Eight children a week rescued from internet perverts’ clutches

More than 1,000 young people have been protected from exploitation and abuse, including 414 in the last year alone, because of the work of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP).

It is the fifth consecutive year that a record number of potential victims have been helped by the centre, which includes police, computer experts and staff from children’s charities.

CEOP investigations, often supported by police in other countries, have led to the arrest of 1,644 child sex offenders, including 513 between April 2010 and March this year.

The child protection figures are published today in CEOP’s annual review and centre plan, which reveals how officers are working with counterparts in the US, South East Asia, Australasia and Europe to catch British offenders travelling abroad.

In the UK, more than 70,000 teachers, trainers, police and youth leaders have registered for a CEOP scheme called Thinkuknow, which guides children on how to use the internet safely.

Police have smashed almost 400 paedophile networks, including a major conspiracy involving Sheffield man Paul Frost which is thought to have made £2m from sending millions of indecent images across the globe.

Frost and three co-conspirators – his brother Ian, Paul Rowlands, both of Lincolnshire, and Ian Sambridge, of St Albans – are awaiting sentence after admitting charges related to the gang.

The investigation, led by Lincolnshire Police with help from CEOP and other forces in the East Midlands, began after a tip-off in Germany in 2005 and eventually led officers to analyse 5.5 million images and almost 6,000 films.

Seemingly respectable computer users found to have links to the network included a GP, several police officers, a senior NHS manager, a teaching assistant, a scout leader, youth workers and a school crossing patrol worker.

CEOP head Peter Davies said the unit deserved “great credit” for its performance but he warned the battle was far from over.

“Crimes against children are for me the most horrendous crimes and too many times the victim suffers in silence,” he said.

“We need to encourage ever more reporting and understanding, we need to work to prevent the crime happening in the first place and we need to pursue the offender no matter how complex the methods they use to hide their activity.”

CEOP is currently affiliated to the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which is due to make way for a new National Crime Agency in 2013.

The unit will form part of the new agency but the move is controversial, and former CEOP head Jim Gamble resigned in protest last October over concerns the shake-up was driven less by the need to protect children and more by the Government’s desire to cut quangos.

Bosses have been assured the centre will retain its budget, however, and Mr Davies added that it would also keep “its own brand, its own approach and its own dedication to putting the safety and well-being of children first”.

“I think today’s figures show that we are shining light in to those dark places,” he said. “We are bringing this crime more into the open and are working collectively with many others to break down the taboos and obstacles that stop children getting the help and support they need.

“We can do that with confidence.”

Home Secretary Theresa May said: “These are tremendous results and I want to congratulate all of those within CEOP and those who work alongside them to protect children from harm.

“We want to build on these achievements, which is why CEOP will be an integral part of the new National Crime Agency.

“This will enable them to continue to lead law enforcement work protecting children at a national level and draw on wider resources and support to help keep even more children safe from harm in the future.”