“I’ve got a list of questions I’d like to ask you about your sexual offending against children, if that’s OK,” I say. “You might find some of them … ” I pause, unable to find the words, “ … a bit detailed and personal.” The grizzled old man sitting in front of me nods, but does not make eye contact. I don’t know who is dreading the interview most, him or me.
This was the first time I had been left on my own, in a cell, in a maximum-security prison, with a man convicted of serious sexual offences. It would be far from my last. I have spent the 25 years since that day in the mid-90s, when I was just 22 years old and in possession of a shiny new psychology degree, assessing, treating and researching men who commit sexual offences, including sexual murder.
