[no subject]

Operation Ore 'puts children at risk'

Children are at risk because the police cannot cope
with a growing number of suspected internet
paedophiles, according to one of the most senior
officers dealing with child pornography. 
Detective Chief Superintendent Derrick Kelleher has
admitted he is taking officers away from child
protection units to arrest suspects identified by
Operation Ore, the UK's largest ever police hunt
against internet paedophiles. 

"These teams are already stretched to the limit," the
commander of the Metropolitan Police Child Protection
Group told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 

"Our priority must be protecting children who are at
risk here and now." 

Operation Ore has given police direct leads on 250,000
suspected internet paedophiles worldwide, including
The Who's Pete Townshend, who insists he was merely
researching the subject. 

But Detective Chief Superintendent Kelleher told Today
it had taken six months to identify 10% of them in
London alone. 

"We have not got a list of names." 

"We have only got a list of credit card numbers. 

"We are having to work methodically through this list
through the financial institutions. 

"It is time-consuming. 

"We have not got the level of resources to attach to
it. 

"And it is going to take us a long time." 

Home Office minister Hilary Benn said the government
had implemented measures to protect children from this
"horrific form of abuse". 

The centrally-funded National Criminal Intelligence
Service had taken some of the strain by initially
sifting through the names to prioritise who they
considered were the worst offenders. 

And part of the role of the National Hi-Tech Crime
Unit, set up at a cost of #25m, was to support police
forces by giving technical expertise. 

Mr Benn added: "Police forces have had a big increase
in funding - 6% this year, 10% last year." 

Deputy assistant commissioner Carole Howlett,
spokeswoman on internet child pornography for the
Association of Chief Police Officers, last year asked
for more police resources to help. 

Ms Shipley said #500,000 had been given, but the
police needed about #2m to tackle the huge scale of
the problem. 

"The police need to get a move on and the government
needs to finance it as a matter of urgency," she said.


Donald Findlater was manager of the Wolvercote Clinic
in Surrey - the only residential treatment centre in
England for paedophiles, until its closure last year. 

He told the programme: "Operation Ore has presented
enormous challenges which are currently being faced by
the police in terms of properly investigating and
accumulating evidence. 

"The next challenge will be faced by the courts and
probation service and maybe the prisons. 

"We are going to see this large bulge of this group of
individuals going through the system. 

"And frankly I doubt the system will be able to deal
competently, and in a way that protects children, as
these people go through the system." 


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-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com
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