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Appalbarry [soylentnews.org] writes:

Most people have wondered how censors can watch so much horrible, degrading stuff without be affected by it, especially the stuff that's so bad that ordinary people need to be protected from ever seeing it. [wikipedia.org]

In what might be the first of its kind, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is claiming damages [www.cbc.ca] for the Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) he is suffering after years of exposure to child pornography.

Const. Michael Wardrope says he was exposed to disturbing videos, photographs, interviews and interrogations as a member of the child abuse and sexual offence unit in Surrey, B.C.

"His mental health was impacted by unescapable images and memories from the files he had worked on," says the lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court.

Wardrope says in the court document he was "flattered" when he was recruited to the unit in 2009. But he says he told his bosses he had three young children, had to commute hours per day and didn't think viewing child porn would be healthy.

He alleges his supervisor assured him that overtime was uncommon and that the amount of child pornography that needed to be viewed was "very minimal and almost non-existent," as the work was, for the most part, interviewing children.

Eventually Wardrope suffered a mental breakdown, and the Mounties dragged their feet for ten months before transferring him to another unit.

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