I wonder how many more children will have to be abused in this country before we take the issue of pornography and its rampant acceleration into our homes seriously.

Last week, many of us were shocked to hear of policemen, teachers and other respected professionals being caught up in Australia’s largest crackdown on child pornography.

We shouldn’t have been.

The plague of perversion that has been unleashed by the widespread availability of pornography – in all its forms – through our computers has long been coming.

As has the growing anger over the abuse of children which saw more than 7000 take to their motorbikes on Sunday in the Ride for Daniel – a ride that has grown to become a declaration at our growing anger about the sick individuals who prey on our most vulnerable.

We should be angry. As a society we have allowed those advocating civil liberties and our “right” to do whatever we please far greater say than those fighting for the protection of our children and the family values which have underpinned every healthy society since the beginning of time.

While I’m sure there are many who are convinced that adult pornography is harmless, it’s about as smart as the argument which says that marijuana use poses no threat – and never leads to harder drugs. Sometimes it doesn’t, too often it does.

One of the most telling accounts from last week’s raids during Operation Centurion came from a former federal police officer who told of how he accessed illegal images because it was “a challenge”.

Michael Edward Hatch, 38, admitted he had become addicted to adult pornography on the internet for a number of years and was obviously looking to take it further when he downloaded six images from a European website in August last year.

In what must be one of the saddest indictments on our society, the site attracted 12 million hits worldwide in just 76 hours.

The court heard Hatch searched the internet using terms including “Lolita”, “innocent angel”, “littleLolita” and “young sluts”.

“I just typed in a lot of words with pornographic connotations I knew from general knowledge,” Hatch said.

“To me it was a challenge, it was hard to find sites. I was addicted to using the internet.”

Hatch says he did not gain any sexual satisfaction from looking at the images.

Hatch broke down in tears when saying he now realised what he had done was “disgusting”.

“I’d lost touch with reality and the real world,” he said.

His girlfriend, who has a 15-year-old daughter, said she had discussed the situation with Hatch and she did not believe he was a paedophile.

The disbelief that his girlfriend must be now feeling over the former cop’s arrest is no doubt matched by that felt on the Coast by the discovery a highly regarded teacher had been arrested in the same swoop.

By most accounts, Tony Forder was a good teacher – and certainly well regarded by both parents and his peers at Noosaville State School.

Many were saddened to learn that he had taken his own life last month.

What they did not know at the time was that he had been charged with possession of child exploitation material and using a carriage service to access child pornography.

By last Friday, it was revealed four teachers had managed to slip through the state government’s safety net, sparking a review of its system of checking teachers’ backgrounds.

I think if we are really to tackle the issue of child pornography we are going to have to go a lot further than checking teachers’ backgrounds.

We have to start having wives checking what their husbands are up to on the internet, mothers checking on their sons and so on.

In our home, our computer is in the living room for good reason – it is in the most open area of the house – and everyone can see what each of us are doing.

The reality for every bloke is that the temptation to become entrapped by pornography is too great.

The internet has made it far too easy – and unfortunately we are not talking about so called “soft porn”, which is freely and easily available.

Every perversion known to man is catered for – and sadly the young are increasingly being used as bait to hook those looking for something “different”.

I wonder how many more will become like Michael Hatch – caught up in a world of fantasy which separates them not only from reality – but their own boundaries of human decency.