Post 3: Researching Short Film Content (1)

To give our short film the plot it deserved we had to make sure that we kept it as realistic as possible. Sexual grooming itself is a serious crime and it is not an easy story for anyone involved to explain exactly what goes on or how it was allowed to happen. Because of this we had to make sure that we gave the theme the respect it deserved as it could happen to anyone in everyday life which although horrible is the scary truth.

We interviewed a Child Protection Officer to get a better understanding of what goes on with the child and what the proceedings are when a child is found to be in the process of or already groomed by someone. This was extremely helpful as we didn't want to just believe the secondary research we found online, it was very real when we had someone explaining exactly how easy it is to groom someone and how it can go unnoticed.

Here is the link to the interview. Soundcloud sexual grooming interview

The Child Protection Officer explains exactly what grooming is and how a groomer goes about selecting their victim and grooming not only them but the family also. Due to this it is often someone close to the family who grooms the child as they are expected to be a moral human being that the parents could trust. The groomer puts on an act to show themselves as trustworthy, kind, caring and loving which makes their presence around the family and the child-especially, unquestionable.

He went on to explain how the groomer is so convincing that the child often has no idea they are being groomed believing the caring human being in question is just a friendly relative or helpful friend that is merely showing an interest. A groomer makes the child believe that their relationship is normal and the right thing to do, which means that the child does not speak out about what is happening, they could then go into a school environment and portray this which could be seen as inappropriate towards other people the child's age, which shows the obvious difference in boundaries.

Our group learnt an incredible amount from speaking with The Child Protection Officer which will only help strengthen our plot line and script as many references to how the child acts and the personality of the groomer we wish to incorporate into our film. We were also told that the minute the child told him that they were being sexually abused social services and the police would be informed. After our interview with the child protection officer I got in contact with the local police constabulary to set-up the opportunity of having police community support officers act in my film, they agreed and below is a screenshot of them partaking in our film.