Identity investigators

Editorial: Emily Wan

Photography: Jesse Wray-McCann

With the offender’s identity obscured and the footage revealing few clues, it was up to the Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team (JACET) victim identification specialists to analyse thousands of media files to help locate the girl so she could be rescued.

And it wasn’t just police undertaking the gruelling task; Victorian Public Service (VPS) employee Jacob Hunter was part of this investigative team.

“We did most of the work to identify the girl’s location within Canada,” Mr Hunter said.

“Once she was located, we were able to liaise with local law enforcement, which eventually led to the identification of the girl. She was then safeguarded.”

As the state’s first non-police victim identification specialist, Mr Hunter has provided the fresh perspective and skill-set Victim Identification Team (VIT) manager Detective Sergeant Neville Major wanted for the role.

“We already have two police officers performing the role within the team, so hiring Jacob wasn’t a matter of changing the role to suit a VPS position, it was a matter of adding to it,” Det Sgt Major said.

“Jacob has brought with him a new set of analytical and investigative skills from his previous roles that our police, who are very experienced investigators, don’t have. This has enhanced the team.”

When Det Sgt Major started the recruitment process for Mr Hunter’s role, he knew finding a candidate with the required characteristics and qualifications to deal with the confronting nature of the job would be hard.

“Ideally you want to hire somebody who has a victim identification background, potentially from another law enforcement agency,” he said.

“The difficulty with employing somebody in this role is knowing what their reaction will be when exposed to graphic material.

“Mentally, not everybody is able to perform this role. It takes a special kind of person who can overcome the confronting sights and sounds they are exposed to while remaining focused on the job at hand in order to achieve the aims of the team.”

But Mr Hunter’s previous military role in the counter-terrorism space and extensive analytical experience working in Victoria Police’s online investigation and intelligence area meant he was qualified and prepared for this new challenge.

“I was lucky enough that the role came up at the right time and my background and skill-set were a good fit for the job,” Mr Hunter said.

Like all new JACET members, as part of his initial training Mr Hunter had to undertake the Graduated Exposure Program, which exposes staff to “varying explicit content associated to the job”.

He was required to attend regular psychologist appointments between viewing explicit images and then video footage to help him slowly build the resilience investigators need.

As manager of the VIT, Det Sgt Major said the victim identification specialist role is “the purest form of investigation you can get”.

“You’re given an image of a child being sexually abused in some form of setting and told to find that child. That child could be anywhere in the world,” he said.

“The job requires a lot of analytical and investigative skills, and that’s where VPS employees and police detectives come together. Having those two backgrounds really complement one another.”

The VIT is a specialist unit that provides support services for JACET investigations. The team’s function is to help identify, locate, and rescue child victims and prosecute perpetrators involved in the production, dissemination, and possession of child abuse material.

“When JACET investigators get a job for any identification aspects, we conduct breakaway investigations within their main investigation,” Det Sgt Major said.

Often the VIT works closely with its interstate and overseas child protection counterparts to identify and locate child victims and offenders.

“South Australian authorities recently contacted us after becoming aware of three young boys who were being sexually abused online. Interstate investigators identified that the football shorts the boys were wearing in the images emanated from Victoria,” Det Sgt Major said.

“We had a conversation with South Australian authorities to obtain the images. From there, we were able to make multiple enquiries in order to identify who those children were.

“With help from our local authorities, that same day we were able to actually speak to these three boys and intervene in order to prevent further sexual abuse.”

To assist investigative work, the team uses specialised software including image analysis and open source intelligence tools, as well as local and international data sharing portals.

One such portal is the Victoria Police Victim Identification Portal. Here, police can share de-identified images from unsolved cases with colleagues who may be able to assist with identifying leads.

Being a small, specialist team of two police officers and two VPS employees, each person in the VIT has their role to play in ensuring good investigative results.

“The expectation with VPS staff is to take more initiative in the training and development of the team by identifying software or tools that the team can use in order to enhance their investigative techniques,” Det Sgt Major said.

“The investigative skills that are learned at grassroots level, that police in my team have and can share, are invaluable for VPS employees like Jacob to pick up on and develop themselves.

“So in this team, the police officers and VPS employees both learn from each other, which is really good.”

When asked what keeps his team going when constantly faced with such mentally challenging situations, Det Sgt Major said the motivation to do the job comes from the reward that follows the end of a case.

“There’s a risk that comes with us being exposed to the graphic material, but that’s outweighed by the good result that comes from identifying a child and taking them out of a sexually abusive situation,” he said.

“That’s the reward, and that’s why we do it.”