Category Archives: Sex Offender profiles

NSPCC helpline for paedophiles

Education, Sex Offender profiles

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is launching a phone helpline for paedophiles tomorrow.  The emergency number – aimed at talking convicted paedophiles out of striking again – will be manned around the clock by trained counsellors.  It will be funded by donations to the 127-year-old charity, so that it will be a toll-free service.

Child-sex offenders released from jail or given community service will be able to phone up if they fear a relapse or need other guidance. But they must first have agreed to sign up to the scheme, which will see them given a unique PIN number to identify them.  The phone counsellors will also reserve the right to call police. Continue reading NSPCC helpline for paedophiles →

Interpol shows up UK child abuse record

Children, International Safeguarding, Sex Offender profiles

 The UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection  Agency is calling for a database that will store images of abuse appearing on the web.  BBC Newsnight highlights the impact not having such a national paedophile database. Britain has a poor ability to identify and rescue child abuse victims compared to most other countries. 

Mick Moran, head of child protection at the international police agency Interpol told Newsnight that simply prosecuting those who download images of child sex abuse is not enough.  He said that the images need to be sent to a central point where they can be analysed to look for clues to identify the children, but that is not happening in the UK. Mr Moran said some police officers are “forgetting the fact that each of these images, each of these movies, contains a victim”.

In the UK different police forces currently have various systems and different databases. Some have their own victim identification units.  However it could be another 18 months before a national system is introduced.  Although millions of images of child sex abuse have been collected only 47 cases were passed on to Ceop by the UK’s 52 police forces in 2010 – less than one per force.   In the cases which were passed to them Ceop helped rescue 22 victims.

Mick Moran and Mark Williams Thomas have been invited to National Conference on Safeguarding on the Internet , 16th November, Reading.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9532058.stm

BBC Panorama – insight into Child Sex Abuse

Children, Education, Faith, Key Cases, Sex Offender profiles

BBC Panorama – Breaking the Silence  tells the story of how over a hundred former pupils from two Catholic prep schools in England and Tanzania were reunited via the internet. Chatting in cyberspace, they discovered they had all suffered terrible abuse at school: mental, physical and, in some cases, sexual. As young children they were frightened into silence by their abusers.

Now, as men in their fifties and sixties, and strengthened by the group, they want the truth to come out. Twenty two men have started legal proceedings against the Rosminian Order for compensation. They want justice, but their abusers are now elderly and the church has sought to mediate a solution.

An insight into the way in which children are manipulated by sex offenders – and also the power of the internet to draw out truth.

Ceop Annual Report highlights internet child abuse

Children, In the News, Justice, Sex Offender profiles

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (Ceop) has presented it’s annual report which shows that 414 children were helped, 513 people arrested and 132 offender networks broken up in the UK in the past year. This is a record number of children and a record number of arrests for the centre. 

Ceop was set up in 2006 to track online paedophiles and bring them to court.  Over a five-year period the agency said it helped to dismantle more than 394 high-risk sex offender networks and arrest 1,644 suspected paedophiles.

According to the report, images on the internet appear to show that younger children are increasingly becoming victims of abuse.   But the “great tragedy” is that much child abuse goes unreported, said its chief executive Peter Davies.   He added that Ceop was trying to stay ahead of developments in technology, including in the area of social networking sites.

Jon Taylor, an internet safety expert and former police officer who went undercover posing as a 12-year-old girl, said it was relatively easy to pose online – either as a child who may be groomed or as a sexual predator – to “mingle” and find out what people were doing.  But he said it was difficult because the internet is not “proactively policed”, and instead reacts to intelligence and information.

Ceop is currently affiliated to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), but is to be merged with the new National Crime Agency when it is formed in 2013.

Safeguarding Matters is organising a conference about the topic in November 2011.  Speakers include Mark Williams-Thomas and international police forces.  Please register with us to be kept updated on the conference programme.

NSPCC quantify child sex abuse cases

Children, Justice, Sex Offender profiles, , ,

NSPCC research via a freedom of information request to all 43 police forces in England and Wales show that at least 64 children are sexually abused every day in England and Wales.

More than 23,000 offences – including rape, incest and gross indecency – were recorded by police in 2009-10, an 8% increase on 2008-9, the charity said.  The figures showed that more than half of the victims were aged between 12 and 15, one in four was aged five to 11, and more than 1,000 were aged four or younger.  Girls were more than six times more likely to be assaulted than boys, with 86% of attacks taking place against females, the figures showed.

For the first time, its research also looked at the age of abusers and found a quarter were aged under 18. One in four victims was aged 11 or under. 

Continue reading NSPCC quantify child sex abuse cases →

CEOP lead paedophile ring shutdown

In the News, Key Cases, Sex Offender profiles, Sport & Leisure, Voluntary,

Details are emerging about the full extent of the largest internet paedophile ring yet discovered as an international team led from the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) shuts it down.  After a three-year investigation it has now been made public that the global forum had 70,000 followers at its height, leading to 4,000 intelligence reports being sent to police across 30 countries.

‘Operation Rescue’ has so far identified 670 suspects and 230 abused children.    In the UK, the 240 those suspects include police officers, teachers, karate teacherand a woman.To date, 33 have been convicted, including John McMurdo, a scout leader from Plymouth. Another forum user was Stephen Palmer, 54, of Birkenhead, who shared abuse images with contacts in the US. A third man, 46-year-old Colin Hoey Brown of Bromsgrove, was jailed for making and distributing almost 1,000 images. Continue reading CEOP lead paedophile ring shutdown →

Public access to Sentencing Records

Justice, Ministerial Announcements, Parliamentary Affairs, Sex Offender profiles, , ,

Policing Minister Nick Herbert has indicated that details of sentences handed down to criminals could be published online in future, making public access to sentencing records much easier. 

He said he hoped to build on the success of the new crime-mapping website which shows how many offences have been committed in particular streets:  “This website is a strong example of this government’s commitment to greater transparency in public services, giving communities the information they need to hold their local police to account.” Continue reading Public access to Sentencing Records →

Expert briefing – London 14th April

Background to Safeguarding, Sex Offender profiles, , , , , ,

Following a number of enquiries, we are organising a briefing event in London on Thursday, 14th April with Simon Morrison, previously Head of Communications for the VBS , Mark Williams-Thomas,  a criminologist who is frequently interviewed in the media about child protection issues and Liz Morrison who led the VBS roadshow programme.  Continue reading Expert briefing – London 14th April →

Changes to Sex Offenders Register

In the News, Key Cases, Ministerial Announcements, Sex Offender profiles, , , , ,

The Government response to the Supreme Court ruling about the human rights of sex offenders is to make the minimum possible changes to the law in order to comply with the ruling.  These are summarised below. Continue reading Changes to Sex Offenders Register →

Sex offenders register challenged

In the News, Key Cases, Sex Offender profiles, ,

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that  lifelong monitoring on the UK’s sex offenders register is a disproportionate interference in the offender’s family lives and have granted two convicted sex offenders the right to challenge their inclusion on it. The case paves the way for other offenders to seek to have their details removed.

Offenders are placed on the register for life if they are sentenced to 30 months or more in jail,  and once released  have to notify police about where they are living and what name they are using. There are some 32,000 registered sex offenders in England and Wales and approximately half of them received sentences leading to lifelong monitoring. Continue reading Sex offenders register challenged →

NHS fails elderly vulnerable adults

Children, Sex Offender profiles, Vulnerable Adults,

The NHS is failing to treat elderly patients in England with care, dignity and respect, an official report says.  Of nearly 9,000 complaints made to the Health Ombudsman last year, 18% were about the care of older people. In total, it accepted 226 cases for investigation – twice as many as for all the other age groups combined. Continue reading NHS fails elderly vulnerable adults →

Lords debate exploitation of children

Children, In the News, Justice, Parliamentary Affairs, Sex Offender profiles, , , , ,

The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Tim Stevens, raised five areas of concern about children being groomed for sexual exploitation. His question in the House of Lords was  what steps are being taken to ensure the safety of children, especially of children in the care of local authorities, from being groomed for sexual exploitation. Continue reading Lords debate exploitation of children →