Operation Ore Update 2
More than 100 children in the UK have been rescued from child abuse thanks to an international operation co-ordinated in England and Wales by the National Crime Squad.
Operation Ore was launched in the UK in 2002 following an investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service into Landslide Inc. in Ft. Worth, Texas - a multimillion-dollar Internet site selling adult pornography and images of child abuse. Customers came from around the world, with more than 7000* individuals based in the United Kingdom. Operation Ore was launched to deal with those identified and the National Crime Squad became the central co-ordinating agency in the operation, working with forces across the country.
At a one-day conference in the Midlands today senior officers and practitioners from every force in the England and Wales will be updated with the national picture of the Operation and hear how their combined efforts have resulted in the rescue of 102 children from abuse.
National Crime Squad Assistant Chief Constable, Jim Gamble said: “Operation Ore is a prime example of law enforcement agencies working together with the protection of children at the forefront.
“The National Crime Squad is committed to ensuring children and young people are protected from this kind of abuse and continues to work tirelessly with UK forces and other agencies to achieve this aim.
“Innocent, vulnerable children and young people have been systematically abused so that their persecutors can trade these images on the Internet and by other means.
“Their protection is paramount to our work and we will continue to seek out those who commit these vile acts and bring them to justice.
“The fact that more than 100 children in the UK alone have been identified and removed from areas of abuse is good news, but is a statistic we cannot celebrate.
“Thousands of people have been arrested, charged and convicted of viewing and trading in these images. Many offenders had thousands and thousands of images on their computer systems. We must all continue to work together to create an environment where children are not put at risk in this way at all.
“Today’s conference is about thanking all the forces who have helped to protect these children; sharing best practice and learning from each other so that we all become more sophisticated at tackling this type of crime.”
Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Hyde, ACPO who leads on Combating Child Abuse on the Internet, said: "On behalf of the UK Police forces who have investigated these cases, rescued children and brought people to justice, I am pleased with the progress we have made. We still have much to do, particularly to manage the forensic examination of many computers, as well as seeking out other offenders.
“We have learnt a great deal from this work and will continue to build on our success. Our commitment to work with our partners in industry, education and child welfare is unique in the world, and we should be proud of that achievement. It is important that as a society we deal with the damage that these offenders cause and the trade they create. Providing the right response, with the right resources, will help to protect our children from abuse and build the local and national police capacity to prosecute offenders when they are identified."
It is the belief of the IWF that there are still many UK individuals who are seeking indecent images of children online. Some of them could also be abusing children as the figure 102 confirms. Anyone who downloads abusive images of children is perpetuating the abuse of children wherever they live.
Operation Ore has provided the authorities with a very real challenge because of the unprecedented number of suspects who have came to attention who were accessing images of children being sexually abused.
Alongside the police, the social service departments, housing associations, the courts and the multi agency public protection panels that have to monitor the movements of the offenders after they are placed on the sex offenders register have all found the impact of this operation daunting.
Any extra resources that the government or public sector agencies can devote to online paedophilia effort to prevent the sexual abuse of children is to be welcomed.
The demand for indecent images of children still persists as the IWF trace 66 new websites a week that are selling or trading indecent images of children with the US and Russia account for 78% of the websites.
For more information:
Catherine Feast, National Crime Squad Corporate Communications
020 7238 2510
press.office@ncs.police.uk.
Created: Sun, March 14th, 2004 | Last Modified: Thu, September 30th, 2004
