BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

How it begins depends on which version you pick; a staircase plunged in shadow, primitive film (coiled up in a can for 30-odd years, the movie "the police arrested") washed with lime green walls, a vampire shuffling upwards, black leather coat squeaking between clatters of heavy footstep and typewriter rhythms, snippets of information in a now long-expired yellow font -

Or two film-makers returning to the scene of the crime, to find their victims, to chart the effects of the child abuse, a game of detective work interspersed with the highlights of the first time round; halcyon days on North of England council estates that BBC 70s-retro fetishists can't hope to recapture.

Well, if your father can't belt you, I'll have to take your father's place, won't I?

Those jumper patterns; like 70s haircuts, unrepeatable. The whole landscape's been burnt down, only to be replaced by vague memories of how a decade should have been. A Guilty Pleasures-infested glitterball with the odd dash of bandit moustache and tough cop, and Blackburn Asians with outhouses who dream of being Marc Bolan. Nothing so primitive as this fucking ogre on the screen, the 7-year old boy's lank hair trapped in his fist, the tears and shivering and the hair gel pushing back what's left of his graying cowl....

Students, international socialists, Marxists...all the other worms that crawl out from under t'stones..

And her, following in his footsteps, a bitter-faced hag, old before her time, a face so taut and eyes so dead that a genuine smile would surely crack her visage from cheek to cheek. Sitting opposite Child Star Number 5, let's see, how about 'fresh in school uniform' look this time, let's work out what's her crime

If you were my daughter, I'd smack you around the face!
Who the hell do you think you are?
Are you a slut?

Bring on the tears, the threats of expulsion to dark cells. The first version informs us that consent was arranged for all persons appearing. The consent of who exactly? The parents? Right- so if you combine every apparatus of the state at your disposal - the family, the law, the church, this mickey-mouse unit of interfering exponents of 'tough love' - what realistic chance do these kids stand? The pornographers never interfere on their behalf, one duo (male/female) just keep rolling, while the other duo (male/female) take it in turns to play bad cop / bad cop. Punishing future crimes, making pre-emptive strikes right into these brats' psyches. What release form did these kids sign to give their consent to this charade?

And then, 15 years later -

Course I've got dreams, I've got dreams like the next man...but they won't come true. I'm a loser

The sergeant sits there, rifling through felt tip pens. He swallows fag smoke and espouses his philosophy - the value of his work and the hordes of international socialists who want to devastate Britain, throw the decent people into concentration camps or acid baths. People'd disappear if the commies had their way, of that he's certain. And then he sits in that yellow cell shot with that 6-year old (too terrified to talk) mere inches away, and the stinking cell bog to the left hand side. He pulls that retarded child out of bed by the hair, George almost chokes on his tears and snot, skinny pink arms poking out of his vest. Drags him downstairs, dull green wallpaper and stacks of empty cardboard boxes. DON'T PUT IT ON! The kid clutches a handkerchief across his face, even the most docile viewer can't fail to get the message, DON'T FUCKING FILM ME. But like all good porn, we have to see everything through til, if not the bitter end, at least the point where sheer physical exhaustion terminates the scene in hand. And then on to another fresh scene, another child yet to stain his or her face with frustrated tears, more bullying immortalised on steadycam. But you'll have to catch the sequel to understand how George went on to hear the voices emanating from ventilation grilles and radiators, the ones that told him to do things with the booze and the ladies, and how he ended up in a Salvation Army hostel at 30, barely able to write and convinced of his own worthlessness, the impossibility of finding love, the payoff for what these cunts did to him that rainy day in the North, without his consent.

So are we going to sit around and define child abuse? The sergeant is bollocked when the first film comes out - or nearly comes out, instead being bundled straight into a vault. He loses his job with the force and lands work dishing out dinners in a local school. Great. And he can retire and replay it over and over again, because what he did was sanctioned and therefore certainly not as vile as some jumped-up blog post makes out; actions were inspired by due duty and concern, to keep them young hoodlums on the right path, it was a service to society and to their long-suffering parents, and most wonderful of all, before half of them had ever committed any sort of crime. She won't use language like that again, the little slut; he won't play truant again after this short, sharp shock, except the truant somehow ceases to be a child star and ends up clutching a can of high-strength lager and nearly snarls out admissions of self-defeat in an attempt to keep in the tears. This abuse was sanctioned, and so we can sift through it and play it as straight social expose', documentary or a little look at the 70s Britain that false memories forgot. Or we can look through that lingering shot of Rashida's face (She still lives in the same house where she grew up, but declined to be interviewed...), infamous felt tip pen thieving little scrote that she was, or the smooth slow track across the station as the truants are Cortina'd in, and realise we're staring into the hidden heart of kid porn.