As 14 men in England have appeared in court over child abuse images, Damian Green, the Home Office minister, says evidence shows younger and younger children are being subjected to 'more sadistic' sexual abuse.
The men are not part of an organised gang, but separate individuals arrested in September after an investigation into the sexual exploitation of children, police said.
The 14 suspects are all charged with crimes relating to indecent images of children. They appeared before magistrates in Preston and were bailed to appear at the city's crown court on 17 June.
Meanwhile, from David Barrett of The Telegraph -
Child pornography is becoming “more extreme and violent” and the images feature increasingly young children, the policing minister has warned.
Damian Green said a new computer database, being built with government backing, will attempt to speed up the way police can investigate the online images of child abuse.
But he said the problem was “ever changing” and pointed to studies showing the kind of abuse depicted the “vile” images was plumbing new depths of depravity.
“These are vile, disgusting images. They are photographs and videos that record children being abused and raped,” said Mr Green.
“Even more disturbingly, the research shows that these images appear to be becoming more extreme, more sadistic and more violent, with a greater proportion depicting the abuse of younger children.”
Did I mention sin is progressive? I wonder if anyone has done any research to see if child pornography users 'graduate' from watching adult pornography? I have always suspected that they move toward younger and younger victims, and the minister seems to be confirming that. But how far back does it go? Let me know if you've heard of such a study, please.
He told IT experts from major companies, who were invited to a Home Office event in Westminster to begin work on the database project: “The police, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP) are doing excellent work in difficult circumstances.
“But that key threat to our children is ever growing and changing so it is critical for the National Crime Agency and wider UK law enforcement to be equipped to tackle this sickening crime.”
Mr Green said that a Home Office survey carried out in 1990 estimated that just 7,000 images of child sexual abuse were in circulation - as hard copies - in this country.
“Today the growth and development of the internet means that the number of these images online is in the millions,” he said.
“And the number of individual children depicted in these images, and therefore desperately in need of our protection, is likely to be in the tens of thousands.”
He went on: “It isn’t sufficient to simply prosecute those offenders who possess such images. We have a duty, and moral obligation, to find those children who are being abused, and protect them, whether they are in the UK or abroad.
“Police forces have recorded cases where individual offenders have possessed up to 2.5 million images.” It will need “new thinking” to tackle the issue, said the minister.
The database, which Mr Green said he hoped would be operational by the end of the year, will link up existing “fragmented” police databases to create a “single secure database of illegal images of children”.
It would help speed up investigations by reducing the amount of work duplicated by different agencies and help identify victims more quickly, he added.
The men are not part of an organised gang, but separate individuals arrested in September after an investigation into the sexual exploitation of children, police said.
The 14 suspects are all charged with crimes relating to indecent images of children. They appeared before magistrates in Preston and were bailed to appear at the city's crown court on 17 June.
Meanwhile, from David Barrett of The Telegraph -
 |
| Damian Green, the Home Office minister |
Child pornography is becoming “more extreme and violent” and the images feature increasingly young children, the policing minister has warned.
Damian Green said a new computer database, being built with government backing, will attempt to speed up the way police can investigate the online images of child abuse.
But he said the problem was “ever changing” and pointed to studies showing the kind of abuse depicted the “vile” images was plumbing new depths of depravity.
“These are vile, disgusting images. They are photographs and videos that record children being abused and raped,” said Mr Green.
“Even more disturbingly, the research shows that these images appear to be becoming more extreme, more sadistic and more violent, with a greater proportion depicting the abuse of younger children.”
Did I mention sin is progressive? I wonder if anyone has done any research to see if child pornography users 'graduate' from watching adult pornography? I have always suspected that they move toward younger and younger victims, and the minister seems to be confirming that. But how far back does it go? Let me know if you've heard of such a study, please.
He told IT experts from major companies, who were invited to a Home Office event in Westminster to begin work on the database project: “The police, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP) are doing excellent work in difficult circumstances.
“But that key threat to our children is ever growing and changing so it is critical for the National Crime Agency and wider UK law enforcement to be equipped to tackle this sickening crime.”
Mr Green said that a Home Office survey carried out in 1990 estimated that just 7,000 images of child sexual abuse were in circulation - as hard copies - in this country.
“Today the growth and development of the internet means that the number of these images online is in the millions,” he said.
“And the number of individual children depicted in these images, and therefore desperately in need of our protection, is likely to be in the tens of thousands.”
He went on: “It isn’t sufficient to simply prosecute those offenders who possess such images. We have a duty, and moral obligation, to find those children who are being abused, and protect them, whether they are in the UK or abroad.
“Police forces have recorded cases where individual offenders have possessed up to 2.5 million images.” It will need “new thinking” to tackle the issue, said the minister.
The database, which Mr Green said he hoped would be operational by the end of the year, will link up existing “fragmented” police databases to create a “single secure database of illegal images of children”.
It would help speed up investigations by reducing the amount of work duplicated by different agencies and help identify victims more quickly, he added.
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