Police ignore 30,000 sex abusers

Around 30,000 paedophiles being ignored, former police chief claims

AROUND 30,000 paedophiles are going unpunished as police focus on historical investigations, the former head of the police’s online child abuse unit has told The Sunday Telegraph.

Peter Davies, the former chief of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, said vulnerable children were being subjected to sexual abuse that could be prevented.

Mr Davies called for more resources to tackle abuse, adding: “I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness.”

He said a national debate was needed to decide where best the Government should be spending its money and suggested that billions of pounds put towards national infrastructure projects such as high speed rail might be better placed spent on tracking down paedophiles and saving their victims from further harm.

Mr Davies, who has just retired from the police, also criticised certain historical abuse investigations for being a “waste of time”, adding that they “do not feel to me as significant as the real, present, detectable threats”.

AS MANY as 30,000 paedophiles are going unpunished even though police possess the technology to identify and arrest them, the former head of the police’s online child abuse unit has said.

In a withering critique, the ex-chief of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), Peter Davies, said vulnerable children were suffering from sexual abuse that could be prevented.

Research by CEOP when Mr Davies headed the national unit suggested 50,000 paedophiles in the UK were downloading illegal child sex images and videos.

The unit believes a little over half of those also engage in physical abuse.

Mr Davies said that police possess the technology to identify about 30,000 of the estimated 50,000 offenders, but under current policy the crimes are largely ignored due to a lack of resources.

Mr Davies, who retired as an assistant chief constable last month, said: “I am an old-school police officer and in my opinion we should be going after these offenders and prosecuting them.

“To deal properly with this offending population we need to invest on a scale that would be radical and different. The alternative is we leave these thousands of people to carry on causing terrible harm and I don’t think that is acceptable.”

His criticism will lend weight to opponents of costly high-profile historical abuse inquiries, such as Operation Midland in which at least £2million was spent investigating a VIP paedophile ring following the allegations of a single fantasist.

Wiltshire Police has spent £1 million investigating former prime minister Edward Heath, who died in 2005, amid claims it has found no evidence of wrongdoing, while the delayed Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is expected to cost more than £100million.

Mr Davies said: “Of the many ‘historic’ investigations, a few have been poorly conducted and a waste of valuable time and legitimacy.

“A great deal of effort and resource is being directed at areas which, while important, do not feel to me as significant as the real, present, detectable threats.”

The comments follow a damning report last week into CEOP by the Independent Police Complaints Commission over its failure to investigate after Toronto police handed it a list of 2,000 people who had downloaded indecent films of children from a Canadian company.

The list, which Mr Davies was not made aware of, included Myles Bradbury a doctor at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, who admitted 25 offences, including the sexual assault of young cancer patients.

Mark Frost, 70, a former teacher and scout leader

‘In my opinion we should be going after these offenders and prosecuting them’

who last year admitted 45 offences including rape and sexual assault of boys, was also on the Operation Spade list flagged up to CEOP in 2012.

Mr Davies, who led CEOP for three years until 2013 and now works for security consultancy Austability had attempted to shake up the organisation.

He said: “I don’t think people really understand what a serious offence the possession of indecent images of children is.

“Each image is the scene of a crime. A child has been sexually abused to create each image and any customer downloading that image is complicit in the abuse.”