Late Late Show interview with paedophile was risk worth taking

Monday September 11th 2006

ON Friday last, RTE, the Late Late Show, and presenter Pat Kenny, took a risk. They had, as their second to last guest, convicted and self-proclaimed paedophile Jake Goldenflame.

RTE had not publicised the precise identity of the individual, and my phone calls to contacts within the Late Late research team proved fruitless in gleaning this information, but I had already guessed it would be the ubiquitous Mr Goldenflame.

For the past five years, this man, who admits to countless instances of sexually abusing young boys, and to having molested his own daughter from the age of three-five years, has been doing the rounds of American talkshows. His appearance on Oprah Winfrey's programme in particular gained him widespread notoriety as the acceptable face of the child abuser.

Goldenflame, unlike the vast majority of predators, supports Megan's Law, the American legislation which obliges convicted paedophiles to make their identities known to those living in their locality.

This, combined with an almost pathological need to confess, has made Goldenflame something of a media darling in the USA.

I spoke to quite a number of people, some involved in working with children, some not, on Friday and Saturday who were deeply disturbed by what Goldenflame had to say. Colm O'Gorman and the One in Four Organisation have expressed outrage at the piece, and will be lodging an official complaint with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. I believe that RTE was right to allow Goldenflame to speak. I think Pat Kenny conducted the interview in a calm, balanced manner, and that he asked the right questions. He was not judgmental, but he did not permit the extremely manipulative Goldenflame to hide behind platitudes, either.

The piece could have benefited from some balance, however. The presence of a therapist or child protection worker, to challenge some of Goldenflame's more sweeping comments (all victims of abuse are potential abusers themselves, for instance) would have opened up the debate. I wonder, though, if Goldenflame would have been happy to share the stage with someone else. One gets the impression that he quite enjoys being the center of attention, even when that attention is negative.

Nevertheless, the interview was important. The reason I believe Jake Goldenflame, as disturbing and upsetting as he most certainly is, served a useful purpose, is quite simple. You see, like it or not, paedophiles exist within our society and within each of our communities. Ignoring them and locking them away for periods of time is not enough. We need to develop an understanding of how they think and of what motivates them. The only way to do that is through interaction.

What, then, did we learn from Friday night's appearance? Goldenflame is a diminutive, balding man, who seems to crouch over to make himself even smaller. He speaks clearly, with well chosen words. His years on the media circuit have served him well - he knows how to present himself.

He opened his interview by expressing regret, on behalf of himself and the paedophiles of Ireland, for all the pain caused by the abuse they have perpetrated in the past. This vocalisation of regret - speaking the words - was the only sign throughout the interview that Goldenflame really experienced any remorse for what he had done. At two other points he spoke of children he had encountered since being 'in recovery' (Goldenflame, interestingly, sees paedophilia as an addiction, much like alcoholism, and uses the same language when discussing it).

The children he mentioned were, revealingly, both prostitutes, and he seemed to see them both as demonic tempters. These creatures had been set in his path to test him, and the fact that they had been reduced to a life within the sex industry at so early a stage in their development seemed to evade him altogether.

Similarly, the only comment he had to make about abusing his own little daughter, the act which finally saw him going to prison, was that he was trying to 'get at' his wife. "It was a cowardly act of hatred towards my spouse," he said. Once again, the child - his own daughter - seemed absent from the equation.

It was this, more than anything else, that was distressing for those us watching who have worked with the victims of people like Jake Goldenflame. "He may be in recovery for twelve years," a colleague told me immediately after the interview had aired, "but he is so cold. The enormity of what he's done just doesn't seem to have sunk in."

The paradigm most evident in an observation of Goldenflame, and it has been clear in other interviews with paedophiles, is the depersonalisation of the child. For a predator who has grown up in a society where sexual contact with children is criminalised and abhorred, child abuse can only be undertaken by making the child a 'non-person'. Goldenflame said, and it may have been the most revealing statement of the entire piece: "The paedophile sees himself as an urge." For these predators, children are the object - and I use the word consciously - of this urge.

One is forced to question the reasoning that put Goldenflame on the same show as a performance by male strippers.

However, the modus operandi of the Late Show has always been a (sometimes uncomfortable) mix of the very frothy with the weighty and worthy. The performance of The Full Monty as the closing section of that night's show, less than half an hour after the Goldenflame interview, probably was, in retrospect, ill advised.

After Jake Goldenflame's appearance, the Rape Crisis Centre received a record number of calls. I spoke to several victims who were severely shaken by the interview. "I was sickened by him," one survivor told me.

WHILE I feel for these brave people, and can understand One in Four's outrage, I am convinced that it was right to have him on the show. If there was ever any doubt how dangerous these individuals are, I think it is gone.

Goldenflame may be trying to make amends for what he has done.

But I do not think the motivating factor is shame. He is seeking approval. And I think he likes the spotlight.

Shane Dunphy is the author of Wednesday's Child. He is a child-protection worker and lecturer.

? Irish Independent