UK - Inside the mind of the paedophile - and the wife standing by him

Many will find this article deeply disturbing. But as a paedophile ring is smashed, one man jailed for child *advertiser censored* offences gives a brutally honest insight into his warped desires... and his wife reveals why she's standing by him.

Bill Henkel and his wife Sharon sit close together on a sofa in their bright, immaculate detached home in a quiet corner of eastern England.
They are active members of their local church. They sing in old age homes and Henkel, 47, likes to help the elderly of the parish with D.I.Y. jobs.
On the surface, there is nothing remarkable about the couple. The same could be said of their home.


Observant visitors, however, might note the absence of any computers - a clue to the fact that this is no ordinary marriage.
In June 2003, Henkel was caught downloading child *advertiser censored* at work. He was prosecuted, sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment in March last year and released at the halfway point in October.
In the wake of the smashing of Britain's largest internet paedophile ring, reported in yesterday's Mail, Bill's account of his desires and his battle to control them makes compelling reading. It offers a chilling insight into the mind of a paedophile.

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That was interesting, Blaize, thanks for posting it.

IrishMist said:

That was interesting, Blaize, thanks for posting it.

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Welcome IrishMist. It's a good article because it doesn't seek to sensationalize the content.

blaize said:

Many will find this article deeply disturbing. But as a paedophile ring is smashed, one man jailed for child *advertiser censored* offences gives a brutally honest insight into his warped desires... and his wife reveals why she's standing by him.

Bill Henkel and his wife Sharon sit close together on a sofa in their bright, immaculate detached home in a quiet corner of eastern England.
They are active members of their local church. They sing in old age homes and Henkel, 47, likes to help the elderly of the parish with D.I.Y. jobs.
On the surface, there is nothing remarkable about the couple. The same could be said of their home.


Observant visitors, however, might note the absence of any computers - a clue to the fact that this is no ordinary marriage.
In June 2003, Henkel was caught downloading child *advertiser censored* at work. He was prosecuted, sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment in March last year and released at the halfway point in October.
In the wake of the smashing of Britain's largest internet paedophile ring, reported in yesterday's Mail, Bill's account of his desires and his battle to control them makes compelling reading. It offers a chilling insight into the mind of a paedophile.

[More]

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Why the absence of computers at their home is a clue to the fact they do not have an ordinary marriage, I know heaps of married people who do not have computers, and they are happily married. I dont understand.:waitasec: He had access to a computer at his workplace, and you dont necessarily need a computer to be a pedophile, you just have to be a slime balll.

Thanks so much, blaize - that was fascinating.

An interesting read about a very scarey couple......Thankyou Blaize.

Shazza said:

Why the absence of computers at their home is a clue to the fact they do not have an ordinary marriage, I know heaps of married people who do not have computers, and they are happily married. I dont understand.:waitasec: He had access to a computer at his workplace, and you dont necessarily need a computer to be a pedophile, you just have to be a slime balll.

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Ah I think that was a reference to his IT related background .

I thought it was interesting that his wife managed to delude herself that given the opportunity he'd never act on his fantasies.

"Asked whether his despair was rooted in the fear that he might eventually try to act out the fantasies he was viewing online, he pauses.
Sharon tries to answer for him: "I don't think that was ever likely. He'd been fighting these feelings for so long and he'd been open about his problems with me. I don't believe he could have hurt a child."
Yet before she can continue, Henkel interrupts and with chilling honesty says: "Sharon, you're kidding yourself. Why do you think I tried to kill myself?
"I did realise that the fantasies were getting stronger and I was becoming more and more obsessed. After a while, the material you're viewing doesn't give you the same buzz and you look for more extreme versions.
"Eventually, the most hardcore images you could find wouldn't do it for you. I recognised that my fantasies were going in a direction I didn't like and that I might not be able to control myself.
"So, yes, I think there was a danger that I might have tried to get access to a child, and I really didn't want to go there." [Link]




Thank god he was caught but also that he came to the personal realisation from finding those images of himself and his brother on the web, that children are not objects to be used to satisfy one's sexual desires.

wow. very interesting article! thanks so much for sharing!

That was a very interesting article, Blaize. Thanks.

OneLostGrl said:

wow. very interesting article! thanks so much for sharing!

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I totally agree. Thanks much.

She claims to be "sickened and disgusted" by what he did...thats total bs, if she was she's have left his sick *advertiser censored**, imo. Even he himself tells her she is kidding herself when she says she doesn't think he could ever hurt a child.
I commend him for trying to get help but it's just like dr.'s told him...they can't cure him. He WILL do this again and he at some point in time will probably actually molest some poor child.

Welcome everyone.

The thing is the wife was making a distinction between the actual physical rape of a child and the online depiction of the act. The mental gymnastics involved in that nice little delusion leads me to believe that if he had acted further on his desires she would have found some way of rationalizing that too.

I have to commend Henkel though on his clear eyed understanding of his own behaviour & his ongoing attempts to manage his condition & impulses. I think his identification with other victims of child sex abuse, (he & his brother were both sexually abused as children), may be the one thing that if worked on with his councillors will keep him from offending.

blaize said:

Welcome everyone.

The thing is the wife was making a distinction between the actual physical rape of a child and the online depiction of the act. The mental gymnastics involved in that nice little delusion leads me to believe that if he had acted further on his desires she would have found some way of rationalizing that too.

I have to commend Henkel though on his clear eyed understanding of his own behaviour & his ongoing attempts to manage his condition & impulses. I think his identification with other victims of child sex abuse, (he & his brother were both sexually abused as children), may be the one thing that if worked on with his councillors will keep him from offending.

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Yes - the wife has made a decision to stand by him through this and part of that decision has to involve some rationalization IMHO. I don't fault her for it - she obviously loves this man and feels like he is a good man in other ways. I am a cheerleader for those who choose to extend themselves in love to people that much of society believes to be monsters.

The same rationalization this couple shares appears in my own marriage. My husband and I are both recovering drug addicts - the odds are very high that neither of us will stay clean and yet both of us hope, pray, believe that we can! My husband believes this in the face of one massive relapse I had after a number of years clean.

Sexual addiction (and this man is both a pedophile and a *advertiser censored* addict, IMO) and drug addiction have similar components - mainly the obsessive/compulsive nature of getting your fix. When the man in this story described calling his wife and lying about a problem at work so that he could go back and look at *advertiser censored* online in secret, he describes behavior I have engaged in many times so that I could go do drugs in secret.

I much appreciated the husband and wife's public honesty. I was fascinated by the incident in which he found pictures of himself online and had a moment of clarity that what he was doing was not at all harmless. I was also interested to read how he developed his attraction to children.

I think most pedophiles offend and reoffend because pedophelia is a sexual orientation and it is so difficult to NOT act out on your own sexuality. I feel compassion for them - I can't imagine a life where acting out on my sexual desires would always harm someone else and be a crime.

The man in this story seems to have a grip on how the odds are stacked against him and other pedophiles - he recommends almost lifelong monitoring of some sort or another.

Articles like this are so important - the more we know about pedophiles, the better able we will be to protect out children.

Very interesting article, pardon my delay in posting a reply, I was busy vomiting.

"I was sickened when I learned what he had been doing. I could have walked away then and left him to it, but within hours of him being found out, I could see his remorse was genuine.

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I think this line is what bothers me the most. I have seen a paedophile look VERY remorseful, but it didn't take long to realize his remorse was in being caught, not in what he did. Maybe I'm wrong with this guy, but I think he would be the rare exception.

I found the article interesting too- hard for me to understand the wife staying by his side, but I "see" how she tried to rationalize in her mind that he was "only" looking-

this quote from the article is what bothered me-
"He held a senior position at his former firm, but fears that the stress of another big job with a big salary might provoke a relapse."

We all have stress in our lives, and I do get tired of "IT" becoming a reason/excuse for behavior- what happens when he is "stressed out" because he isnt making as much money and the bills start piling up?

i read things like this and i want to scream at these women. at least most the time, at least in this situation he seems to be actively seeking and getting help. i was a few years ago witness to a similar situation where my ex and his then new wife would both contact me. she would complain about him having online relationships with 15/16 year old girls. she would ask me what to do and i suggested turning his butt into LE. instead she believed whatever his excuse was and believed that God would heal him. a little while later he was then being investigated with something dealing with her daughter. i don't know what, don't want to...i had to block and delete all contact. i couldn't understand the stupidity of sticking by someone, asking for advice then doing nothing about it and letting the actions continue.

as i said i give this couple at least credit of actively getting help.

MissieMt said:

Very interesting article, pardon my delay in posting a reply, I was busy vomiting.


I think this line is what bothers me the most. I have seen a paedophile look VERY remorseful, but it didn't take long to realize his remorse was in being caught, not in what he did. Maybe I'm wrong with this guy, but I think he would be the rare exception.

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I feel like this guy was probably remorseful on many levels - for being caught and for his behavior, which harms so many people. But underneath that remorse, he may also have felt a sense of relief.

I can only relate in to my own behavior - when I got caught using drugs again, I was deeply remorseful - for being caught and for my own behavior which harmed so many people. But underneath that remorse, I felt a sense of relief because I really wanted to get clean again.

I am unable to see into his heart obviously to know the level of his desire to not re-offend. Like me, that desire is probably strong in the beginning but can wear down over time if I don't take active steps to change.

I don't think people can be cured of pedopheliac orientations, but I do think some can learn not to re-offend. It is, as you point out, VERY difficult to change that type of behavior and the odds are stacked against him. I hope he "makes" it - it must be hell to live like that.

j2mirish said:

I found the article interesting too- hard for me to understand the wife staying by his side, but I "see" how she tried to rationalize in her mind that he was "only" looking-

this quote from the article is what bothered me-
"He held a senior position at his former firm, but fears that the stress of another big job with a big salary might provoke a relapse."

We all have stress in our lives, and I do get tired of "IT" becoming a reason/excuse for behavior- what happens when he is "stressed out" because he isnt making as much money and the bills start piling up?

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Again, I related to this statement. People who want to change the way they manage stress (for this man, it's child *advertiser censored* and for me, it's drugs) have to change their lives so that those stressors don't trigger them.

I too had to leave a highly stressful, big-paying job in order to get and stay clean off of drugs. Making less money doesn't stress me out in the least, so that's good. I don't know if it'll work for him, but good for him for trying something new.

MissieMt said:

Very interesting article, pardon my delay in posting a reply, I was busy vomiting.


I think this line is what bothers me the most. I have seen a paedophile look VERY remorseful, but it didn't take long to realize his remorse was in being caught, not in what he did. Maybe I'm wrong with this guy, but I think he would be the rare exception.

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Sounds like he is; it bothered him enough to try to kill himself to prevent it.
BTW, Blaize, geat find.

Crypto6