How a hit Czech film might have helped catch nine criminals

Shocking new documentary ‘Caught in the Net’ joins a select group of films that have led to police investigations, writes Geoffrey Macnab

Stranger danger: in the film adult actors pose as 12-year-old girls online (Milan Jaros)

There is a certain grotesque comedy about the shocking new Czech documentary Caught in the Net, which received its digital international premiere this week through the online edition of CPH DOX, a documentary festival in Copenhagen. In the film, three youthful-looking adult actresses pretend that they are kids. The directors Barbora Chalupova and Vít Klusak recreate the women’s childhood bedrooms on a movie set and provide them with fake new social media profiles. The three then go online, following a very strict set of guidelines. They do not approach anyone. On every call, they start the conversation by saying they are 12 years old. They don’t “flirt, seduce or provoke”. Their reticence, though, doesn’t stem the stampede in the slightest. Over the 10 days of filming, thousands of men contact them, looking for sexual gratification.

You can’t help but be gobsmacked by the alacrity with which these men, many who are well into middle age, expose themselves over Skype, talk dirty, send nude photographs and try to cajole and blackmail the women into performing for them. What they think are private conversations are being watched and recorded by the filmmakers and a small army of psychologists, sexologists, lawyers and criminal investigators, standing just off set.

“Doesn’t it matter that I am 12?” the women continually ask. The men parry the question, saying they were 12 once too, or that it is their little secret, and “I don’t mind if you don’t”. One, based in the UK, promises to find the girl a school if she will come and live with him there. Another, who claims to be 50 but looks far older, says “that’s cool” when asked about the vast age difference between them. He reveals he has grandchildren aged 20 and 22.