TORONTO -He began by cultivating the boy as a friend -- a method that would serve him well over the years.
Bob, then 30 years old, won the 12-year-old boy's trust during visits to the local fair, with trips to new movies and through gifts of candy and sports equipment.
Such attention and excitement no child could resist, and Bob knew it. He asked for nothing in return until one night, in the basement of a family home, he reached across the sofa and fondled the boy.
Before that encounter, there had been several attempts at groping, but this bold move would be the last -- with this boy. Bob would be in jail within two months, but would go on to abuse dozens of boys, eventually becoming one of North America's most infamous child molesters.
Almost 20 years since his first arrest, and almost 40 since he first offended, Bob is sitting in a church basement describing his life: "a mess."
For much of the past decade, he has been taking medication to dull the sexual urges and fantasies that at one time made young boys irresistible to him. He believes that the chemical castration as well as the support of his family and that of a group called Circles of Support has helped him reform.
"No more victims. Not from me. I can guarantee no more victims from me," he says.
Bob will speak only on the condition of anonymity because he is so reviled that the mention of his name is likely to distract from his message. His supporters believe any publicity could threaten an already fragile network rallying around pedophiles who seek out and commit to treatment.
A lumbering man in his fifties with greying hair, Bob's early childhood was full of family and sport. Then, when he was 10, he was sexually abused by a cousin, and then later by a family friend, and was left confused and isolated.
He quelled his troubled adolescent libido by throwing himself into athletics. In his teenage years, he disguised his passion for younger boys, between the ages of 10 and 14, as a love of sport, and became a coach.
When he was about 18, he began to prey on vulnerable team members, those with low self-confidence and remote parents.
"In the beginning, for maybe one iota, I did care [about the boys,]" he said. "But then the old instincts took over because I was going to get what I wanted. I knew what I wanted and I didn't care how I got it. It was all about me, me, me," he said.
Each potential victim began as a "friend" -- someone Bob could groom; someone whose hair he at first touched, later a shoulder, gradually progressing to the private parts.
Even after years of therapy, he still distinguishes himself from other abusers, adamantly denying he ever sodomized a victim. But, he allows, the way he touched them may have left them believing they had been.
His vocabulary is littered with phrases evocative of years of therapy; he routinely puts his hands in the shape of a wheel to explain "the offence cycle: pretend normal, building up, acting out and justification."
In and out of prison for most of his adult life, Bob said that for a number of years he was able to continue hiding his offences from family, friends and even, for a while, the public. His first sentence did not make the newspapers, which meant that while he was in jail, he convinced his family during collect calls home that he was travelling.
As other offences caught up with him, Bob confessed, and had to assure his siblings that he had never assaulted his nephews, and tried to tell his parents that they could not have prevented him from becoming a pedophile.
"You and Dad did absolutely nothing wrong. It was the choices that I made," Bob remembered telling his mother outside a courthouse.
Faced with a battery of lawsuits -- some from victims he does not recall or maintains he never abused -- Bob admits he is still fearful that a police officer will knock on his door again and level more accusations against him.
"That used to be in the front of my mind; now it's back here," he said, pointing to the base of his head.
He considers himself a "lucky one" because his family and a few friends have not abandoned him, although he acknowledges he must work "day-by-day, hour-by-hour" toward a trust that he may never regain.
Bob lives alone in a government-subsidized apartment. He washes daily, shaves, wears clean clothes and watches movies at a theatre where children do not attend. He avoids shopping malls, arenas and schools, and refuses to go to a McDonald's restaurant if he sees children inside. He does not feel attracted to them, he said, but does not want to jeopardize nearly a decade of not offending.
"I have to be motivated so I have no victims," he explained. Bob's goal is to keep making "the right decisions." After so much of an abnormal life, he relishes the bits of normalcy: He is grateful to receive an indifferent salutation, a business card, a wave.
Bob agreed to be interviewed because he hopes his story may inspire other sexual offenders to see themselves in his story, to "take responsibility" and maybe turn their lives around. Asked what he would like to tell a skeptical public about himself, he said: "Hate me for what I did, hate me for what I have done, but don't hate me for who I am because you don't know me." He said he cannot ask for forgiveness because he does not want to take the power away from the people he victimized. "If I ask for forgiveness, I've got the power. If they choose forgiveness, that's fine, that's their choice. I don't want to take the power away from them because I did take the power away from them. I made them feel vulnerable and powerless and that's enough of that."
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