Child Abuse (Hansard, 31 March 2004)

§ Paul Goggins

The deployment of officers to units dealing with child abuse investigations and their training in forensic investigation skills is a matter for individual chief officers. In addition a number of private companies provide forensic examination services which are regularly utilised by law enforcement agencies. There is no centrally aggregated figure of these resources.

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In addition to the on-going support for high tech crime, in December 2002 the Home Office provided a one-off payment of £½ million to the Association of Chief Police Officers to support operations to combat child abuse on the internet. This money has been used in part to provide relevant hardware and software, and also to train 86 individuals within forces in basic forensic analysis this financial year. The Home Office is currently producing tactical guidance for managers of computer crime units within forces which will include advice on running these units and practical guidance on procedures and tools for forensic analysis.

Every police force in England and Wales has a computer crime unit and a child protection/child abuse investigation team which has expertise in the recovery of forensic evidence and network investigation. These skills are utilised in on-line child abuse investigations. Whilst the degree of expertise and training within these units will vary from force to force, all forces have specialists in dealing with such cases.

With regard to training police who are not part of specialist units, there is a module included in the probationary training for all new police officers covering the internet and new technology to raise their awareness of how paedophiles and other criminals can exploit this technology. Centrex are also developing an on-line training package for existing officers. I have also made available £100,000 to facilitate the development of a joint awareness package covering how children and those who exploit them use these technologies. This package will be aimed at all professionals with a role in child protection, including social workers, police and probation officers.

A major consultation on the future of police reform was launched on 4 November 2003 entitled 'Policing: Building Safer Communities Together'. This raised a number of questions including whether there is a need for larger strategic forces, and specialised 'lead' forces to tackle certain issues, such as on-line paedophilia. Responses to the consultation paper are now being considered and we will publish firmer proposals for consultation later this year in relation to these issues.

I understand from figures provided by the Internet Watch Foundation that from the images reported to them in 2003, 55 per cent. of child abuse content is believed to be hosted in the United States. My right hon. Friend, the Home Secretary, has recently met the Deputy Attorney General and has discussed how we can co-operate to close down illegal sites that are based in the US. There will be a UK/USA working group to take this issue forward bilaterally.

All G8 countries, including the UK and US, adopted a strategy on Protecting Children from Sexual Exploitation on the internet in October 2002. The aim of the strategy is to protect children from sexual exploitation on the internet and help make cyberspace a safer environment for all internet users.

A problem for all law enforcement agencies is the identification of children featured in child abuse images. As part of this G8 strategy the UK is leading the development of an international (not restricted to G8 countries) Child Image Database, housed at Interpol. It aims to act as a global repository of images of child 1423W abuse with the capacity to carry out automated analysis. It will be a significant tool for international law enforcement contributing to the identification of victims and offenders and analysis of images.

In the UK, where the Internet Watch Foundation discover that child abuse material is produced or hosted overseas, arrangements exist for notifying the relevant law enforcement agency and Internet Service Provider (ISP) concerned.

There are also a variety of funding mechanisms to assist in furthering international co-operation such as through the provision of equipment and training to overseas law enforcement by UK agencies, and the provision of specialist training courses. For example the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and National Crime Squad are hosting a second conference for international law enforcement experts later this month.