardens.
It may be a bit sort of overlooked
outside, I don't know.
Top end of our... Oh, it is isn't
it? ..budget, really.
This is quite exciting, so you're
going to move in together? Yes.
It is exciting, because it feels
like a new start.
What about that one? A walled garden
and an orchard.
Kate is there anything that you're
looking for, that's different
from this house, particularly?
I'm certainly looking for somewhere
that we have absolute privacy.
I don't particularly want to have a
lot of neighbours too close.
No neighbours or nice neighbours?
Prefer no neighbours really,
because I don't really want to
have that pressure.
Richard, you've had to take all of
this onboard as well haven't you?
Yeah. It has been hard at times.
Yeah.
It was something that, you know,
I told you about fairly
early on, wasn't it?
We didn't... you knew what
my past was. Mmm.
I think it would have been very
difficult if it had emerged
a long way down the line.
People did warn me that it's
probably not something you
mention on a first date.
We'll just stick the L-Plates on.
Yeah. You stick one on that side.
There you go.
OK.
Oh, I can't even remember all the
stuff we did last time.
Check the hand brake's on.
Put the clutch all the way in.
Wait that's the... Accelerator.
So just put it into first gear.
CAR OVER REVS
No. It's not subtle at all.
Right, let's listen for the
biting point.
Ah, hah. And off we go. Yeah.
Let go of the handbrake, let go!
The handbrake yeah, sorry.
OK steer, come on, down the middle.
Leave a good distance on the left.
Yeah, sorry. OK.
Look out for that cyclist.
Signal left again. OK.
Still in first gear.
I find I'm a lot more interested in
their lives than I was before.
I'm enjoying hearing about
their lives.
In the past I was more in
my own world.
And has that in any sense led to a
better relationship?
In a way I'd hope so, but...
That's nice.
Yeah, but it was the only photo she
could find
of the three of us together.
I have a lovely life now in a way.
You know you've got enough money
to have a night cap,
decent piece of cheese and
some Maltesers.
I don't want to sound too happy
about it, because of all the
misery and everything else that it's
caused but I think life's a
bit simpler for me now.
PHONE RINGS
Sorry. Apologies for that.
Who's that? That was a sex addict.
Friend of yours? Yeah.
Mike's in a very similar
situation to me actually,
he... slightly different crime but
a similar outcome.
I was given his number as someone
who needed support and was
able to support him over the phone a
bit, and chat and things.
In terms of recovery you know I'm
building a life now,
I'm very much bottom up.
I can't answer questions like
'what are my plans for the future?'
What I can say is I've got a list of
things to do tomorrow,
that I know will keep me out
of trouble.
No, I want to throw that one!
"Dear Robert. We had a good journey
and got here early evening.
The cottage is really nice with
lovely views from the windows.
The children are very excited about
taking Pippa for walks,
and paddling in streams with her.
My feelings haven't
changed and they won't.
Keep your chin up, Helen."
It's been seven months since Robert
was released from prison.
The relationship between him and his
son and daughter-in-law
hasn't improved.
Come on then.
Good girl.
So who's this? This is Pippa.
She's... oh, she's made life so much
more bearable for me.
She's just lovely. The children love
her and...
Does your husband like dogs?
Not much.
There's a good girl.
So how are things with you
and Robert now?
We are now fully separated.
We are still friends but we
are separated,
and every day I have to remind
Robert about that.
He's gradually coming round to it.
So what changed?
I felt I had to choose between my
husband and the grandchildren,
and I have chosen the grandchildren.
He's never really accepted what
happened, and would like to
pretend that it
didn't really happen.
And how do you feel about that?
I feel free.
Yeah, my end down.
It's kind of like a dividing line,
a watershed,
you know this is my new relationship
now and I don't want it
tainted by association
with Alex and the past.
Do you feel you'll ever be
completely rid of this? No.
It's always just there, that little
bit in the background, of unease.
When I meet somebody,
how much they know,
are they looking at me thinking
'Yeah, she's the woman who was
married to the sex offender'
and all the rest of it?
So when you unpack at the other side
what are you going to do with
the photo albums? I think they'll
probably just go up in my loft.
They can sit there for a bit and
then at some point
I'll go through them, I guess.