FOR most of us living in Western NSW and nearby regions life is a happy, safe existence.
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Most of us have ready access to good housing, warm clothing and enough food to fill our stomachs.
Our lives continue without real incident through childhood and our school years on to worthwhile employment, earning a fair day’s pay.
We are able to protect our children from most of the world’s real dangers. We keep them safe and nurture them, showering them with love we didn’t know was possible before their birth.
We know there are bad people out there, but we don’t really expect to some across them. And certainly not in our region.
That’s why shocking news such as that we woke up to on Thursday sends such a shock through our community.
Two men appeared in a Sydney court charged with the alleged sexual abuse of a 10-month-old baby in the Bathurst area last year.
The list of allegations is sickening, shocking and appalling – and beyond the comprehension of most of us: Sexual intercourse with a person under 10 years; The production, dissemination or possession child abuse material; Accessing, soliciting and transmitting child pornography.
It’s a horror story made even more disturbing by the fact the alleged victim is only 10 months old. The most defenceless victim we could imagine.
We stress these are only allegations at this stage and it will be up to the courts to decide the guilt or otherwise of those charged with these offences.
But the fact such charges can be laid, the fact that such disgusting child abuse material can exist, should make us all question if we have failed as a society.
If the two men charged on Wednesday did not produce the material at the centre of these allegations, then someone else did. And we’re faced with the appalling reality that a sick market exists for this material.
We must confront the truth that 10-month-old baby has been subjected to horrors that we thought could not possibly occur in our safe, cosseted world – and instinctively know that other babies have suffered the same abuse.
We’ve all been forced to acknowledge the existence of a sick, brutal world that touches every corner of the globe – even ours.
The whole world seems a bit darker today. For all of us.