This section is no longer in use, please click on the links below to view news and sport from:
Web closes in on paedophiles
May 26 2003
By John Revill, Birmingham Post
The West Midlands is to spearhead the fight against paedophiles on the Internet.
The region's police force has been selected as a centre of excellence to help co-ordinate the fight against sex attackers who prey on youngsters over the web.
The move is among measures to combat the increasing number of paedophiles - individuals and gangs - who use the Internet to communicate and promote their activities.
The problem even led police to consider releasing custom-made viruses to disrupt the criminals' activities.
But that idea was rejected because of the harm it could cause to legitimate businesses and website users.
The problems were highlighted last week during the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) conference in Birmingham, which heard how the international Operation Ore investigation had provided a "wake-up call" by establishing a large number of suspects previously unknown to force intelligence units.
The experience of West Midlands Police in tackling paedophilia has led to it being chosen as one of the three regional centres, along with Greater Manchester and the Metropolitan Police, to co-ordinate a regional response in the UK.
Announcing the establishment of the new centres, Dyfed Powys Chief Constable Terence Grange, Acpo spokesman for child protection and internet issues, said: "West Midlands Police is one of the leading lights in the country in this area and along with GMP and The Met will set up centres of excellence.
"They have the experts and experience in place we have to build on.
"If you keep the enemy on the hop you will eventually defeat them. We will eventually find paedophiles who use the Internet, it is only a matter of time."
Research conducted last year (2002) showed a five-fold increase in the number of new children appearing on child sex sites compared with 1999. During a six-week period in 2002, 140,000 child sex images were posted to news group sites, of which 35,000 were new pictures and 1,000 showed the most serious abuse.
Superintendent Mick Deats, deputy head of the National Hi-tech Crime Unit, said: "The stark and horrifying fact is that every image of paedophilia that's posted on the Internet is actually a child being abused."
Internet paedophiles had hijacked part of the web used to swap music files to distribute images, while chat rooms were being exploited to groom potential victims, said Supt Deats.
Bulletin boards were also being used to advertise locations of paedophile sites while advice about encryption codes and police tactics were also shared there.
Supt Deats said: "These groups have innocent sounding names, like the American Bowling Association, to disguise them and ensure the Internet Service Providers don't pick up what they really are.
"Web cams are being used by suspects to participate in the live abuse of children. There was one case in the West Midlands where officers went to a suspect addresses and found web cam abuse taking place in America.
"They informed the Americans and the young child was located and moved to safety."
Discussions are taking place with the Home Office, FBI and National Crime Squad to look at new ways to deal with the problem, in which the options discussed include targeted hacking as well as launching virus attacks, said Supt Deats.
"We have looked at virus attacks but there was no control over their activity and viruses can potentially attack innocent providers," he said.
He said officers will now focus on disruption tactics and set up a national database to identify and help victims.
