650 paedophile suspects held in huge crackdown: Doctors, teachers and police seized... and 430 children now 'safe' | Mail Online

By Chris Greenwood, Crime Correspondent

Published: 06:06 EST, 16 July 2014 | Updated: 18:58 EST, 16 July 2014

912shares

376

Viewcomments

Suspected paedophiles are being arrested at a rate of three a day in an unprecedented crackdown, it was revealed yesterday.

Every force in Britain is involved in the operation, in which more than 660 men have been questioned in six months.

Those held are from all walks of life and include doctors, teachers, scout leaders, care workers and former police officers.

Police said 431 children ‘in the care, custody or control’ of the suspects had been protected as a result. Of those, 127 were said to be at immediate risk of harm.

660 suspected paedophiles have been arrested following a crackdown by the National Crime Agency (NCA). The organisation targeted who had accessed images of child abuse online (library image)

But they fear the explosion of images of child abuse online means they will never catch up with everyone who accesses them.

They called on global companies making millions every day from the internet to do more to stem the flow of vile material.

 

Of those arrested, 39 were registered sex offenders, while nine out of ten had no past involvement with police for offences of this type. Six teachers, four school workers, two police staff, two medical workers and a social worker were held, the National Crime Agency said, along with two ex-police officers, a scout leader and a private sector worker who cared for children.

The hunt prioritised those in positions of trust, with access to children or involved in distributing images. It is believed to have found thousands of other less dangerous suspects who are yet  to be arrested.

Phil Gormley of the NCA, which co-ordinated the raids, said they have ‘lifted a stone’ to reveal the shocking scale of the crimes.

He said law enforcement must ‘up its game’, adding: ‘There are questions here for society and  policymakers. This operation shows the propensity of a very large number of people to view this material. We cannot afford not to look under this stone. But are we going to be able to arrest our way out of this problem? I doubt it.’

Asked if he was shocked, he said: ‘We all are pretty appalled about what it says about human nature. That is why we need to think carefully about what this means and how we approach this behaviour.’

Senior officers said the investigation is the largest of its kind since Operation Ore in 2000, in which 4,000 were arrested. Since then the number of online videos and images of abuse has grown from several thousand to ‘tens of millions’.

The NCA declined to discuss its methods as the inquiry is still active and more arrests are taking place.

But it is thought some suspects were using the so-called ‘dark web’, which can be accessed only with special software and is not indexed by Google. Most have been freed on bail as forensic experts study computers, tablets and mobile phones.

But a handful, including a doctor allegedly caught with a million images, have been charged. He is on remand in custody as detectives probe evidence of attempts to  communicate with young boys.

Another suspect admitted looking at indecent images of children for more than 30 years and said he often travelled to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand as a sex tourist.

A foster carer with a clean police record was arrested and found to have a vulnerable child in his care. In another case a man with 17 grandchildren was arrested. Two have since said they were abused.

Norfolk Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the national lead on child abuse investigations, said police get better every day at tracking paedophiles online. He added: ‘The clear message from this is that law enforcement now has the ability to see what people are doing.

‘There is a dark side to the internet and that is one of the greatest challenges law enforcement faces today, how to tackle the abuse of the web to perpetrate this crime and other types of crime.’ A 2012 report estimated there are 50,000 people in Britain accessing child abuse images online.

But fewer than 1 per cent of such images are hosted on UK servers, making it almost impossible for police to block them. They rely on organisations like the Internet Watch Foundation that try to get providers to take material down.

Global pressure is showing signs of success as paedophiles resort to hiding material within legitimate websites to keep it secret. Susie Hargreaves, of the IWF, said: ‘It is vital all organisations work together to combat this criminality.’ John Carr, of the UK Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, said the arrests show the internet is becoming ‘a very hostile environment’ for criminals.

He said: ‘Police all over the world are co-operating on an unprecedented scale in pursuit of online child sex offenders and they are deploying technical tools to find them with greater effectiveness.’

Claire Lilley, of the NSPCC, added: ‘Direct action like this sends a strong message to those who subject children to harrowing sexual assaults that they can and will be traced and prosecuted.’

CASE STUDIES OF THOSE ARRESTED BY NCA

The National Crime Agency highlighted a number of case studies as it revealed 660 suspected paedophiles had been arrested in a major sex crime crackdown.

Here are details of those case studies:

 

Share or comment on this article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2694204/Police-blitz-paedophiles-leads-arrest-660-suspects-including-doctors-teachers-Scout-leaders-care-workers.html