“If you’d seen what I’d seen, you would never allow your child alone in their bedroom with an internet-capable device.”

Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, from Queensland’s Taskforce Argos which investigates internet-facilitated crimes against children, has delivered a chilling warning to parents.

He was among detectives to speak in a video released by the Queensland Police Service for Safer Internet Day.

Inspector Rouse said he had worked at Taskforce Argos since 2001.

“In the last 18 years, I’ve seen everything from images and videos of young babies being sexually abused, through to teenagers crying and distraught as they’re sex-torted on web cameras,” he said.

Another detective, who asked not to be named, said if people had seen what she had seen, they would “think twice about posting those pictures”.

“Once they’re out there, you’ve lost control,” she said.

“It’s really important for your kids to just always know that nothing is so bad that they can’t talk to you about it.”

One detective said parents would tell their children they could only talk to people online that they actually knew and they should not meet up with them.

One detective said parents should also seriously think about what they were posting online.

– Felicity Caldwell, Brisbane Times

Read more: ‘If You’d Seen What I’d Seen’: Chilling Message to Parents from Police

Image by Marvin Meyer from Unsplash