How a pedophile groomed his victims

[Stan]

Quote:

The mind of the beast

Infamous pedophile Karl Toft tells how he groomed his victims

By BYRON CHRISTOPHER, SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA

Convicted sex offender Karl Toft. (Sun file photo)

At six-foot-two and 245 pounds, Karl Toft says he was a man his boy-child victims – up to 200 of them – would never resist.

“There’s a lot of things I learned after I was caught, the power that I showed these people and I was not aware of it, at least not consciously aware of it,” Canada’s worst known pedophile told Sun Media in an exclusive hours’ long interview Sunday.

“Here I am this big hulk of a man, standing over a 12-year-old kid, looking down at him and saying, ‘we’re going to bed together.’ And the fact that he didn’t say no told me that it was OK with him, so therefore it was OK with me.”

The 71-year-old, released from an Edmonton halfway house in December 2005, spent a decade in prison for sexually assaulting over 100 boys, most while he was employed as a guard at a Kingsclear, N.B., reform school.

He also assaulted boys from the age of 16 while he worked as a Boy Scout leader.

“I never had to say it in so many words but my behaviour said you don’t tell on me or things are going to happen,” said Toft, who admits his total number of victims may well be in the 200 range.

“To my knowledge nobody ever reported me for what I was doing. It amazes me. I can’t explain that (but) I was six foot two, 245 pounds.

“Most of my victims came from a juvenile reformatory and they knew I was in charge. A lot of them had the feeling that they were sentenced to X number of months for what they did and I had the power to keep them longer than that.”

Toft – convicted of assaulting 18 boys at the New Brunswick training centre – was bound by a court order to report to police regularly after he was freed from an Edmonton halfway house. He agreed to a year-long extension in November 2006 and has since done so again.

He revealed that he also got away with many of the sex assaults by, as a Boy Scout leader, befriending parents and their children.

“And I turn around a month later, two months later, six months later and I offend against their child ... I offended against boys in the Scouts because the parents, the children trusted me – they liked me because I made it that way.”

He warns most pedophiles operate by first “grooming” their potential victims.

“I buy the kid presents, I treat him nicely, I treat him better than others.

“It’s not usually some stranger that takes your kid aside and molests him ... I never molested a child that I didn’t know or who didn’t know me.

“And every child that I molested was groomed by me. I bought him cameras, books, records, I took him to McDonald’s. I took him here, I took him there, took him camping, and this all in order to satisfy my own deviant desires.”

If he could face all his victims today, Toft concedes he would not know what to say.

“When it comes right down to it I’m still ashamed of what I did. I’ve always been ashamed of what I did and to face that child today, even though he would be a grown adult, I would not know how to justify my actions, I would not know what to say to him. Except, can you forgive me?

“And if not, OK, I can accept that. I can believe that you will never ever be able to forgive me for what I did.

“I was the one that made the choice, the child didn’t, he was afraid of me ... there are the things I’ve learned, he was scared of me because of my size, he was scared of me because of the position I held. I did not see those things then or didn’t want to see them. I still haven’t got that clear in my own mind.”

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[John317]

I don't have words to express my feelings for people like this.

This sort of thing happens in these kinds of enironments a lot more than people realize. I've known staff who abused the boys all the time, and went on doing it long after it was suspected. The problem is that many such boys don't mind what is happening to them. They are also often embarrassed to tell what happened, for fear they will be viewed as having asked for it.

But anyone who does this to children or uses their position to manipulate boys or girls ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I don't believe that these kind of people ever truly recover but must always be seen as potential molesters.

[carolaa]

anyone who does this to children or uses their position to manipulate boys or girls ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I don't believe that these kind of people ever truly recover but must always be seen as potential molesters.

I totally agree.

[Jeannieb43]

The problem is that many such boys don't mind what is happening to them. They are also often embarrassed to tell what happened, for fear they will be viewed as having asked for it.

If those boys "don't mind" being abused it's because they've also been brainwashed into thinking it's okay. These pedophiles are very clever in manipulating boys. But often the boys themselves never had a true male role model so don't realize this is not right.

It's just horrible.