Finding the answers to why you have abused children for 30 years isn't easy - especially when you have buried your past as deeply as possible in an effort to escape it.

Most counsellors and psychologists would recognise some classic patterns in Jack's life.

Like 50 percent of sex offenders, Jack (not his real name) was sexually abused as a child. It began when he went into care at the of age two.

"My mother dropped me off at the orphanage and said she would pick me up later. She never did."

At the orphanage, Jack suffered taunts and beatings from the woman who was supposed to look after him.

"She would tell me my mother was a whore and a slut and that I was no good."

She thought Jack was good enough to do her work.

"I couldn't concentrate on school work. I had to change diapers, give gripe water, put kids to bed. I did everything but actually give birth.

"There was always trauma. One time a man put his hand through the window and felt my face in the dark.

"I would be beaten and whilst this was going on, the dog would bite me."

There was other abuse Jack is reluctant to talk about. Being locked in a cupboard with a soiled mattress, being forced to eat faeces.

Constantly around other children, Jack started experimenting sexually with his step brother. He began watching little girls.

"Then the flood gates opened."

Jack, now 50, admits to encounters with a four-year-old girl and a six-year-old girl.

"Thirty years I was like that. It isn't a deliberate thing, it was part of me. It wasn't something I went out to do.

"Some people have it really bad and go out looking for it. I never went looking for it. . .

"When I got in trouble I went out to burgle and the child was there, I didn't know that."

The attack landed him in prison, an environment he was used to, having done time for a slew of other offences - including drugs.

"I have been involved in criminal activities for 30 years. I have been in every prison from Nonsuch to Casemates.

"I had to work through a lot of guilt, particularly when in prison. I started to look for answers, why was I getting turned on in a way I didn't want to.

"It wasn't natural, what I did; I knew that. I was getting verbal abuse from the guys in prison when they found out what I was in jail for. I wanted to find answers to this disgusting attraction.

"In the end it was a simple statement from a stranger I talked to in prison who told me that a child can't satisfy an adult. It made sense in my mind. It changed my life.

"It's been hell, even my family relationships, with my wife. If I didn't have faith in Jesus I tell you I would have hung myself or just resigned myself to a life in prison forever.

"So many traumas have happened to me. That's one of the reasons I don't want to talk about this. I am trying to forget those things, they are behind me."

Shunning counsellors, Jack is trying to cope with the guilt and pain on his own with the help of his wife.

"I can't find a picture frame answer for why I did it. No-one really knows why people abuse children. Someone says it was linked to my mother leaving me at a young age and being put into an abusive environment.

"My equilibrium was gone, my whole life was thrown off balance."

From then it felt like I was in a cement mixer, making me dizzy, not knowing where it was going to throw me.

He vows he hasn't attacked children for years. "I haven't gone back into it, I have no intentions of going back."

Asked if his vice was a power trip, a bid to wield the same power over a child as his abusers had wielded over him, Jack disagrees.

"No, I think the child has the power over you. You are attracted to the child."

With that, Jack ends the interview, finding the introspection too much to bear.

But the story isn't over for his family.

Or his wife, who again, in a classic pattern, married a child abuser after being abused sexually as a child.

Now in therapy, Mary (not her real name) is encouraging Jack to do the same.

"He is seeing me get better and he wants it. I believe he is on his way."

But she is not complacent. "Most definitely I watch my husband and what he's doing. I am married to him because I trust him, I trust me and I trust God."

Mary believes the whole Island must face up to the realities of child sex abuse. But playing the blame game is not part of her solution.

She says: "The whole Island has to get compassionate. I am trying to help my husband but everyone is worried about predators.

"But I am saying because the Island is small we can work at it."

Psychologist Betty Smith is encouraging sex offenders to seek counselling with her. To contact her call 236 5421.