Appendix E: Interviews with Three Boys
The purpose of the first interview was to talk to
Ferdinand. This interview took place at Ferdinand's
home. The interview was tape recorded, although a
transcript was never made. While conducting the
interview of Ferdinand, the boys, Johnny, Stephan with his
girlfriend, and Peter, dropped in to visit, one after the
other. This made it impossible to continue.
A second interview was arranged with Ferdinand several
weeks later. It was Sunday evening and when the
interviewer (B.R.) arrived, Johnny and Peter were
present. This had not been agreed beforehand; the boys
had come in casually as before. Ferdinand explained the
purpose of the interview to the boys, and added: "It's
OK, you can tell him anything you want." Johnny
immediately began to attack the police with vitriol.
Peter, in a more restrained manner, agreed with him. At
that moment (and later by telephone with Stephan) appointments
were made to interview the boys separately and at the home of
the interviewer. The interview with Johnny was more
difficult to organize since he was still at school during the
day, so it was agreed to meet in Ferdinand's home, during
which time Ferdinand left the house at the interviewer's
request.
For the interviews, a list of questions was compiled.
To avoid bias, the boys were explicitly given the opportunity
to mention the positive as well as negative aspects of the
following: (1) their meeting and friendship with Ferdinand,
(2) their participation in making child pornography and (3)
their contact with the police. The interviews with the
boys, which were conducted in Dutch, were transcribed and
translated by the interviewer.
Through Ferdinand's barrister we were able to get a
photocopy of the entire police dossier, including the
statements made by all the children involved in the cases
against all three defendants. As our analysis in
Appendix D shows, the quality of the statements made by
Ferdinand's three friends stood out. After interviewing
the three boys three more interviews with Ferdinand took
place. His account of the events did not differ from the
statements found in the dossier, and did not differ from the
statements made by the three boys during our interviews.
Despite the attempt to obtain a balanced description of the
events, a remarkably black and white picture emerged.
The boys described their friendship and feelings for Ferdinand
in glowing terms. On the other hand the attitude towards
the police is unequivocally negative. The simplest
explanation, of course, is that the boys experienced their
relationship with Ferdinand and their contact with the police
in these terms. The opinions given in these interviews
may reflect the truth.
However, all relationships are difficult and there arise
conflicts of interest from time to time. The
uncompromisingly positive attitude of the boys towards their
adult friend seems strange, even given that the relationship
had been a good one. Several factors might play a role
here. We see in all three cases, evidence of less than
ideal family backgrounds. It appears that Ferdinand
provided an important emotional support for the boys
throughout their youth and continues to do so. This
factor alone may be sufficient to explain their attitude.
Professor Walter Everaerd, University of Amsterdam,
Department of Psychology, suggested that the interviews may
reflect the macho image the boys wanted to give of
themselves. Boys are socialized to be tough about sexual
things, making it difficult to admit that they were abused, he
argued. The claim that they "joined in for the
fun"' and that they liked the sex with Ferdinand could be
their way of protecting themselves against the implicit charge
that they had allowed themselves to be exploited and
abused.
However, except for the pornography sessions, these boys
did not talk primarily about sexual adventures, and when they
talked about the pornography, all three boys said that they
had been exploited by Fred. They talked about a
long-term relationship in which they claimed to love their
adult friend. Stephan asked for the tape recorder to be
turned on again at the end of the interview in order to
underscore this point.
Boys are not socialized to claim that they love an adult
homosexual pedophile. Indeed, it may require some
considerable courage for young men, all of whom regard
themselves heterosexual, to say these things to a stranger,
regardless of how "safe" the stranger might appear
to be. It is more likely, in this case, that in spite of
the image threatening nature of the admissions, the boys felt
strongly enough about their relationship with Ferdinand to
make these claims. Professor Everaerd's explanation also
does not account for why the boys, years after the sexual
relationship had come to an end in two cases, and despite the
strong social disapproval and difficulties it has led to with
the police, still visit Ferdinand regularly.
Because the first meeting between the interviewer and the
boys took place in Ferdinand's home the boys may have felt
that they were talking to someone who was in some way
"part of the family." In fact, they did not
know exactly who the interviewer was. [*205] This does
not necessarily mean that the information was less
accurate. It may mean that the boys felt free to say
what they thought. It must be noted in this respect that
the thrust of the boys' statements was similar to those made
by them in front of the police, as was confirmed by the police
dossier.
When the interviewer returned with the transcripts, the
attitude seemed to have changed somewhat. One of the
boys made it clear that he did not want to discuss the matter
any further, though he was happy to have given the interview
and was pleased with the transcript. One boy wanted to
add a paragraph to his interview and one made some minor
corrections for the sake of clarity. Requests to contact
the parents of the boys was rejected by all three, although
Johnny's mother had also supported Ferdinand during the crisis
and written to him while he was in jail. [*206]
Another explanation for the delineation the boys made
between Ferdinand and police may have arisen from of the
contrast between their experiences. The boys' contacts
with the police were, indeed, very negative. Against
this backdrop their feelings towards Ferdinand and
recollections of the good times with him, may have become
recast in an exaggerated relief. This may be an example
of how individual experiences are simplified and codified in
the process of being accommodated into individual subjective
biographies. In this process the good tends to become
very good and the bad, very bad.
These three interviews cannot be regarded as a study, for
the sample is not sufficiently large nor representative
enough. It is unfortunate that we were not able to
interview the children who had given negative statements to
the police about their relationships and experiences with Fred
V. No generalizations, therefore, can be made about the
nature of pedophile relationships, the manufacture of
pornography or about the approach of the police from this
material alone. Nevertheless, the general conclusions
that could be drawn from these three stories do not contradict
the findings of other research based on self-selected samples,
such as the first study of Theo Sandfort. Nor are the
relationships described here unlike others we have
encountered. We believe that these stories are fairly
typical, not only of the contacts between men and boys, but
also of the way that boy child pornography comes into
existence.