BBC Homepage
  • Skip to content
  • Accessibility Help
  • Your account
  • Notifications
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
  • More menu
More menu
Search BBC
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
Close menu
BBC News
Menu
  • Home
  • InDepth
  • Israel-Gaza war
  • War in Ukraine
  • Climate
  • UK
  • World
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Culture
More
  • Tech
  • Science
  • Health
  • Family & Education
  • In Pictures
  • Newsbeat
  • BBC Verify
  • Disability
  • BBC Trending

'Amazing job': How a BBC reader snared a paedophile

  • Published
    15 January 2018
Share page
About sharing
Man's hands behind jail barsImage source, Getty Images
Mike Wendling and Anisa Subedar
BBC Trending

A BBC Trending report about predators on YouTube prompted a reader to investigate - which led to an international tip-off that resulted in the jailing of a dangerous paedophile.

Jack was just trying to get some rest, while flicking through news stories online.

"I read your article lying in bed like most nights, waiting for sleep to find me, with my wife already asleep beside me," he wrote.

But he was kept awake by a story about predators on YouTube.

It appeared on the BBC Trending blog in August 2017, one of a series of reports last year that catalogued flaws in the internet video giant's child protection measures.

Jack, a father who lives in Australia, was particularly concerned about one aspect of the report - that people were leaving predatory and grooming comments on videos made by young teenagers and children. And in many cases, they were getting away with it. Disturbing comments were left up for weeks or months, and the people behind the accounts were escaping detection or punishment except, in some cases, an account ban.

For Jack - who has asked the BBC not to publish his real name because of concerns about his online safety - it was the start of a quest.

He began to scour YouTube to try to find obscene comments aimed at children. And to his surprise, they weren't hard to find.

"Lo and behold there were hundreds, probably thousands or tens of thousands of these videos riddled with comments," he wrote in a message to BBC Trending.

"I singled one of these [people] out, looked him up, found his Facebook profile, notified a contact."

And that was the start of a chain reaction.

line

You might also be interested in:

  • YouTube child protection mechanism 'failing'

  • YouTube punishes star over suicide video

  • Follow BBC Trending on Facebook, external

line

The investigation

Scott Parks is a detective sergeant with the sheriff's office in Washington County, Ohio. It's a mostly rural place in the south-eastern corner of the state, tucked up next to West Virginia. There's a lot of farmland and a few factories. Industry here, as in many parts of Ohio and the Midwestern US, has suffered over the past few decades.

"It's small-town America," Det Sgt Parks says.

View of the Ohio River looking from West Virginia towards Washington County, OhioImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,

A view of the Ohio River as it separates Washington County, Ohio from West Virginia

Det Sgt Parks is a specialist with a decade of experience in child sexual abuse cases and online crime. He says he and his team tend to get, on average, a couple of such cases a week.

His involvement in this particular case started with a stroke of luck. The suspect identified by Jack was named Kenneth Siders, and Siders happened to have a police officer on his Facebook friends list.

It was that law enforcement officer that Jack contacted out of the blue from Australia, to pass on his concerns about Siders' online activity.

The officer worked in the next county over from where Siders lived, and after getting the initial tip, he passed it to the Washington County authorities. From there, it ended up on Scott Parks' desk.

illustration of a mailbox

At about the same time, the sheriffs had received a separate piece of information from another member of the public. It was a second or third-hand comment about how someone had possibly seen some child abuse images on Siders' computer.

By itself it wasn't much to go on, but along with the tip from the BBC reader, it was enough evidence for Det Sgt Parks and his colleagues to start an investigation. It didn't take long for the detective to discover some hints of a very disturbing nature.

"The guy... was liking a bunch of videos that were of young girls walking around in their underwear. Sometimes they wouldn't have their shirts on," he says. "That may appear relatively innocuous, but it had that undertone. If you look at these things through a certain lens, you start to see a pattern.

"So I typed up a search warrant in light of that information for Mr Siders' residence and we executed it the next day," Det Sgt Parks says.

illustration of a trailer and power wires

The arrest

Many times, when police execute a search warrant, they don't know exactly what they will find - if the suspect will be home, or if they will find evidence of a crime. With this in mind, Det Sgt Parks and his colleagues travelled to Siders' home.

"He kind of lives in a rural area, there are some trailers around and things like that. He lived in a mobile home," Det Sgt Parks recalls.

"He came to the door. Initially he had some women's clothes on and he said he wanted to change before he spoke with me and I said that was fine," he says. "He then spoke with me in my vehicle while we searched the residence."

Siders, he says, spoke "matter of factly".

"He didn't totally deny what he was doing... he didn't downplay it," Det Sgt Parks says. "He said he had an interest in looking at naked people of all different ages - he liked looking at naked girls.

"I ask him what would be the oldest nude person you would be interested in looking at and he said maybe in their thirties or forties. I asked him what the bottom end would be as far as age goes... and he said there really wasn't one."

Hear investigating officer Scott Parks on BBC Trending radio

While Det Sgt Parks spoke to the suspect in the car, it didn't take long for investigators to find evidence of serious crimes. There were abusive images on Siders' computer and mobile phone.

illustration of a truck in front of trees

In the course of the investigation it also turned out that Siders' crimes did not only occur online, and he had been abusing young girls in the community. Among other crimes, he sexually abused the daughters of a friend.

In November, Siders pleaded guilty to multiple charges of illegal use of a minor in nudity oriented material, gross sexual imposition and pandering obscenity involving a minor. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, external.

'Life sentence'

Aged 69 and in poor health, Siders "is probably going to spend the rest of his days in prison," Det Sgt Parks says.

The detective says he's no longer shocked by cases such as these: "I've kind of grown to get used to the fact that humans can be very unkind to one another.

"I've never heard (Siders) be remorseful about any of this. All the way through his sentencing I don't believe he ever showed an ounce of remorse," he says.

Jack, the Australian who initially tipped off the police, is astonished at the ease with which he was able to find a criminal online.

"I did this with no help over a period of 10 days. With no resources except my home internet, and a half dozen Facebook messages between myself and a police officer. About 15 minutes of my time," he wrote to Trending at the conclusion of the case.

And Det Sgt Parks is grateful.

"If more people were like the gentleman in Australia, we would catch a lot more of these guys," he says. "That's amazing and I applaud that guy. The police can't be everywhere all the time, especially on the internet."

The case shows the double-edged nature of social media - and indeed of any new communications technology. A dangerous paedophile was able to use the internet for his own purposes. But it also allowed a story to be circulated worldwide, and enabled one man to take action, by following the clues left online by the criminal himself.

Det Sgt Parks has a warning for potential predators and a plea for the rest of us.

"People should be aware that if they're going to do this, we'll be looking for you," he says.

"It's everybody's on the planet's job to take care of kids. Especially on the internet. There's just not enough police out there. It takes people - it takes everybody."

Illustrations by Katie Horwich

Hear more on this story on BBC Trending radio

Have a story for us? Drop us a line., external

More from Trending: #JusticeForZainab: Anger and anguish

Picture of Zainab. Permission to use granted by family.

The rape and murder of Zainab, a six-year-old girl from Pakistan, has sparked an outpouring of rage and grief online.READ MORE

You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, external, and find us on Facebook, external. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.

Top stories

  • Government plans to overhaul asylum appeals system

    • Published
      2 hours ago
  • National flags have started lining our streets. They may say something more

    • Published
      3 hours ago
  • Pub and travel bans proposed in sentencing overhaul

    • Published
      7 hours ago

More to explore

  • National flags have started lining our streets. They may say something more

    A St George's flag hangs from a lamppost on an empty street.
  • 'Heading for IMF bailout' and 'Border farce!'

    The Sunday Express says "Border farce! Outrage at bonus payouts". The Sunday Telegraph says "Reeves 'heading for IMF bailouts".
  • My trip to North Korea's 'Benidorm' - flanked by guards and full of rules

    Anastasia Samsonova, with blonde hair and a multi-coloured swimsuit, relaxing on a sun lounger on a deserted beach at Wonsan Kalma
  • Pierce Brosnan felt 'huge responsibility' towards Thursday Murder Club fans

    Pierce Brosnan casts a glance off camera while wearing a fitted white suit, cream shirt and black polkadot tie.
  • For orca left in limbo, zoo resorts to sexual stimulation to stop inbreeding

    A view from above of the killer whale Wikie and her calf swimming in their enclosure at Marineland Antibes
  • Piper Alpha disaster took my dad - I still took a job offshore

    David Gorman in red boiler suit and yellow hard hat with the Shell logo is standing, smiling, in front of a wall of brown and cream wall lockers. He has a moustache and medium-length brown hair.
  • Why I started getting anti-wrinkle injections at 23

    Pic of Sydney Brown, a young woman in her 20s with long brown hair smiling at the camera, she is wearing a white blouse and has sunglasses on her head
  • Clarkson for PM, attacks on police dogs: Do Parliament petitions make a difference?

    A composite split image of Jeremy Clarkson in a tractor on the left hand side, and a police dog lying on the grass with its tongue out on the right hand side.
  • The Upbeat newsletter: Start your week on a high with uplifting stories delivered to your inbox

    A graphic of a wave in the colours of yellow, amber and orange against a pink sky
loading elsewhere stories

Most read

  1. 1

    National flags have started lining our streets. They may say something more

  2. 2

    My trip to North Korea's 'Benidorm' - flanked by guards and full of rules

  3. 3

    'Heading for IMF bailout' and 'Border farce!'

  4. 4

    Pub and travel bans proposed in sentencing overhaul

  5. 5

    Government plans to overhaul asylum appeals system

  6. 6

    Russia blames nuclear site attack on Ukraine as Kyiv marks independence day

  7. 7

    Trump's plan to send troops to Chicago is abuse of power, Illinois governor says

  8. 8

    UK to bask in 30C heat on bank holiday Monday

  9. 9

    Pierce Brosnan felt 'huge responsibility' towards Thursday Murder Club fans

  10. 10

    Why I started getting anti-wrinkle injections at 23

BBC News Services

  • On your mobile
  • On smart speakers
  • Get news alerts
  • Contact BBC News

Best of the BBC

  • Do estate agents treat customers fairly?

    • Attribution
      iPlayer
    Panorama: Undercover Estate Agent
  • More meddling and slapstick mayhem

    • Attribution
      iPlayer
    Mrs Brown's Boys
  • Freddie Mercury: from iconic shots to private snaps

    • Attribution
      iPlayer
    A Life in Ten Pictures: Freddie Mercury
  • Swedish detective Beck tackles more macabre crimes

    • Attribution
      iPlayer
    Beck
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
  • Terms of Use
  • About the BBC
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies
  • Accessibility Help
  • Parental Guidance
  • Contact the BBC
  • Make an editorial complaint
  • BBC emails for you

Copyright © 2025 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.