The Paedophile Next Door review, Channel 4: 'frustratingly abstract' In the wake of Operation Yewtree and, with statistical evidence that one in six children will suffer some form of sexual abuse, the frenzied national mood regarding paedophilia no longer feels like paranoia. New Channel 4 documentary The Paedophile Next Door talked of an epidemic and urged the point that the problem must be tackled head on. Filmmaker Steve Humphries's main aim was to explore the possibility of preventive treatment in order to manage the situation. His investigation led him to Eddie, a 39-year-old who has never offended (a so-called "virtuous paedophile") but openly admitted his sexual attraction to girls as young as five on camera. Watching Eddie was a depressing, bewildering experience. It was hard to comprehend why anyone would go public to express such shocking sexual predilections and Humphries never elicited a satisfying answer. But it was a brave decision, and a braver one for Eddie to meet Ian McFadyen who had been repeatedly abused at the now-infamous Caldicott School in Buckinghamshire during the Seventies and also to talk about the possibility of preventive therapy. However, the documentary failed because it never got to grips with exactly what such treatment would involve. How did the counselling work? How do you talk to a paedophile about their sexual desires? How regularly was each person monitored? It only spoke of this radical approach to limiting abuse in frustratingly abstract terms. As well as speaking to victims, academics and police officers, Humphries's documentary also gave a rather cursory history of paedophilia in the UK. The Victorian attitude that child abuse was something that sprang from moral degeneracy among the working class was offered as if it were a mere footnote and not a key factor in enabling a blind eye to be turned to the sexual attacks which occured within respectable society for over a century. More convincing was the idea that the platform given to the Paedophile Information Exchange which, in the Sixties and Seventies lobbied to legalise sexual relationships between adults and children, led to a dialogue between abusers and allowed them to infiltrate institutions full of vulnerable youngsters. The documentary concluded with Humphries stating that he was now less sceptical of preventive treatment, but the lack of evidence or rigour provided during the investigation surely left most viewers unconvinced. The other overwhelming problem that the programme never tackled was that paedophiles are not all alike. Some, like Eddie, may never act on impulse, but history has proved that there are many aggressive, manipulative perpetrators who will inflict harm without compunction. For men such as these, could any amount of therapy really work?