David Cameron’s grand plan is actually a sham

I wish I wasn’t thoroughly familiar with this subject. I wish I stood outside it with merely an intellectual curiosity. Unfortunately I cannot. Childhood experiences mean that I empathise with numerous victims of child sex abuse and the way in which it can blight their lives leading to low self-esteem, psychiatric disorder, addiction and in extreme cases – suicide.

My knowledge of matters around this area, in particular the issue of child sex abuses images and the paedophiles and abusers who create traffick and use these crime images comes from my involvement with The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP.)

My introduction to its work and its staff came as a result of a request from a friend to help her raise money for CEOP for a specific initiative a few years back when CEOP was affiliated to SOCA. It might seem strange that an organisation doing such vital and difficult work was not totally government funded but that was the case. Only about half the costs were met by government and the rest had to be raised from partners/sponsors.

During my visits to CEOP I became thoroughly familiar with their methods, role and the dedication their staff brought to what by any estimation is a very hard job. Whilst I was rightly not shown any abuse images I was taken through the methods by which CEOP identified scenes, victims and abusers and the steps that were taken to catch the guilty. One point that stuck in my mind and which should stick in yours is that those responsible for the bulk of this obscene trade are highly motivated, devious and callous people. They operate in groups that whilst often having no readily identifiable association have sophisticated methods of communication and ways to share information and child abuse material.

 

The following is a matter of record -

 

CEOP was formed in April 2006 and at the time of my visits was headed by Jim Gamble who is irrefutably one of the world’s leading authorities on this issue. A senior police officer of 25 years, he was head of the Northern Ireland anti-terrorist intelligence unit in Belfast, then most recently tackled organised crime as the Deputy Director of the National Crime Squad.

CEOP combined police powers with expertise from the business sector, government, specialist charities and other interested organisations. It was made up of people including police officers, with specialist experience of tracking and prosecuting sex offenders as well as people from the NSPCC, Childnet, Microsoft and AOL. It had created partnerships with non-government bodies, such as  Action for Children, NSPCC, Barnardos; business (Microsoft, AOL, Serco, Vodafone etc.) and UK Government departments (Department for Education; Home Office; Foreign and Commonwealth Office etc.). CEOP works with organisations such as The Scout Association, the Football Association, the England and Wales Cricket Board, BT, and Lycos.

 The CEOP Centre was and is a partner in an international law enforcement alliance – the Virtual Global Taskforce (“VGT”) set up in 2004 and provides an international alliance of law enforcement agencies across Australia, the US and Canada as well as Interpol in bringing a global policing response to censoring the Internet.

CEOP operated in three ways - Intelligence, Harm Reduction and Operations. Each faculty was supported by teams covering governance, communications, partnerships and corporate services. The intelligence faculty received intelligence of online and offline offenders; all reports made through the centre's website, and ThinkUKnow were dealt with at any time of day so that law enforcement action could be taken. The Harm Reduction faculty managed Public Awareness campaigns and educational programmes, including the ThinkUKnow education programme,  currently being used in UK schools. The Operations Faculty aimed to tackle both abusers and those who exploit children for financial gain.

After two expert reviews the then Labour government decided to make  CEOP fundamentally independent as it was felt that this gave it a specific 'child' focus that might be lost if became part of a larger law enforcement organisation. However, without a further review or evidence the present government went against those expert recommendations and the advice given to them during their 'consultation' and absorbed CEOP into the National Crime Agency (“NCA”) on 7 October 2013. In protest at this move Gamble resigned in October 2010.  It was at that time that Home Secretary Teresa May promised to ‘build on and invest in CEOP.’ It was said that as part of a larger organisation CEOP would have available wider resources to continue its vital work.

 

 Cameron’s ‘new’ initiative.

 

Today Prime Minister David Cameron is widely reported as introducing tough new measures to block access to child abuse images and to pursue those guilty of making and using them. The main points are as follows.

1.    A national database, built in collaboration between police and a number of technical experts, which, when an image is found, will assign it a unique identification tag – or a “hash value”. These values will enable police to search for images quickly on the computers of suspects, these unique tags will also mean that images can be proactively scanned for, blocked, and taken down when they are discovered.

 

2.    The NCA, which became operational last month, will launch a series of large-scale operations targeting child abusers online in Britain, in conjunction with crime agencies from across the globe – the NCA and its 4,000 staff are available to help track and arrest suspected paedophiles.

 

3.    The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the industry body tasked with identifying and removing illegal content will also receive an additional £1.5 million in funding as part of an expansion plan. A number of new analysts will begin working in the next few months, which will effectively triple the size of the team. These extra resources will mean that the IWF can, for the first time, start to seek out child abuse website, blocking the content and putting warning pages in place.

 

4.    Cameron said “People should be in no doubt that there is no such thing as a safe place on the internet to access child abuse material and will target those who think otherwise.”

 

 

What is new?

 

A.   The ‘new’ database is little more than the Childbase database that had already been created by CEOP and which at the time of my visits held/holds circa a million images. I don't doubt that had CEOP not been diverted it would already have a new improved system.

 

B.   That database already used the HASH codes developed as an industry standard years ago.  This method was designed by industry and used by CEOP and has been improved in recent years by Microsoft who have been working on Photo DNA for some time.

 

C.   Large scale operations were already developed and executed with worldwide agencies as the partnership with the VGT clearly shows. Just one example of this is the successful prosecution in June 2007 of Timothy Cox who was jailed at a court in Buxhall, Suffolk, following a 10-month operation by CEOP Officers, as well as other Virtual Global Taskforce Members, leading to 700 new suspects being followed up by law enforcement agencies around the world.

 

D.   The bold statement that NCA and its 4,000 staff are available to help track and arrest suspected paedophiles suggests that this is a massive increase in the number of people dedicated to this work – it is nothing of the sort and following points are pertinent –

1. The staff of all the local police forces as well as SOCA assets were available to CEOP previously and were used when CEOP passed on evidence that could be pursued by the relevant force to investigate and prosecute abusers identified by them.

2.  4,000 staff is the total number available not the number committed; CEOP has about 115 dedicated staff. The key is how many have had the OCU health assessment to work full time in CEOP. Misinformation about numbers and actual capacity is reckless

3. Despite May’s promise to build CEOP the following are the amounts invested by government in recent years-

09/10 - £6.416 m. Grant in Aid i.e. direct funding from government

10/11 - £6.44 m.

11/12 - £6.487 m. (CEOP also accrued additional responsibility re missing children)

12/13 - £6.4 m.

 

E.  The extra £1.5m. for the IWF is the only new money committed by the government under this bold plan; the rest is either ISP funded or part of NCA/CEOP budget anyway. Whilst the money for the IWF is welcome the IWF have no powers of prosecution and their expertise is not that of dedicated CEOP staff.

 

F.    In 2012 whilst everyone claimed CEOP remained unchanged and was in fact stronger with greater 'access' to resources they received intelligence from the Toronto Police.  This link is an explanation from the NCA about what didn't happen. http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/258-statement-on-ceop-s-involvement-in-project-spade

 

Further points

 

1.   The focus on ISP blocking will not touch the vast majority of existing abusers because they do not use search engines to ply their nefarious activities. Only the inexperienced might be caught by this and the number is very small as a percentage of the total number of abusers. Additionally, though some people might be prevented from accessing abuse images it is impossible to judge how many are dissuaded as you cannot count negatives.

2.   The real criminals use the Darknet, P2P networks and sophisticate encrypted communications to access and trade in abuse images. Only the work done by agencies like CEOP will catch these devious people and it is that sort of investigative work that should be prioritised and appropriate  investment made  if the government is serious about catching abusers and preventing further crimes.

3.   In all this, as with the previous Labour government’s’ ill-conceived and thankfully now redundant proposal of an Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) scheme, you will see one vital thing is missing – focus on the victims. Whilst they are implicit in prevention the proposals do nothing to give better care for those abused.

4.   To catch abusers the first thing you need is a complaint and though this may come from a CEOP-type investigation it is crucial that an environment is created that empowers victims to come forward. Without these complaints the police or any other body cannot start to investigate anything. To attract complaints, you have to give victims the confidence to complain, and that doesn’t just mean informing them of which line to call or person to tell.

5.    I and many victims did not tell because we did not think we would be believed. What we victims need is not just an immediate person being sympathetic and taking a statement. We need to know that a proper investigation will be made if we make a complaint; to know that the Crown Prosecution Service will be robust and that every effort will be made to secure a conviction. So harrowing is the telling of our stories that we have to have utmost faith that as much as possible will be done to rectify the wrong and to help us bear the extra stress of an investigation and trial.

We are often tortured by the knowledge that many people will associate us with the awfulness of the crime and that, by extension; we will become damaged and tainted. In the case of male rape and abuse, the assumption is that the victim is gay or a likely abuser.

The failure of the government and the media to inform, educate and disseminate the facts around abuse is damaging and makes complaints less likely. It isn’t true that there is a paedophile round every corner and we don’t want the fear of abuse to become as widespread as the fear of crime has become.

If the public is properly enlightened, we will not have to fear allegations that we are making things up for sympathy or, in my case, to sell books. We might be spared the silences that accompany our entry into conversations about abuse, because it will be an issue that, though uncomfortable, can be talked about openly. Only then might we start to know we are not alone.

Blanket broadcasting of just our names does not help. How much do you know about any of us, beyond our abuse? How many stories have there been about the inadequacy of support for those of us who have developed psychiatric problems, are addicts or are at risk of suicide?

The ongoing failure to help us is as much a scandal as the failures of 30 years ago to catch our abusers. If everyone’s starting point is our welfare and we all work outwards from there, at least things will be going in the right direction.

6.   If the government really cares about the abused and wants to catch their abusers, vicarious outrage is of limited use. Manipulation of existing facts dressed up as brave new plans is cynical and a further betrayal of victims. We are used to politicians from all parties spinning things but this is one area in which it is morally wrong and those responsible should be ashamed.

Real commitment to help victims would be the financing of CEOP in full and at a much higher level. The £1.5m given to the IWF could have been spent as suggested in a statement from Gamble –

‘Less than 1.5 million pounds a year would pay for 12 regional child protection experts, supported by twelve training coordinators.  They could recruit, vet, train and supervise volunteers in every police force in the UK.  People, who would work for free, retired police officers, IT specialists, teachers, nurses, academics, ordinary people with specialist training and support.’

If every force recruited ten such volunteers we could turn the tables.  Imagine five hundred and twenty ‘Special Constables’ working to identify, locate and rescue the children trapped inside abusive images? Imagine the impact on the confidence of offenders trawling the internet when they can no longer be sure that they are engaging a child and not one of the many police co-ordinated undercover officers?’

7.     Victims need not only to know their abusers are being brought to book, they need help by the funding of relevant social services for their ongoing problems, not faux initiatives and calls to eviscerate abusers. Then again, the former isn’t really news and costs money; the latter is much easier and doesn't.