Internet and Cybersexual Addiction

My comments may be in any colour, quotations are always in pale blue.

For Moore, what Sade’s work ultimately brings to light is the "shadow self" that exists within each individual. This part of the self is consigned to the shadows of our own being by forces and rules from without. Motivated by the fear that our true nature will be rejected by broader society, we force our very being to conform to expectations not of its making. Despite its pariah status, this side of the self strives to find an outlet for expression, to be granted legitimacy in a polite setting where this cannot be granted. That these impulses form our shadow, darker half becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if the expectation is that these parts of our very Site Map selves are bad, that is how we ourselves will come to view them, and how they themselves will find expression. Dark Horse Multimedia Inc.

Yes, I admit I'm a libertine: I've conceived everything one can conceive in that genre, but I've surely not done all I've imagined and surely will never do it. I'm a libertine, but I'm not a criminal or a murderer. Marquis de Sade, to his wife, 1781.

As is often the case with emotive issues, terminology, interpretation and fear are causing many confusions and difficulties.

Clearly, much of the content is of an adult nature.

Addiction and Dependency

Brown’s Checklist of the Common Components of Addiction:

Salience The addictive activity becomes the most important thing in the person’s life and dominates thinking (preoccupation and cognitive distortions) feeling (cravings) and behaviour (deterioration of socialised behaviour).

Conflict Disputes about the extent of excessive behaviour arise both between the addicted person and others around and with the addicted person themselves. Continual choosing of short term pleasure and relief leads to disregard of adverse consequences and long term damage which in turn increases the apparent need for the activity as a coping strategy.

Tolerance Increased amounts of the addictive activity are required to achieve the former effects.

Withdrawals Unpleasant feeling states and/or physical effects when the addictive activity is discontinued or suddenly reduced.

Relief The effects of the addictive activity are so powerful that there is a rebound effect when it ceases (withdrawals) and when it is over the only way to avoid feeling more miserable than before (to find relief) is to do it again at the earliest opportunity.

Relapse and reinstatement Tendency for repeated reversions to earlier patterns of addictive behaviour to recur and for even the most extreme patterns typical of the height of the addiction to be quickly restored even after many years of abstinence and control.

Planning deficiencies in addiction from the perspective of reversal theory, R.I.F. Brown (1993), In Advances in Reversal Theory. (eds. Kerr J., Murgotroyed S. and Apter M. J.) pp. 205-223. Swets and Zeitburger However, the term “addiction” is hardly used in diagnostic manuals such as The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) http://www.psychologynet.org/dsm.html by the American Psychiatric Association and The International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10) http://www.who.int/whosis/icd10/ by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The sections on psychoactive substance use are in both manuals based on the underlying assumptions and conceptual framework developed by a WHO Working Group, and are therefore similar in their intellectual foundation (Jaffe, 1992). As the term “addiction” became a concept surrounded by a lively and sometimes heated debate, the WHO attempted in the 1970’s to employ the notion of dependence (Brown, 1993a). In both the DSM-IV and the ICD-10 the term “ addiction” is hardly used and the notion of dependence is adhered to.

In DSM-IV (p. 181) the criteria for substance dependence are as follows:

A maladaptive pattern of substance use, leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by three (or more) of the following, occurring at any time in the same 12-month period:

1) tolerance, as defined by either of the following:

· a need for markedly increased amounts of the substance to achieve intoxication or desired effect. · markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of the substance

2) withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:

· the characteristic withdrawal syndrome for the substance · the same (or closely related) substance is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms

3) the substance is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended

4) there is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control substance use

5) a great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the substance (e.g., visiting multiple doctors or driving long distances), use the substances (e.g. chain smoking), or recover from its effects

6) important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of substance use.

7) the substance use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurring physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance (e.g., current cocaine use despite recognition of cocaine-induced depression , or continued drinking despite recognition that an ulcer was made worse by alcohol consumption).

There are many similarities between the DSM-IV criteria for substance dependency and the common features that constitute an addiction. Especially salience, tolerance and withdrawal are central aspects for both concepts. However, symptoms of tolerance and withdrawal are neither sufficient nor necessary for the diagnosis of substance dependence and some individuals display compulsive use of the substance without physiological dependence (Frances and Miller, 1998). Substance abuse is distinguished from substance dependence in DSM-IV. There are four substance abuse criteria, which require one of them to have been present during the last 12 months to establish a diagnosis.

The Prevalence of Gambling Addiction and Sexual Addiction among Male Inpatients under Treatment for Alcohol Addiction in Norway, T. Roald, European Association for Gambling

What is Internet Addiction?

The Internet itself is a neutral device originally designed to facilitate research among academic and military agencies. How some people have come to use this medium, however, has created a stir among the mental health community by great discussion of Internet addiction. Addictive use of the Internet is a new phenomenon which many practitioners are unaware of and subsequently unprepared to treat. Some therapists are unfamiliar with the Internet, making its seduction difficult to understand. Other times, its impact on the individual’s life is minimized. The purpose of this chapter is to enable clinicians to better detect and treat Internet addiction. The chapter will first focus on the complications of diagnosis of Internet addiction. Second, the negative consequences of such Internet abuse are explored. Third, how to properly assess and identify triggers causing the onset of pathological Internet use are discussed. Fourth, a number of recovery strategies are presented. Lastly, since Internet addiction is an emergent disorder, implications for future practice are presented.

Internet Addiction: Symptoms, Evaluation, And Treatment, K. S. Young, Young, K.,(January 1999) Internet addiction: symptoms, evaluation and treatment. In L. VandeCreek & T. Jackson (Eds.). Innovations in Clinical Practice: A Source Book (Vol. 17; pp. 19-31). Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Press http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Addictions/netaddiction/articles/symptoms.htm

Prior research has utilized the Zung Depression Inventory (ZDI) and found that moderate to severe rates of depression coexist with pathological Internet use.1 Although the ZDI was utilized for its expediency with on-line administration, its limitations include poor normative data and less frequent clinical use. Therefore, this study utilized the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), which has more accurate norms and frequent usage among dual diagnostic patient populations. An on-line survey administered on a World Wide Web site utilized the BDI as part of a larger study. A total of 312 surveys was collected with 259 valid profiles from addicted users, which again supported significant levels of depression to be associated with pathological Internet use. This article discusses how a treatment protocol should emphasis the primary psychiatric condition if related to a subsequent impulse control problem such as pathological Internet use. Effective management of psychiatric symptoms may indirectly correct pathological Internet use.

The Relationship Between Depression and Internet Addiction, K.S. Young and R.C. Rodgers http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Addictions/netaddiction/articles/cyberpsychology.htm also

HealthyPlace.com http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Addictions/netaddiction/articles/index.htm

What is Cybersexual Addiction?

Cybersexual Addiction has become a specific sub-type of Internet addiction. It has been estimated that 1 in 5 Internet addicts are engaged in some form of on-line sexual activity (primarily viewing cyberporn and/or engaging in cybersex). Early studies show that men are more likely to view cyberporn, while women are more likely to engage in erotic chat.

People who suffer from low self-esteem, a severely distorted body image, untreated sexual dysfunction, or a prior sexual addiction are more at risk to develop cybersexual addictions. In particular, sex addicts often turn to the Internet as a new and safe sexual outlet to fulfill their compulsions without the expense of costly 900-lines, the fear of being seen at an adult bookstore, or the fear of disease among prostitutes.

HealthyPlace.com http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Addictions/netaddiction/cybersexual_addiction.htm

The survey results show that almost one in 10 respondents indicate they are addicted to sex and the Internet. Dr. Alvin Cooper, clinical director of the San Jose Marital Services and Sexuality Centre in San Jose, Calif., conducted the online poll, believed to be the largest Internet study of online sexuality to date. The survey, conducted during June 2000, received responses from over 38,000 users and found that people who engage in online sexual activities are spending a substantial amount of time on these pursuits to break away from their daily routines, explore fantasies, relieve stress and spice up their sex lives. MSNBC website surveys are self-selected and unscientific, not the random samples utilized by polling organizations.

MSNBC.com Cybersex Survey Suggests Hundreds of ...” Business Wire. 7/19/01 http://www.nationalcoalition.org/stat.phtml?ID=53

"The National Council on Sexual Addiction Compulsivity estimated that 6%-8% of Americans are sex addicts, which is 16 million-21.5 million people."

Cooper, Alvin, Dana E. Putnam, Lynn A. Planchon, and Sylvain C. Boies. "Online Sexual Compulsivity: Getting Tangled in the Net." Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, 6:79-104. (Taken from Amparano, J. "Sex addicts get help." The Arizona Republic, p. A1. 1999 also http://www.ejhs.org/volume5/SexAddiction.htm

"A recent study by researchers at Stanford and Duquesne universities claims at least 200,000 Americans are hopelessly addicted to E-porn."

Koerner, Brendan I. "A lust for profits." U.S. News online, 3/27/00 http://www.usnew.com/usnews/issue/000327/eporn.htm

The Warning Signs of Cybersexual Addiction

>Routinely spending significant amounts of time in chat rooms and private messaging with the sole purpose of finding cybersex. >Feeling preoccupied with using the Internet to find on-line sexual partners. >Frequently using anonymous communication to engage in sexual fantasies not typically carried out in real-life. >Anticipating your next on-line session with the expectation that you will find sexual arousal or gratification. >Finding that you frequently move from cybersex to phone sex (or even real-life meetings). >Hiding your on-line interactions from your significant other. >Feeling guilt or shame from your on-line use. >Accidentally being aroused by cybersex at first, and now find that you actively seek it out when you log on-line. >Masturbating while on-line while engaged in erotic chat. >Less investment with your real-life sexual partner only to prefer cybersex as a primary form of sexual gratification.

HealthyPlace.com http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Addictions/netaddiction/cybersexual_addiction.htm

If 1-3 of these symptoms are found to be true, this may be an area of concern and should be openly discussed with a friend or family member. More than 3 positive answers would indicate the need to consider more professional counseling with someone trained in the treatment of addictive disorders and consideration of a 12 step support program like those listed in resources for sexual addicts.

>Spending increasing amounts of online time focused on sexual or romantic intrigue or involvement. >Involvement in multiple romantic or sexual affairs in chat rooms, Internet or BBS. >Not considering online sexual or romantic "affairs" to be a possible violation of spousal/partnership commitments. >Failed attempts to cut back on frequency of online or Internet sexual and romantic involvement or interaction. >Online use interferes with work (tired or late due to previous nights use, online while at work etc.). >Online use interferes with primary relationships (e.g. minimizing or lying to partners about online activities, spending less time with family or partners). >Intense engagement in collecting Internet pornography. >Engaging in fantasy online acts or experiences which would be illegal if carried out (e.g. rape, child molestation). >Decreased social or family interactive time due to online fantasy involvement's. >Being secretive or lying about amount of time spent online or type of sexual/romantic fantasy activities carried out online. >Engaging with sexual or romantic partners met online, while also involved in marital or other primary relationship. >Increasing complaints and concern from family or friends about the amount of time spent online. >Frequently becoming angry or extremely irritable when asked to give up online involvement to engage with partners, family or friends. >Primary focus of sexual or romantic life becomes increasingly related to computer activity (including pornographic CD ROM use).

Sexual Recovery Institute http://www.sexualrecovery.com/index.html also

Online Sexual Addiction http://onlinesexaddict.org/ Rosenberg & Associates http://angelfire.com/mi/collateral/sexualaddiction.html

As the internet is a relatively new phenomenon, classification of people with associated problems has not yet been fully described the sexological or psychological/psychiatric literature. However, psychological factors cited for such misuse of the internet for sexual purposes include:

1. Depression, specifically hypomania.

2. Compulsive disorders, compared to gambling or eating disorders.

3. Anxiety and stress relief, offering an escape into fantasy.

4. A sexual dysfunction, such as erectile impotence, whihc makes sexual intercourse difficult or impossible.

5. Lack of social skills to form relationships.

The Triple A engine is a term that refers to the internet as offering three factors at the core of its effect on some vulnerable people, namely Accessibility, Affordability and Anonymity, (the last as believed by the user). In ones own home almost any type or variety of sexual material can be viewed, often there is no direct cost involved, although users can pay to join specific groups to receive regular material, Usually this behaviour is anonymous, but if apprehended modern techniques enable such downloading to be traced.

The most vulnerable people are those who do have paraphilic urges, but in past times have been able to control them. With access to the internet, The Triple A engine is too much for them and they cannot resist their urges, especially if they are undergoing g a period of stress, depression or anxiety. Furthermore, such users, often experience rapid habituation and a flattening of response to the material viewed so that the nature and frequency of use has to increase to maintain their arousal levels. Salience occurs when the patient (?) spends an increasing amount of time thinking and fantasising about the internet, as well as spending inordinate amounts of time using it, often to the detriment of family life and work.

Extracts from WebManager's psychosexual report, 2003

Are You a Cybersex Addict?

The OSA-Q was developed to help people to identify if they might be having a problem with their online sexual behaviour. The OSA-Q is a 24-item questionnaire that was developed based on signs and symptoms of sexual addiction and how they might appear in relation to online sexual behaviour. It is important to note that the questionnaire is not a psychological test; it has not been researched and its psychometric properties are currently unknown (i.e., reliability and validity). At the present time the OSA-Q is only a self-exploration tool. Individuals who use the OSA-Q that think they have a problem with sexual addiction are referred to seek a state licensed psychotherapist who specializes in the treatment of sexual problems.

The following questions refer to any sexual activity that one may engage in online. The questions should be answered in relation to any sexual material or encounters one might be involved with online, including via chat, email, bbs, pictures, audio, and video.

Online Sexual Addiction http://onlinesexaddict.org/osaq.html also

Sexual Recovery Institute http://www.sexualrecovery.com/sri_docs/cyber.htm

Cybersex Blamed for Half of Divorces

There's further evidence that cybersex is increasingly being blamed for the break-up of marriages. According to online divorce service divorce-online, half of all divorce petitions it processed are due to Internet adultery and cybersex behaviour.

Of the 500 divorce petitions surveyed, half contained allegations concerning cybersex, inappropriate online relationships and pornography.

The findings appear to support earlier studies into the Net and marriage break-up.

Last year, two-thirds of lawyers meeting at an annual conference in Chicago reported that the Internet had played a significant role in divorces they had handled during the past year.

Meeting a new lover online and an "obsessive" interest in pornography were the top two problems cited in many Internet-related divorce cases, they said. Other reasons that have led to the break down of marriages include excessive use of the Net and chat rooms.

At the time, J Lindsey Short, Jr., president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, had this to say: "While I don't think you can say that the Internet is causing more divorces, it does make it easier to engage in the sorts of behaviours that traditionally lead to divorce."

Tim Richardson, 11/09/2003, http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32770.html Of course, there is also debate about the validity of the condition of 'Cybersexual Addiction', particularly by those who make a living from its potential and application.

I am very interested in paid academics, who work on the edge of 'extreme sexualities':

WORLD CONGRESS OF SEXOLOGY, PARIS, 2001

Trudy Barber.

TheWorld Congress of Sexology was held in the Palais des Congrès, Paris, June 2001. Trudy chaired a Symposium with Chiara Simonelli, and also presented a full paper with video excerpts. The Congress was attended by worldwide sexologists and academics, many from South America, Africa, Australia, Scandinavia and the USA.

PRESENTATION ABSTRACT

Implications of Computer Mediated Arousal: SM and the introduction of Cyberfetishism.

In popular media, (in films such as The Matrix), images of computer users as 'cyberpunks' look more and more as if they appear from a sadomasochistic representation of sexual dominance and submission. The attire and accessories remind us of both the mechanistic and the sexual; the body fabrics of technology, are rubber, leather, PVC and stainless steel: A Sadomasochistic and fetishists dream. In my own analysis of the interaction within SM relationships, there is a doubling effect of the Dominant and Submissive role when enacted in Chat Rooms' in cyberspace. The tool of control being the computer instead of the whip. By the simple nature of the unreliability of cyberspace, the emotion of anticipation and (almost) danger of the situation accentuates the arousal factor. The actual textual domination and submission, and the dominant position of cyberspace as a tool for such interaction accentuates and hightens such emotions and preferences. As with all real time Dominant and Submissive games there is always a 'safe word' in use during the action of a specific scenario.

In cyberspace there appears to be no safeword. The enactors rely entirely on trust. Trust through cyberspace: The ultimate sadomasochistic tool for compliance, submission and sublimation. The participants are enslaved by their computer mediated arousal.

This paper will introduce the notion of fetishistic auto-erotic arousal generated by standard computer usage within an sadomasochistic framework. The computer, as an object in itself is, quite simply, the new sex fetish.

Trudy with partner Stu, at opening reception

Exhibitors and posters displays were on show. Over 100 symposia were attended each with four or more presentations and discussions. Subject areas were varied, but tended more towards 'erectile dysfunctions' (ED) and the all important AIDS education and information.

Social issues were also covered, as were subjects such as sexuality and religion, food and sexuality, extreme sexualities, transexualism et al.

However cybersex addiction was covered at a symposia where, disturbingly, cybersex 'addiction' was defined and 'diagnosed' by as little as 7 hours per week on-line. 'Treatment' for a 'cure' involved lengthy psychotherapy and also drug therapy. This brought to mind early 'diagnosis' of homosexuality that had to be 'cured'. Trudy does NOT agree with notions of cybersex defined in this way.

Trudy wishes to express her thanks to Dr. J. Mackay of the World Health Organisation for her kind words and support. To the Pfizer techies for saving the day at the last minute. Also a big thank you to Stu for archiving the event and providing some Parisian romance! http://www.inoohr.org/worldcongressonsexology.htm

When I carry out a substantial update, I email a long list of people, who have commented upon, or profess to have an interest in, the sphere of paraphilias. I see that some do visit my site, but few respond, directly - I fully understand why that would be the case.

Following an update email to Trudy, I received this reply:

STOP SENDING ME STUFF FROM YOUR WEBSITE!!

JUST BECAUSE I STUDY SEXUALITY DOESNT MEAN I'M A PEADOPHILE

OR HAVE ANY SYMPATHIES FOR THEM

FUCK OFF .

Trudy Barber, UK University Academic, 2003

I replied to Trudy, for the last time, as follows:

Thank you for your reply, You are removed from the list.

However, if you truly are studying sexuality, and are responding in the manner you have, then you are not studying, only being selective in your bias.

If you are a student, don't become a professional - it will destroy you.

If you are a professional, you should be worried about you ability to do your job.

Thank you, at least, for replying.

WebManager, 2003

It is a shame that Trudy is unable to accept (for, she surely knows) that her research falls into the same, medico-legal, domain of sexuality as paedophilia.

As we find, below, social scientists (at least in this area) do seem to have problem with the scientific method. This would be mildly irritating, if it were, only, an academic issue; we are talking about people's lives here. Professor Cleared of Child Porn Charges

A university professor who downloaded hundreds of hardcore child porn images from the Internet walked free from court today after successfully claiming it was all for research purposes.

Dr Thomasz Janiurek, 43, of Cwmifor, Newquay, west Wales, claimed he was doing groundbreaking research into the availability of child porn.

The geography professor viewed 778 separate images of children whilst working at the University of Wales, in Lampeter, in the autumn of 2002.

A jury at Swansea Crown Court took just over four hours today to find him not guilty of 24 separate charges of possessing indecent images.

During the trial the prosecution claimed that Janiurek’s behaviour throughout had been that of a guilty man.

Prosecutor Dyfed Thomas said that Janiurek had failed to tell any of his colleagues or his department what he was doing.

He had taken no steps to check his position legally and had never approached the police.

When a technician needed to check his computer for viruses he had sent him away saying he was busy.

When the technician was admitted he discovered the history file on the machine, which shows which websites have recently been visited, had been wiped clean.

A more thorough investigation eventually uncovered hundreds of images of children in various stages of undress on the computer hard drive.

Mr Thomas had told the jury that the geography lecturer’s only object in accessing the sites was for his own sexual gratification.

Janiurek, whose subject matter extends to human geography, insisted throughout that his only motive was one of academic research.

Emma Smith, defending, had told the jury that the academic world was a different place.

“His research was designed in part to break new ground and would help him make a critique of work done by other academics,” she had said.

“What he was trying to do was refute claims of a lack of availability of such appalling images on the Internet.”

She told the jury that the reason Janiurek had taken no notes of his work was because he was still thinking about how he was going to use it.

“The defence case quite simply is this that was a logical progression of this man’s work. This was legitimate research,” said Mrs Smith.

Antony Stone, PA News, Fri 30 Jan 2004, http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2473145

Some Thoughts About the Issue of Pornography Including Minors

I will offer my thoughts, at this time, on this topic. I will then consider a few of my thoughts on the recent spate of entrapment/sting operations, their impact on the issue and the effect on those arrested. I will also offer a few thoughts on why the target audience is apparently skewed.

Stopping Pornography Including Minors

Now, I am almost certain that this is going to be the most controversial part of this site, but it is unavoidable. I have chosen ACPO http://www.antichildporn.org/ as a quality site, displaying all the appropriate arguments, in the most reasonable way. I can then make my responses and I will receive responses, in kind (though maybe not kind); it is a good starting point.

AntiChildPorn.Org (ACPO) is an organization, comprised of volunteers from all around the world, whose mission is to stop the sexual exploitation of the world's children. For the past two years ACPO has been addressing the issues of Child Pornography production and distribution via the Internet, as well as the predatory use of the Internet for the sexual abuse of children.

ACPO http://www.antichildporn.org/

The ACPO Statement My Response

AntiChildPorn.Org (ACPO) I agree with the cessation of the creation of pornography including minors. At this is an organization, comprised time, there is no doubt that there are children and adults who suffer trauma from their of volunteers from all around early sexual activities. the world, whose mission is to stop the sexual exploitation of the world's children ...... as well as the predatory The negative outcomes of predatory use of the Internet are insignificant in relation to use of the Internet for the where the real abuse occurs. sexual abuse of children. Contrary to the claims of pro- This is our real stumbling block. I am certainly not part of a pro-child-abuse group, so child-abuse groups, child that is easy to cover. pornography is not just 'pictures'. I see this as two issues, one technical and one moral.

First the technical. The ‘pictures’ are just pictures.

They are a digital/pixel representations of reality or, maybe, not reality. They are not real. In a technical sense, they are no different from a picture of Darth Vader duelling with Luke Skywalker, or Tom and Jerry - and no court can prove otherwise, particularly if one shifts colour balance, resolution etc. This is, I suggest, one reason for the recent USA Supreme Court Ruling:

http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/news11.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0417/p01s06-usju.html

It reminds me of the ethnic belief of the camera taking your soul.

Speaking of soul, this brings us onto the second issue, that of morality (and consistency). My personal belief (for I am clearly liberal) is that, as an adult, I should have the right to see anything which exists on the Internet in the public domain, or if I choose, legally, to pay for it - anything. Now, I know my country does not, with its laws, unlike others:

http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/news9.htm

http://www.c-a-s-e.net/Children%20At%20Risk.html

... but that is my moral decision and I accept the consequences. However, let me offer you a few thoughts:

I have spoken to apparent paraphiles, of all preferences, online, I can tell you that they can receive as much incentive from the fully-clothed child (or legal TV/video) or from watching children in the street, as in seeing hard core pornography. In fact, I have discussed the fact that the effect of the really hard material may wane and softer core materials, some legally available, are just as appealing: http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,45346,00.html http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52345,00.html http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52371,00.html

You can rarely, if ever, dissuade the fantasy of a paraphile, if they intend to create a mental vision, which, of course, is not illegal. They will find a source. Interestingly, this is confirmed by the research:

It is sometimes alleged that child pornography is a critical ingredient in motivating child molestation in some people, but a recent clinical study of eleven male pedophiles indicated that such material may not even be necessary. These men were arousable by media materials widely available, such as television ads and clothing catalogues picturing young children in underwear. In other words, rather than using explicitly pornographic materials, these men appear to construct there own sexually stimulating materials from sources generally viewed as innocuous.

Howett in Abnormal Psychology, C. Davison and J. Neal, 1998 or, even more so:

For example, "the vast majority of individuals who commit sexual offenses against children are not sexually aroused by stimulus material involving children; 'their primary sexual orientation is to adults and they molest children by fantasizing that they are engaging in relationships with appropriate sex partners.'"

[Quoting prosecution expert from trial record in State v.Spencer, 459 S.E.2d 812, 815 (N.C.App. 1995).] in http://www.forensic-evidence.com/site/Behv_Evid/BeE00005_2.html

And another thought, this time one of legal consistency. Now, I know clinicians would never take any sordid enjoyment from the following, but why is the general public allowed to read, buy and own the following materials?:

Evaluation of the Sexually Abused Child: A Medical Textbook and Photographic Atlas (Book with CD-ROM for Windows and Macintosh)

Sexual Assault Victimization across the Life Span: Color Atlas for All Professionals Who Deal with Sexual Assault

Color Atlas of Sexual Assault

(Yahoo/Barnes&Noble/Amazon Search)

I do not wish to seem facetious, about such terrible topics, but the fact remains. A person may be jailed for looking at the picture of a naked child, happily playing and exposing her genitals, but are allowed to view the damaged genitals of such a child as a result of sexual abuse. What of the larger number of books containing graphic descriptions of such events? If a person were to create or own such a story, this too would lead to prosecution. The law says nothing about the way in which the person uses such materials, alone, only the fact that they have obtained them or own them. Where is the consistency here?

(since I have not actually bought such materials, would the online sellers 'vett' me? - they let me add one to my cart with no problem).

As we are on the question of consistency, how is it, that I am legally allowed to view the ultimate abuse? for example:

Exercise Caution

http://www.rotten.com/

Exercise Extreme Caution

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/AmericanStateTerrorism.html

With a little work, I could also find you pictures of decapitated and disembowelled children on the WWW. Child pornography is It may, indeed, be that and the outcome is unacceptable. physical evidence of the sexual abuse of children. It does not have to be and will not be when consumer 3D modeling techniques have been perfected. I am loathe to list the torture and rape WWW sites which work on such material - but they are there. Here is quite an old, non-pornographic example.

Where will the argument be then? I refer you again to:

http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/news11.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0417/p01s06-usju.html Worse, child pornography is Yes, I presume this does indeed occur and, as we agree, the outcome is unacceptable. commonly used by predatory pedophiles to 'groom' What did abusers do before the availability of this pornography? potential victims, reducing the child-victim's inhibitions Are you suggesting that child abuse has not been widespread, long before the Internet, and encouraging them to perhaps even before the printing press? perform acts similar to those depicted in the pornography. Do you really believe, that a perpetrator, committed to carrying out the act cannot, by Further, pornography is used many means, be more subtle, convincing and persuasive? after-the-fact to re-enforce to the child that what their abuser has done to them is "ok" and "normal", further causing confusion and trauma in the child-victim's mind. In addition to grooming the These were all the references I could find on the Internet, relating pornography to the victims of childhood sexual sexual abuse of children: abuse, child pornography also serves to reduce the 87% of girl child molesters and 77% of boy child molesters studied admitted to regular reluctance of the abuser to use of hard-core pornography. seek and abuse a child sexually. By repeated 1983 A Report on the Use of Pornography by Sexual Offenders by Dr. William exposure to pictures, stories, Marshall, Ottawa, Canada for the Federal Department of Justice movies of children engaged in sexual acts, as well as Studies show pornography is progressive and addictive for many. It often leads to the pedophile virtual user acting out his fantasy -- often on children. communities, the social taboos surrounding the abuse Victor Cline, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Utah 1988, Pornography of children are weakened Effects: Empirical and Clinical Evidence, pg. 24 enough that the desire by the abuser to engage in sexual Research gathered over the past few decades demonstrates that pornography contributes acts with children may to sexual assault, including rape and the molestation of children. overcome the abusers inhibitions. (See S. Rep. No. 102-372, 102nd Cong., 2nd Sess. 23) (Aug. 12, 1992) (Pornography Victims Compensation Act of 1992, Senate Comm. on the Judiciary)

You will notice, child pornography is not mentioned. I suggest, that if any person is capable of the sexual abuse of a child, the chances are that their inhibitions would be rather low, in regards to many areas of sexuality. Perhaps, from these figures, your work should be the abolition of all pornography?

I would very much appreciate any resources you can direct me too, relating, specifically, to your point. Over the past year, the ACPO Yes - I agree with you. has witnessed the emergence of several alarming trends. First, the number and variety of pornographic pictures of children has been increasing at alarming rates. This trend may be partially due to the low-entry cost to produce child pornography offered by digital cameras. Alternatively, it is possible Yes - it is certain, along with Usenet, MIRC, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, that we are witnessing an AOLIM, Netmeeting, WinMX, etc. etc. etc. etc. This is even without committing to increase in the number of specialist free or paying websites. children abused as the result of greater availability of child pornographic material on the Internet, and the surge in pedophilic communities, such as fpc.net. Second, the level of violence Yes, there are apparent pictures of what you describe, but much in the way of the depicted has been increasing. availability (and a probable similar increase) of torture, snuff or crush porn, much is More and more pictures of posed and unreal, however, you may have seen material and, of course, those actions violent nature are being are totally unacceptable. I do notice you use the word depict. produced depicting the rape and murder of children. A recent bust shows the level of violence to which this has escalated. Finally, the production and Do they? - I pride myself in knowing quite a bit about the Internet and I have not seen sale of child pornography has this - please give the URL. become a major source of cash for organized crime. Well, yes, profit from the criminal activities of organised crime is nothing new and I Advertisements for the suggest they will always find some scam - agencies exist to tackle this. production of child pornographic videos offer to 'film your fantasy' for only a few hundred dollars. The problem with child I believe you are describing only the tip of the iceberg of the availability of these pornography is so enormous, materials. Money does not have to change hands - barter is sufficient, in online activity, and so overwhelming for pictures and even just words. See above. already taxed law enforcement resources. The US Department of Justice estimates the child pornographic market to be a $2 to 3 billion dollar-a-year market, making it one of the world's largest cottage industries. Only by a major commitment Yes - I agree. by the governments of the world to commit to this war Without world-wide co-operation and by an understanding that the problem permeates for our children will we stand all levels of every society, and that we are open, and we understand where the real any hope of making this a threats are, and drop the idea that even discussion is taboo, then your war will not even child-friendly planet. really begin. They are already well in the gates of the castle.

Men who are otherwise conventional in their sexual interests and behaviour can be sexually aroused by pedophilic stimuli. In a study using both self-support and penile plethymographic measures, one-quarter of people drawn from a community sample showed or reported pedophilic arousal.

The investigators found that this abnormal arousal was correlated with conventional arousal, that is: the more aroused the people were to adult heterosexual pictures, the more aroused they were to the pedophilic pictures.

Although this finding may be disturbing to us, it highlights the importance of the distinction made by the DSM and health professionals in general between fantasy and behaviour.

Hall et al in Abnormal Psychology, C. Davison and J. Neal, 1998

I looked

I looked at the vicious crowd, pushing and jostling, and I did nothing, now I am a hooligan. I looked at the calm soldier, slicing his enemy with his bayonet, and I did nothing, now I am a war criminal. I looked at the disembowelled refugee children, and I did nothing, now I am a participator. I looked at the stick-like bodies, as they were pushed into the trench, and I did nothing, now I am Nazi. I looked at the shattered remains of the crash victim, and I did nothing, now I am a manslaughterer. I looked at the voluptuous body of the seductive model, and I did nothing, now I am a rapist. I looked at the distant scientists, collecting the remains of the murdered schoolgirl, and I did nothing, now I am a murderer. I looked at the taboo sexual practices of others, and I did nothing, now I live the rest of my life as a child sexual offender,

... and then, I shutdown the computer.

WebManager, 2002

It's a hard-day's wages, slaving away for madmen. What I've seen in life ... takes a lot to hold my interest.

I've put myself in these stories, I play the parts; Each strumpet, each murderess.

If I wasn't such a bad woman on the page, Abbe, I hazard, I couldn't be such a good woman in life.

Madelaine Le Clere to Abbe de Coulmier, Quills, Screenplay by Doug Wright, 2000.

Recent Entrapments/Stings

In a bid to show strength and solidarity, in tackling the distribution and ownership of pornography including minors, a number of national and international efforts have recently been carried out. In general, I accept that something must happen, because, regardless of what may seem to be the case for me, I was and will be a law-abiding citizen, as much as I am able. However, one has to question the ethics (which I will not comment upon), the effectiveness in securing convictions of the actual abusers (and the impact on the actual control and distribution of the pornography) and the effect on the life of many people (mainly men), who, for all intents and purposes, have looked at some pictures.

Name of Sting and Result Country

The Wonderland Club, 2001, Child porn gang face jail (UK) LONDON, England -- A British court is preparing to sentence seven men involved in what is believed to have been the world's biggest Internet paedophile ring.

The British men each face a maximum of three years' imprisonment after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute indecent images of children.

The men, all members of the Wonderland Club -- an international ring of 180 paedophiles -- have admitted swapping thousands of photos of children and even babies.

They were among 107 people arrested in a global police operation spread across Britain, the United States, a series of European countries and Australia.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/UK/02/13/england.pornography/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1109787.stm

The Wonderland Club, 2001, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australian Report) Among paedophiles who made connections on the Net, the Wonderland Club was the place to be.

Would be members needed a library of at least 10,000 images of child pornography before they could join and commence trade. Once in the club, members who could originate images (by directly recording children being abused) gained greater status and respect.

Four Corners goes inside the police operation that finally smashed this highly secretive and exclusive global network of paedophiles.

This disturbing program from the BBC's Panorama profiles the Wonderland Club and looks at the meticulous police operation that led to raids in 12 countries after investigators first stumbled on evidence of child abuse in California.

More than 100 people were arrested worldwide - including in Australia - and tonnes of computers containing hundreds of thousands of images were seized.

"The Wonderland Club" was broadcast at 8.30pm Monday 5 March on ABC TV.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/archives/2001a_Monday5March2001.htm

The Wonderland Club, 2001, Panorama: The Wonderland Club (UK Report) In a disturbing investigation Panorama reveals the inside story of a global police operation, led by British detectives, to hunt down the members of an international paedophile ring. They called themselves the Wonderland Club and they traded nearly a million sexually explicit images of children on the Internet. They thought no one knew their identities in the shadowy world of the Net, but cyber cops found a way to track them online.

This factsheet gives details of support organisations, specific contacts for both men and women and some useful websites.

Visit the Panorama website for more information.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/factsheets/panorama_the_wonderland_club/index.shtml

The Wonderland Club, i2 software helps police smash Wonderland Club paedophile ring 7/03/01, (UK Business News) Investigative software from Gt Shelford based i2 Group Ltd helped police smash the Wonderland Club international paedophile ring.

Kingston Crown Court saw seven members of the Wonderland Club sentenced for exchanging graphic images and abusive video footage of children and babies over the internet.

The National Crime Squad formed ‘Operation Cathedral’ in the summer of 1998, following the arrest of a member of the ‘Orchid Club’ in Greenfield, USA. Police tapped into his hard drive, found child pornography linked to the Orchid Club and identified a British paedophile living in Sussex. When Sussex Police arrested the British paedophile they found a larger and more sinister network called Wonderland.

By breaking down the content of the computer, mapping links and tracking nicknames, police analysts uncovered other members of the virtual community.

http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/view_article.asp?article_id=4786

The Wonderland Club, Wonderland paedophiles are sentenced 13/02/01, (UK) But not one member of the Internet child pornography ring received the maximum possible sentence of three years.

Seven Britons were sentenced Tuesday for their participation in the world's largest Internet child pornography ring -- dubbed the "Wonderland Club" -- amid criticism of the court's leniency.

All were jailed for between 18 and 30 months -- none received the maximum sentence of three years.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2084402,00.html

http://www.wmlibdems.org/Press_releases/liz_press/press2001/14_02_2001_CLUB.htm

Operation Candyman, WASHINGTON — Federal authorities investigating an Internet-based child 19/03/02, (USA) pornography ring have arrested 40 people in 20 states, including two Catholic priests, youth baseball coaches, a civilian law enforcement employee and a teacher's aide, Justice Department officials said Monday. At least 27 of the suspects charged in what the FBI calls Operation Candyman have admitted previous acts of child molestation involving more than 36 children, officials said.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/18/net-porn.htm http://www.antonnews.com/floralparkdispatch/2002/03/29/news/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48185,00.html

Operation Candyman, The FBI today announced that more than 89 persons in over 20 states have been 18/03/02, (USA) charged in the first phase of a nationwide crackdown on the proliferation of child pornography via the Internet. During the course of this investigative initiative, known as “Operation Candyman,” over 266 searches have been conducted, with more searches anticipated. To date, 27 persons have been arrested and admitted to the prior molestation of over 36 children. More arrests are anticipated during the week and in coming months. Individuals identified as subjects in “Operation Candyman” include Little League coaches, a teacher’s aide, a guidance counselor, school bus driver, foster care parent and professionals in the medical, educational, military and law enforcement fields.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel02/cm031802.htm

http://www.cns.jrn.msu.edu/articles/2002_0322/childporn.html

Operation Avalanche, Announcement made by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, August 8, 2001. We are 8/08/01, (USA) announcing the results of Operation Avalanche -- a major initiative that combines the investigative resources of the Department of Justice, the Dallas Police Department and U.S. Postal Inspection Service. More than merely another successfully prosecuted case, Operation Avalanche stands as a model of federal, state and local cooperation in the investigation, prosecution and most importantly prevention of the sexual exploitation of children.

Regrettably, the work of the Department of Justice to provide a safe America for children now extends well beyond the physical world into the electronic universe of cyberspace. Few would disagree that the world wide web offers unparalleled educational and recreational opportunities for our young people. But there are back alleys and dark corners of the internet where children can be exposed to inappropriate material or become susceptible to offenders who view them as sexual objects.

These offenders leverage the technology and anonymity of the internet to trade and produce child pornography, explore their sexual interest in children, and to identify youth susceptible to manipulation and exploitation. Large numbers of young people are encountering sexual solicitations they did not want, sexual material they did not seek, and in the most serious cases, are targeted by offenders seeking children for sex. Today's internet has also become the new marketplace for child pornography. In their efforts to stop the electronic proliferation of these obscene materials, our law enforcement officers are often "outgunned and out-teched" by the profit-driven purveyors of child pornography.

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/ceos/op_av.htm

http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/avalanch.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2445065.stm

3/08/02 (USA) Georgia police chief arrested in child porn sting

LAKE CITY, Fla. -- An online child pornography sting in which Columbia County sheriff's deputies posed as a 13-year-old girl in a chat room has led to the arrest of four men, including a Georgia police chief.

Pineview Police Chief Ray Monk was on duty when he was arrested Wednesday by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations on warrants for solicitation of sexual activity from a minor and transmission of harmful material. Monk's arrest came after he had been communicating with undercover deputies by phone and the Internet for the past month, authorities said. He's being held in the Columbia County jail on $50,000 bond.

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/080402/new_20020804092.shtml

3/8/02, (New Zealand - son US agents act over NZ child porn of Operation Candyman/Avalanche?) American officials are coming to New Zealand next week to investigate a global internet child pornography ring.

This follows the charging of 44-year-old Aucklander Glen Roberts.

Internal Affairs is accusing him of 57 charges of possessing objectionable images and distributing them via the internet.

The department alleges that more than 190,000 images were found on a computer at the man's home. It is the biggest case of internet child porn the department has handled.

http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,121383-1-7,00.html

30/10/00, (Italy - father of Italian investigators break child porn ring in a major online operation Operation Candyman/Avalanche or son Police in Italy have shattered an international child porn ring using a fake Web site to of The Wonderland Club?) snare more than 1,500 users.

Investigators have charged 831 people in Italy with purchasing material involving sex with minors and are investigating a further 660 elsewhere in Europe, Asia and the US.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2082257,00.html

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/4680.html

Operation Ore (UK),12- Child porn subscribers caught in Internet sting 16/9/02, (UK - son of Operation Avalanche). More than 7000 British pedophiles have been snared in a sting operation by US authorities investigating two international Internet child pornography rings.

Detectives in Britain have been given the names and addresses of 7272 people who used their credit cards to access pictures of under-age children, some as young as a few months, engaged in sex acts with adults.

Unknown to the pedophiles, the two sites which they were using had been taken over last year by FBI agents. British police now plan a series of raids on the suspects in what will be the country's biggest pedophile investigation.

The National Criminal Intelligence Service, which co-ordinates intelligence against criminals in Britain, has already used the FBI information to organise the arrest of 36 pedophiles in May. Detectives plan to swoop on more offenders, all believed to be men, over the next few months.

Anyone who subscribed to the site and viewed images faces a jail term of up to five years.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/04/1028157882468.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2445065.stm http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/comment/0,1074,838567,00.html

British police arrest 36 in online child porn sting

LONDON (AP) — Police around Britain arrested 36 people in coordinated raids on computer users suspected of using child porn Web sites.

Acting on a tip from U.S. officials, the police targeted people accessing pay-per-view Internet sites based in the United States and selling images of sexual abuse of children as young as 5.

In an operation coordinated by the National Crime Squad, police raided 43 houses and apartments Monday and seized more than 30 computers, as well as large quantities of discs and videos.

The ages of those arrested ranged from 24 to 65, police said.

"We must remember that every image of a child being sexually abused is an image of a crime scene and each photograph is that of a victim," said Vincent Harvey of Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service.

After the tip-off, the criminal intelligence service obtained information about customers who subscribed to the Web sites between May 1999 and last summer, and its Serious Sex Offenders Unit identified suspects.

"We will continue these operations to protect children and show pedophiles that law enforcement agencies will find them regardless of which area of the Internet they use," Detective Superintendent Peter Spindler of the National Crime Squad said. http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00053.html

50 police among Britons held for child porn links

Fifty police officers have been arrested on suspicion of accessing hardcore child pornography from an American website that may have been used by up to 7,300 Britons, senior investigators admitted yesterday.

Details came as the Metropolitan police raided a series of homes across London yesterday and arrested 34 people with alleged links to the Candyman website, which was based in Texas.

The operation, part of an ongoing inquiry codenamed Ore, was sparked when the US postal service closed down Candyman and two other similar sites, which are thought to have been used by more than 75,000 people worldwide in the late 1990s.

Records of UK-based credit card numbers used to access the pay as you view service were passed to the national crime squad and individual forces earlier this year, and there have been a series of raids and computer seizures in Britain since May.

Because of the numbers of people involved and the complexities of gathering evidence, police prioritised subscribers with previous sex convictions and those who worked in areas that brought them routinely in contact with children.

So far, 1,300 people have been arrested by detectives, many of them careworkers, teachers, and social workers. Soldiers and surgeons have also been questioned.

Forty children - 28 of them in London - have been taken into protective care, including 10 who are thought to have been the victim of multiple abuse.

At a press conference yesterday, Carole Howlett, a deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, said: "Our priority so far has been to identify those individuals on the list that pose the greatest threat to children.

But this process is ongoing, and it will continue, even though it is extremely resource- intensive."

Ms Howlett, who speaks for the Association of Chief Police Officers on child protection issues, announced that the Home Office had agreed to allocate an extra £500,000 to support further action for Operation Ore, money that will be used to speed up the analysis of computers.

Acpo had hoped for £2m and Ms Howlett said she was concerned that the investigation of child pornography was still not a ministerial priority.

The Candyman inquiry has exposed the problems of investigating internet paedophilia and the lack of resources available to police forces.

Ms Howlett said yesterday it could take officers up to two weeks just to establish the identities of subscribers from the credit card details.

Jim Gamble, assistant chief constable of the national crime squad, said the police could not be reckless about making allegations of serious sex abuse. "We have to make sure we get it right," he said. "This has been a learning curve for us."

He warned that those people who had logged on to the websites in the 90s and thought they were engaging in "innocent voyeurism" were in for a shock.

"They would not have realised then that the police would be investigating this now. If you have a propensity for this kind of behaviour, we will find you."

Mr Gamble refused to say whether any high-ranking officers were among the 50 who had been arrested. Eight of them have been charged, and the rest are on police bail.

"As police officers, we should expect to be held accountable," he said.

"Fifty police officers have been identified and we are not hiding that fact."

Colin Turner, head of specialist investigations at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said: "The arrests send out a strong warning to those that think they can remain anonymous by using the internet to trade in child abuse images.

"Behind these indecent, abusive images, are real children who will have suffered immense damage and trauma."

Nick Hopkins, The Guardian, 18/12/02

Soham officers in child porn bail bid

Two police officers involved in the Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells murder inquiry are due to learn whether they can be granted bail on charges related to child pornography. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2260284.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2254460.stm

On the 11th November, 2002. One (?) of the accused attended a court hearing. It was adjourned with no information being offered as to why. It did make a low profile appearance on UK television news. It has no record on the Internet (that I can find) and I did not refer to the press during that time. Soham officers expected in court

Both men are expected to make their second appearance before Bury St Edmund magistrates in Suffolk on Friday. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2501463.stm

Soham police remand

Two police officers involved in the Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells murder inquiry have appeared in court to face child pornography charges.

Both were granted unconditional bail.

[One] was bailed to reappear at the court on January 3, and [The Other] on November 29. http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-12176572,00.html

According to Newsglance.co.uk, this did not make the headlines of any major UK newspaper, nor The BBC or ITV. It did make the Main News of the ITV: http://www.itv.com/news/Britain2006067.html also http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,845830,00.html http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid= 12397540&method=full&siteid=50143

'The Other's appearance on the 29th did make BBC News:

"[The Other] entered no plea and magistrates extended his conditional bail. The case was adjourned to the same court until 3 January."

The same day as 'One'. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2527889.stm

Porn charge police officers sent for trial

The court extended conditional bail for both defendants. They were committed for trial at Bury St Edmunds Crown Court, where a plea and directions hearing will be heard on January 31.

Ananova, 31/1/03

Two Soham officers face court on porn charges

Two police officers involved in the Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells murder inquiry today appeared in court to face child pornography charges.

Detective Constable Brian Stevens, 41, and PC Antony Goodridge, 34, attended a plea and direction hearing at Ipswich crown court, Suffolk.

Mr Stevens pleaded not guilty to five counts of possessing an indecent photograph of a child between January 1 and September 13 last year. He pleaded not guilty to three charges of distributing an indecent photograph of a child between the same dates. He also denied three charges of indecent assault on two females under 16 between October 1998 and October 2001.

Mr Stevens was a police family liaison officer appointed to the family of Jessica Chapman during the investigation into the disappearance and murder of the 10-year-old friends from Soham, Cambridgeshire.

The officer was released on conditional bail and the case was adjourned for three weeks.

Mr Goodridge - who was an exhibits officer during the Soham investigation - pleaded guilty to the possession of 330 indecent photographs of children.

He pleaded not guilty to the distribution of an indecent photo of a child and also denied possession with a view to the distribution of an indecent photo of a child.

Prosecutor Andrew Campbell-Tiech said the prosecution offered no evidence on these two charges.

The court heard sentencing would be adjourned until March 28 for a pre-sentence report and a psychiatric assessment to be prepared. Mr Goodridge's conditional bail was extended until the hearing.

Judge John Holt said Mr Goodridge should be aware that all sentencing options remained open.

Guardian Unlimited, 31/1/03

Soham case Pc admits downloading child porn

A policeman in the Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman murder inquiry pleaded guilty yesterday to downloading child pornography on his home computer. Many of the hundreds of pictures he had showed children being sexually assaulted.

A judge warned Pc Tony Goodridge that he faced prison. He was an exhibits officer on the inquiry into the disappearance of the two 10-year-olds in Soham, Cambs, in August. Goodridge, 34, admitted possessing 330 indecent photographs of children at his home in Ely on Sept 12. Further charges relating to the distribution of an indecent photograph of a child were dismissed.

Judge John Holt told the father of two that he faced the possibility of jail when he is sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court on March 28. Goodridge, who spoke only to confirm the pleas at yesterday's hearing, was released on conditional bail for psychiatric and probation reports before sentencing.

He and Det Con Brian Stevens, who worked as a family liaison officer with Jessica's parents during the inquiry, were arrested on suspicion of child pornography offences on Sept 13.

Their arrests had nothing to do with the Soham inquiry but came after their names allegedly appeared on an FBI list of more than 7,000 British computer users suspected of accessing a paedophile website in America.

Peter Gair, prosecuting, told an earlier hearing: "It is often not possible to trace the children involved to prove the photos are real. They are clearly, we would argue, showing children in a state of undress and being sexually abused by others.

"Police also seized a number of CD-roms and on these there were numerous indecent images of children. The images on the hard drive of his computer were saved in a folder called My Documents and were readily accessible to anyone using the computer." Mr Gair, who said video clips had also been found, added: "He was fully aware of what he was doing. He claimed it was due to pressures of work and raising a young family.

"I am told he got some sexual gratification from viewing the images but he denied abusing children himself."

Kevin McCarthy, defending, said: "There is no suggestion that he has ever interfered with his own children or anyone else's. None of these offences took place during his employment but while he was an ordinary citizen.

"Before his arrest, he was a serving police officer. He was arrested and his world immediately went topsy-turvy. It left him upset, scared, frightened and, in a wider sense, vulnerable."

Stevens, 41, of March, Cambs, appeared at Ipswich Crown Court in a separate hearing yesterday. He denied five charges of possessing indecent photographs of children between Jan 1 and Sept 19 and three charges of distributing indecent photographs of children between the same dates.

He also denied two charges of indecently assaulting a girl under 16 between January and August 2001, and indecently assaulting a second girl under 16 between October 1998, and October 2001.

Stevens, a father of two, was remanded on bail for three weeks. o Pc Christopher Lilley, 33, an officer with Nottinghamshire police, appeared at Chesterfield yesterday on nine charges of making indecent photographs of children. Lilley, of Mansfield Woodhouse, was bailed.

David Sapsted, News.telegraph.co.uk, 3/2/03

Commons worker on porn charges

A House of Commons worker is to stand trial on charges of making indecent images of children. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2501343.stm

Child porn 'librarian' jailed, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,839472,00.html

Teacher jailed over child porn

A Yorkshire teacher who downloaded pornographic images of young children has been jailed for four months. When police raided his home 99 pornographic images were found on his computer's hard drive and zip disks.

Ananova, 3/1/03

Peter Townshend issue (Rock Star).

Air crash teacher faced paedophile inquiry

A teacher feared killed when his light aircraft crashed into the sea was being investigated by police. Gerald Mepham, 55, disappeared on Friday after taking off from Goodwood Airfield in West Sussex. A search is continuing in the hope of finding Mr Mepham but police say they now believe he is dead.

It has since emerged that maths teacher Mr Mepham, from Barnham, had been suspended from the Priory School in Fratton, Portsmouth, over an allegation he invited two pupils to pose for indecent photographs. A Hampshire Police spokeswoman confirmed a 55-year-old man had been arrested and bailed pending further inquiries.

Yesterday the Sussex Police underwater search unit sent divers to a report of an oil slick close to Pagham Harbour, near Chichester. They spent several hours searching the area for signs of the Piper Tomahawk wreckage but found nothing.

A Sussex Police spokesman said he could not comment on allegations made against Mr Mepham as the investigation was still being treated as a missing person inquiry. He added: "The inquiry is looking into the background of his disappearance."

Ananova, 14/1/03

Missing pilot faced child porn inquiry

A maths teacher had been suspended from his job and was being investigated by police before he went missing in his light aircraft over the Channel, it emerged yesterday.

Gerald Mepham, 55, vanished from RAF radar screens on Friday after taking off in his Piper Tomahawk single engine aircraft from Goodwood airfield in West Sussex and flying eight miles into the Channel.

No distress signal was sent and no wreckage has been found.

He had been suspended from the Priory school in Fratton, Portsmouth, over an allegation that he invited two of his pupils to pose for indecent photographs.

The day before he disappeared, Portsmouth city council issued a statement:

"A serious allegation has been made concerning a teacher at Priory school and, as a result of this, a teacher has been suspended while a full investigation is carried out."

Hampshire police confirmed yesterday that a 55-year-old man had been arrested and bailed pending further inquiries.

Goodwood airfield said Mr Mepham had set off at 3pm. He was not qualified to fly at night, and the emergency services were alerted when he had not returned by nightfall.

A spokeswoman confirmed that Mr Mepham, who lives at Barnham in West Sussex, had started flying from Goodwood in 1994, and qualified as a pilot a year later.

As well as police, two lifeboats, a coastguard helicopter, and two coastguard teams searched for the plane at the weekend. The Sussex police underwater search unit sent divers to a report of an oil slick close to

Pagham harbour, near Chichester, but no trace of the aircraft was found.

Sussex police said yesterday there was still a chance that Mr Mepham was alive but, if he was, they had no idea where he was.

"He is still missing and we are still looking, but it is a needle in a haystack scenario," a spokesman said.

"There were sightings on the radar of the plane heading out to sea and, as far as we know, he has not landed anywhere. So we believe it is more than likely that he crashed into the Channel."

"There is also a possibility that he might have made it to France, or he could have done a u-turn. We just do not know where he is."

He confirmed that the air accident investigation branch had been advised, and was preparing to investigate. The spokesman said he could not comment on allegations against Mr Mepham.

"The inquiry is looking into the background of his disappearance. We would not comment on any investigation being carried out by a neighbouring force."

The Guardian, 15/1/03

Deputy prison governor suspended in child porn investigation

A deputy prison governor has been suspended from duty after being arrested as part of the same police inquiry into child pornography as the rock star Pete Townshend, it emerged yesterday.

Police confirmed that Terry McLaren, who works at Bullingdon jail in Oxfordshire, had been arrested at his home near Banbury last week by Thames Valley officers investigating child porn offences as part of Operation Ore.

Mr McLaren, one of several governors in charge of 900 male prisoners at the Category B training prison in Bicester, was later released on police bail.

A prison service spokesman refused to comment, saying only: "It is a police matter."

Before being appointed to one of the three governor positions at Bullingdon, which runs a course for sex offenders on one of its wings, Mr McLaren was a member of the national executive of the Prison Officers Association, and has previously defended colleagues who have fallen from grace.

Meanwhile, David Blunkett, the home secretary, yesterday warned against hysteria over allegations of child pornography, in the wake of Townshend's arrest. He said people should not rush to judgment: "It is important that we do not finger small groups of people, without evidence being produced."

His comments follow the arrest and release on bail without charge on Monday night of the Who's lead guitarist, who admitted using his credit card to access a child porn site.

Police officers spent several hours searching his home and an office in Richmond, south west London. A number of items were removed for forensic examination.

He was released without charge last night and bailed to reappear later this month.

Police will now put together a file which will contain his statement, as well as details of any material they find on his computers or in documents.

It is likely police will send the file to the crown prosecution service to decide whether he should be charged.

Operation Ore is a crackdown on people who view child pornography on the internet. Police have so far arrested 1,300 suspects in Britain, including a judge, magistrates, and 50 police officers.

Two MPs, both said to be former Labour ministers, and a television presenter are also on a list of police suspects.

The Guardian, 15/1/03

Blunkett warns against Townshend case hysteria

David Blunkett yesterday warned against hysteria over allegations of child pornography, in the wake of the arrest of Pete Townshend. The home secretary said people should not rush to judgment: "It is important that we do not finger small groups of people, who may then be known to colleagues, without evidence being produced." His comments follow the arrest and release on bail with out charge on Monday night of the Who's lead guitarist, who admitted using his credit card to access a child porn site. Townshend, 57, said he was doing research for a book.

Police officers spent several hours searching his home and an office in Richmond, south-west London.

In a statement, the rock star's mother, Betty, said she was standing by him: "We are, and remain, a loving Christian family and will continue to stand by Pete."

The Guardian, 15/1/03

Stars In Eyes singer jailed

A FORMER Stars In Their Eyes finalist was jailed yesterday after being exposed as a child-porn monster.

Martin Berkley, 41, was runner-up on the TV talent show in 1999 impersonating rocker Jon Bon Jovi.

But a judge heard he was a hardcore porn addict who had 10,000 perverted images of kids on his computer.

Berkley also committed a vile act with a dog - which he videotaped.

The computer expert was jailed for 15 months by Gloucester Crown Court. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for ten years.

Berkley, of Cheltenham, Gloucs, admitted indecent assault and ten charges of possessing indecent images of children.

Prosecutor Paul Grumbar said he was arrested after a former girlfriend complained he had secretly filmed their love-making. Cops found his computer filled with images of children suffering serious abuse.

The Sun, 15/1/03

Music teacher sentenced over internet child porn

A music teacher has been sentenced to three years of community rehabilitation after being caught with child pornography downloaded from the Internet.

Derek West, 58, of Eaton Socon, Cambs, was arrested as part of an international police operation which targets paedophiles.

West admitted creating 16 indecent pictures of children and asked for 177 further offences to be considered.

Magistrates at Huntingdon, Cambs, heard that the former RAF musician had been sacked from his teaching job with a local authority.

West, married with a grown up daughter, had been bandmaster for the RAF College Band during a 29-year career and had performed before most members of the Royal Family, the court heard.

The magistrates ordered that he be placed on the sex offenders' register.

Ananova, 17/01/03

FBI's new list of British paedophiles

AS many as 10,000 more British paedophiles face arrest in a new worldwide crackdown.

Investigators say the massive swoop on internet perverts is bigger than Operation Ore which has targeted more than 7,200 suspects in Britain.

British police will be given names supplied by US credit card verification companies. The National Crime Squad, which is co-ordinating the investigation, vowed yesterday: "Every person who paid to view this vicious child abuse will be dealt with. Each and every case will be pursued."

Tens of thousands of paedophiles around the world could be trapped by the new information.

Ruben Rodriguez, an investigator with the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, who works closely with US law enforcement agencies, said: "The credit card details of those found using more child porn websites have been supplied by verification companies who are actively helping expose paedophiles.

"They don't want people using their services illegally and are co-operating with law- enforcement agencies.

"This is a major development and will further restrict paedophiles from downloading child pornography."

FBI spokesman Ben Doguim, based in Houston, Texas, said: "Our inquiries are continuing. More subscribers to these child porn sites have been uncovered."

Police forces across Britain are already struggling to cope with Operation Ore which led to the arrest of Who guitarist Pete Townshend.

Sixteen detectives raided the West London home of the 57-year-old rock star on Monday. Townshend was released on bail pending further inquiries.He has admitted viewing indecent images of children but said it was for research into an autobiography as he had been abused himself as a child.

Operation Ore followed on from Operation Avalanche, a US Justice Department crackdown on more than 250,000 suspected paedophiles around the world. The 7,200 names were passed on to the National Crime Squad by the US Postal Inspection Service.

Detectives believe Operation Ore will take many months to complete.Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens is being kept informed of progress.

So far 40 children have been rescued nationwide from the clutches of the internet paedophiles. There have been 1,300 arrests including judges, teachers, doctors, care workers, soldiers and more than 50 police officers.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We have targeted those on the list who have access to children or have children themselves. The others will be dealt with in the fullness of time."

Many suspects have destroyed their computer hard-drives to conceal evidence but the credit card details they gave to download porn will be used to take them to court.

Sussex police have made 110 arrests in recent weeks as part of the inquiry.

In 14 cases they took no action after it was discovered that those arrested had had their credit cards stolen and used for pay-to-view porn.

The Mirror, 18/1/03

King refused permission to appeal Jonathan King has been refused permission to appeal against his conviction and seven- year jail sentence for sexually abusing schoolboys.

The Court of Appeal in London rejected an argument King's convictions on six charges were unsafe and that the sentence was "manifestly too severe".

Mr Justice Holland said: "The key to this case is the exploitation by the defendant of the trust that 14 and 15-year-old boys placed in him on the basis of his fame and reputation.

"That exploitation of trust makes this matter very serious indeed and justifies a sentence that arguably may be somewhat higher than in some other cases."

King, 58, was jailed by Judge David Paget at the Old Bailey in November 2001.

Ananova, 24/1/03

Sicko King's radio rant

PERVERT pop tycoon Jonathan King is set to cause outrage by protesting his innocence on a radio show.

King, 58, who is serving seven years for abusing five boys in the 1970s, LOST his appeal against sentence on Friday. But the radio audience will hear him say "I'm a victim of false allegations. I am denying that any of it happened. "

Strangely he then adds: " I would say ... in those days we used to have a wonderful time and some of us made the odd mistake."

King rang LBC 97.3 FM from Maidstone Jail before his appeal court hearing. The recorded interview will go out on Jane Moore's show on the station at 6 am tomorrow.

Last night anti-paedophile campaigners and childrens' charities said the broadcast should be banned.

Tink Palmer, principal policy officer for Barnados, the UK's biggest children's charity, said:

"He's a convicted sexual offender. If he's allowed to go on the airways it's allowing him to manipulate. It's totally inappropriate that children should be hearing a man of this sort." King will now remain in jail until at least 2005.

News of The World, 26/1/03

Jonathan King transferred after breaking jail rules

Jonathan King has been moved from the jail where he is serving a seven-year sentence for child sex offences.

The 58-year-old has been transferred from Maidstone Prison in Kent to Elmley Jail on the Isle of Sheppey.

The move follows a call King made from the jail last week to the London-based radio station LBC 97.3FM to protest his innocence.

Reports today suggested the authorities decided to move the former singer, record producer and television presenter because the call breached prison rules.

However, the Prison Service refused to discuss the transfer or the reasons for it. A spokesman said: "We can't comment on individual cases."

Prisoners can be moved at any time during their sentence for a number of reasons, including lack of capacity at a jail, if they need to attend a particular course or for breaking prison regulations.

King, who had his first hit with Everyone's Gone To The Moon in 1965 and produced records for Genesis, was jailed in 2001 following trials at the Old Bailey.

He had denied six charges of committing serious sex offences and indecent assaults against teenage boys between 1983 and 1990.

At the time of the offences, the self-styled "King of Pop" was presenting the TV show Entertainment USA and running his own record label, UK Records.

The court heard that the Cambridge-educated impresario lured the boys to his mews home at Queensborough Studios in Bayswater, central London, and showed them pornography before assaulting them.

He would sometimes approach youngsters in London's West End and give them lifts in his Rolls-Royce.

Last week, the Court of Appeal in London rejected King's argument that his conviction was arguably unsafe and that the sentence was "manifestly too severe".

Following the court's ruling, King rang LBC and told presenter Jane Moore that he believed there was a "witch-hunt" against celebrities.

Operation Arundel, the Surrey Police investigation into the allegations against him, recently led to the arrest of TV presenter Matthew Kelly.

In the interview, which was broadcast this morning, King said: "Most people who get to know me know that I'm not a paedophile and accept that very quickly because they get to know me pretty well."

Ananova, 27/1/03

In a separate development, former pop tycoon Jonathan King has been moved from his 'soft' cell in Maidstone Prison in Kent as punishment for ringing a radio station to proclaim his innocence.

King, 58, is serving seven years in jail for abusing five boys in the 1970s.

In his phone call to LBC, which broke prison rules, the fallen star claimed he was victim of false allegations.

He was reported to have broken down in tears when told he was being moved to the tougher Elmley Kail on the Isle of Sheppey in Essex.

The Court of Appeal has already thrown out an earlier bid for freedom.

AOL, 27/1/03

R Kelly faces more child porn charges

R Kelly has denied the charges.

R&B singer R Kelly has been arrested on charges of possessing child pornography.

The rap star was arrested by police outside a Miami hotel and taken into custody for three hours for questioning.

Mr Kelly, whose first name in Robert, is already facing 21 charges relating to producing child pornography and appearing in a video having sex with an underage girl. The 36-year-old Grammy winner has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The latest arrest was made on a warrant from Polk County, Florida, where investigators said they had found digital images during a search of Kelly's rented home when he was arrested in June 2002.

R Kelly sang I Believe I Can Fly

It is not known whether the pictures feature the same girl who was on the videotape.

He has now been charged with a further 12 counts of possession of child pornography, with bail set at $12,000 (£7,410)

Facing jail

A spokesman for Mr Kelly said: "At this point, it looks to us like a classic case of piling on, in which a local jurisdiction tries to make headlines by attaching itself to a celebrity case.

"As far as we can tell, the charges all relate to R Kelly's arrest last summer. In other words, there is nothing new here."

If found guilty, Mr Kelly could face up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000 (£68,500).

The R&B star has been ordered to avoid contact with children he is not related to and to check in with police once a week.

He has been hit with a string of legal cases from women who say the star had sex with them when they were below the legal age of consent.

BBC News, 24/1/03

Staff at public school in child porn inquiry

Two teachers at Millfield, the Somerset public school, have been suspended after being questioned by the police as part of the nationwide Operation Ore investigation of child pornography.

The two, who have not been named, were interviewed by Somerset and Avon police at the end of last week. The school notified parents of their suspension by letter yesterday.

About two-thirds of pupils at the mixed school are boarders; it is understood that no pupil is involved in the allegations.

Headteacher Peter Johnson said: "Two Millfield school members of staff were interviewed by the police last Friday [January 17] in connection with the possible accessing of child pornography on the internet. They have been suspended pending the completion of the police inquiry. There is no suggestion that these inquiries, which are part of Operation Ore, have anything to do with Millfield school pupils."

A spokesman for the school said that one of the teachers was relatively new to the school. "The head is understandably very concerned about this, which is why he took the decision to suspend the staff."

Avon and Somerset police confirmed that a 32-year-old man from Street and a 43- year-old man from Wells had been arrested on suspicion of possessing and making indecent images of children, and been given police bail; computers had been seized and were being examined.

Ministers, MPs and judges are understood to be among others under investigation by Operation Ore. Earlier this month Jonathan Collard, head of geography at Great Walstead, a prep school in West Sussex, resigned after he was questioned.

Rebecca Smithers, The Guardian, 25/1/03

Perv PC watched filth on computer

A policeman has been jailed for six months after admitting downloading child porn from the Internet. PC Robert Smith, 45, a father of two from Morden, Surrey, is the first Metropolitan Police officer caught and convicted under Operation Ore.

Among video films he accessed on an American website was one of a terrified girl aged about eight being tied ton a bench and raped by an adult male. Another showed a blindfolded girl being tied up and suspended from the ceiling.

One of Smith's computers was seized from the bedroom of his 15 year-old daughter. He was caught because he paid for his pictures by credit card.

Smith, whose job was taking 999 call for Scotland yard was jailed at Middlesex Crown Court on Friday. He has been a policeman for 12 years. Nineteen movies lasting from five seconds to three-and-a-half minutes were found on the computer - with 22 still photos.

Smith admitted he had a sexual interest in young girls and it was a problem he had to address.

When he is freed he must register as sex offender for seven years. The court banned him for life from working with children.

News of The World, 26/1/03 250,000 BRITS FACE CHILD PORN PROBE

A QUARTER of a million British men may have used their credit cards to access internet child porn, it was claimed last night.

Credit card giant Visa have launched a probe to see how many of their customers have signed up to web sites featuring child abuse.

Now Mastercard and American Express have told police they want to join a special investigation to see how many of their card-holders have been buying child porn.

HUNTED: Net perverts

But detectives fear the huge numbers involved could overwhelm the criminal justice system.

A priority list of people who will be prosecuted has been drawn up. Thousands of others may merely be cautioned or even let off. Operation Ore was launched after American investigators passed a list of 7,000 British men who had used their credit cards to access a child porn site based in Texas.

Who guitarist Pete Townshend was questioned last week by police as part of that probe.

A senior source within Scotland Yard told the Dail Mirror: "The forecast is that the Visa list may top 100,000 alone. Together with Mastercard and American Express customers, plus the other major credit card providers, the projection is the total number of British men who have been accessing these sites will exceed 250,000."

Police are on standby to receive another 10,000 names from the US.

A senior source at Visa said: "We are committed to co-operate with law enforcement in stemming this trade. "We realise a large number of our account holders have been using credits cards to buy into internet child porn sites."

A Barclaycard spokes-man said: "We are clearly concerned to stop child abuse and other serious crimes being facilitated by people using our cards."

Research has already revealed that Britons top the world in using internet porn sites.

Visa have used information it has uncovered to shut down several internet service providers, but the gangs simply set up new sites elsewhere.

DOSSIER OF SHAME

A LIST of 7,272 suspected paedophiles, forwarded to the police from America, is thought to include names from the world of music and television.

Several university lecturers have also been identified in the operation. The names of 50 police officers are also said to have been uncovered.

The largest number of suspects is 1,150 in London.

Police say that there are 30 more in the West Midlands, 32 in Glasgow, followed by Reading (30), Edinburgh (34), Leeds (23), Bristol (22), Cambridge (20), Manchester (17), Colchester (17), Southampton (15), Milton Keynes (14), Swindon (13), Brighton (12), Slough (12), Cardiff (11), Northampton (11), Nottingham (11), Gilford (10), Peterborough (10), Coventry (9), Newport (9), Swansea (9), Telford (7), Liverpool (6), Worcester (6), Hay-ling Island (5) Hull (5), Romford (5) and Blackpool (4).

Jeff Edwards, The Mirror, 27/1/03

Actor defended over 'historical erotica'

The lawyer for Pee-wee Herman actor Paul Reubens has argued the star should not face trial for child porn charges because his material is historical.

Attorney Blair Berk said some of the material was from the early years of the 20th century, in a motion filed to a Los Angeles court on Friday.

She also said the images and film Reubens is facing charges for were made decades before California's child pornography law was enacted in 1989.

The 50-year-old actor was arrested in November 2001 and charged with possessing materials depicting children engaged in sexual conduct.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and $2,500 (£1,558) fine. Ms Berk's motion said Mr Reubens' collection was "a vast and valuable historical collection of artwork, kitsch memorabilia and adult erotica".

The motion argues the law is unconstitutionally broad and that its statute of limitations ended before Mr Reubens' charges were brought to court.

It also said that police had found more than 30,000 pictures and 650 hours of film when they searched Mr Reubens' house in November 2001.

Authorities had found offending images in one book, 25 magazines and one film, the motion said.

Ms Berk complained to court commissioner Kristi Lousteau last year the Los Angeles attorney's office had not turned over its evidence to the defence.

But deputy city attorney Richard Katz replied that prosecutors were not required to do so until after the hearing.

The prosecution did turn over documents to the defence once the hearing had finished, but neither side disclosed its contents.

Mr Reubens arrest came as part a year-long investigation into child pornography.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off actor Jeffrey Jones was also arrested as part of the investigation and charged with hiring a 14-year-old boy to pose for sexually explicit photos, and with possession of child pornography. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/showbiz/2701119.stm

It will now be the case (from 6/2/03), that a host of names will appear, along with their given sentences. I will no longer report the articles (although I will archive as many as is possible) on this site, unless further developments in operations or sentencing occur (or some really wacky ones, like that above, emerge). The BBC are covering the issue in appropriate detail: http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/results.pl? scope=newsukfs&tab=news&q=child+porn&x=8&y=11 and at LegalDay, here: http://www.legalday.co.uk/current/ore.htm

Child Porn Arrests 'Too Slow'

OPERATION Ore, the police inquiry which plans to arrest a further 7000 men across the UK, in addition to Who guitarist Pete Townshend, for buying child pornography online is set to end in disaster with many suspects walking free.

Detective Chief Inspector Bob McLachlan, former head of Scotland Yard's paedophile unit, told the Sunday Herald that the lack of urgency in making arrests will lead to suspects destroying evidence of downloading child pornography before they are arrested.

The Sunday Herald has also had confirmed by a very senior source in British intelligence that at least one high-profile former Labour Cabinet minister is among Operation Ore suspects. The Sunday Herald has been given the politician's name but, for legal reasons, can not identify the person.

There are still unconfirmed rumours that another senior Labour politician is among the suspects. The intelligence officer said that a 'rolling' Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair and the government if arrests occur.

Since the September 2002 Operation Ore arrest of Detective Constable Brian Stevens, a key officer in the inquiry into the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the public have been aware that wanted suspects had downloaded child pornography from a US website called Landslide.

McLachlan, who was one of the main officers on Operation Ore before his retirement last year, said: 'Sufficient warnings have been given that if people haven't got rid of their computers then they are either stupid, don't believe they'll be arrested or are so obsessive about their collections that they can't destroy it. As time goes on, the chances of successful prosecutions will diminish with speed as the information out there must impact on the offenders.'

With only 1200 men arrested so far, McLachlan says that claims by police chiefs and the government that they were prioritising paedophile crime were 'smoke and mirrors'. Paedophilia is still not a priority on the Home Office's National Policing Plan for 2003- 06. McLachlan claimed that before he left Scotland Yard his team were under-staffed, over-worked, under-funded and reduced to using free software from computer magazines.

There are around one million images of an estimated 20,000 individual children being abused online. Some police seizures involve hauls of more that 180,000 images. Last year, images of 13,000 new children were uncovered. Only 175 child victims have been identified worldwide.

Police have also revealed that images of Fred West abusing one of his children are among child pornography available for downloading from the internet. It is unclear whether the child was West's murdered daughter Heather.

Peter Robbins, the chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation, which works with the police, government and internet service providers, in tackling paedophilia online, says software is in development which could remove child pornography from the net forever. The software should be ready in two years.

Police say that the list of rich and famous Operation Ore suspects would fill newspaper front pages for an entire year.

Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor, 19 January 2003, http://www.sundayherald.com/30813

Contemporary issues are now reported in The Media and Their Contribution to The Propagation of Stimulation section

I only sampled the online search engines, at the time, so as to obtain the quotations above. Direct links are offered, to the right.

However, in almost every case, others relate to those http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=wonderland+club situations above. http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=child+porn+sting At this time, I am extracting information from all media, http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=child+porn+entrapment wherever possible. I do not, always, include all versions http://uk.altavista.com/web/results?q=child+porn+sting&kgs=1&kls=1&avkw=qtrp of the same story, from different sources. http://uk.altavista.com/web/results?q=child+porn +entrapment&kgs=1&kls=1&avkw=qtrp Excellent archival information exists here: http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/results.pl? scope=newsukfs&tab=news&q=child+porn+sting www.cyber-rights.org http://www.cyber- rights.org/reports/child.htm http://www.cyber- rights.org/reports/ukcases.htm http://www.cyber-rights.org/

Some Thoughts on These Results

It appears that the influence of the USA as ‘The International Police Force’ is not only restricted to 'The War on Terrorism’.This is ironic, in this case, because many convictions, for such pornography, are floundering in the USA courts for constitutional reasons.

It may just be me, and please prove me wrong, but if you read the non-UK pieces and the UK pieces, it is clear that the UK are much more likely to use the word paedophile/pedophile in their terminology, For example:

The National Criminal Intelligence Service, which co-ordinates intelligence against criminals in Britain, has already used the FBI information to organise the arrest of 36 pedophiles in May. Detectives plan to swoop on more offenders, all believed to be men, over the next few months. (This is an Australian source, but they are using one of the quotations below).

Interesting, 36 paedophiles arrested, and yet, to my knowledge, at this time, and certainly not then, they had received no psychiatric assessment.

"We must remember that every image of a child being sexually abused is an image of a crime scene and each photograph is that of a victim," said Vincent Harvey of Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service.

Well, of course we will remember it, that is the damage this language causes, but it may not be true, for many reasons. Firstly, they may be pseudo-photographs - let us presume that they are not. They may be sexual abusing children, for many reasons (all illegal and, therefore, unacceptable, some just for profit - not sexual at all) - some of these perpetrators may be paedophiles. One thing is certain, not all of the ‘entrapped’ users, I guarantee, are illegal paedophiles, expect for a small group, contained within them. Some may, indeed, be abusers. The quoted figure, was that 1 in 5 were actual abusers, in the case of the recent UK entrapment. For reasons I cannot say here, I would really like to know how they know that, so early, for over 7000 arrests?

In fact, I find it incredulous, even with my knowledge of the power of cybersexual addiction/dependency, that some 1400 actual abusers of children gave their credit card details, even if (as we are led to believe) they were 'scrambled', particularly when these are mainly 'middle class professionals'. Perhaps this does indicate the power of the addiction/dependency, after all.

"We will continue these operations to protect children and show pedophiles that law enforcement agencies will find them regardless of which area of the Internet they use," Detective Superintendent Peter Spindler of the National Crime Squad said."

Protect children?- please read this Mr Spindler, although, I am aware, that parents, carers etc. are able to take, or view, pictures as well.

Update (18/11/02): such is the present state of affairs, that I am pleased to say that Mr Spindler is clearly aware:

Peter Spindler says that individual ministers are committed to action. The real constraint, he says, is us, the public. We can't bear to know what's happening behind so many front doors. We focus on the rare cases of child abductions, but we don't want to acknowledge that the most paedophile violence takes place within the home, with children being secretly and systematically raped by stepfathers, uncles, and others. We don't want to lift the lid on it. And we certainly don't want to pay the costs of dealing with it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,842283,00.html Let us take your comment to its conclusion:

If you are going to find all the paedophiles in the UK, if we look at the figures, that may be over 25% of the male population (by what, I believe, your interpretation of a paedophile to be) or, relatively, very few people, by the actual meaning of the word - incidentally, they may have carried out no illegal act against children.

Update (18/11/02): once again, the light begins to dawn:

Even if we were to locate and arrest just the 7,000 suspects from this single website, what would we do with them then? Do these people need punishment, or treatment? We'd find it impossible, currently, to offer them either. Sending them all to jail would raise the population of our overcrowded prisons by 10%. Yet we can't treat them outside jail, because the only residential clinic that treats paedophiles has lost its premises, and no community is willing to offer it another. http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,842283,00.html

Update (20/11/03):

While Ore has grabbed headlines, many senior officers and child abuse experts believe that targeting people at the lower end of the paedophile spectrum has been a distraction in terms of child protection.

Prof Wilson believes Ore showed how the criminal justice system concentrated on the wrong type of offender, the people who downloaded the material rather than produced them. It needed to refocus on activities such as peer-to-peer file sharing and the producers of child pornography.

He said: "Police operations have not been getting to the type of paedophile that we need to get to. It's in their interests to keep the debate moving towards the kind of people they should be spending time and resources on".

David Wilson, Professor of Criminology at the University of Central England in Birmingham, http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,1077260,00.html

I respect some of the work which I have read from these UK law enforcement agencies (and even more so, since today - 18/11/02), but, if they (and the government) continue to use such emotive language and act in such a heavy- handed and unidirectional way, then they will defeat their own efforts. Yes, these people (me, in my own case) have broken the law, yes, they should be prosecuted, with due care, if they chose to do this, at this time. The offence is the downloading/fabrication (making) or storage (possession) of indecent or obscene material, not the sexual abuse of children, whether it be paedophilic in nature or not.

They (and their families and friends) do not deserve to be pilloried by you, the press and the general public.

If this country continues in this manner, since the availability of all pornography, world-wide, will continue to escalate (without doubt) then such comments will:

inflame the general public to carry out more (and possibly more extreme) illegal acts,

show the authorities to be grossly misinformed,

push the more extreme traders, users and, more importantly, the perpetrators, underground.

The truth is, of course, is that they are their already here. Comfortably trading, using and perpetrating outside your grasp, due to international laws, business interests and inadequate (probably prohibitive) funding for your agencies. This all carries on, 24 hours a day (the 10 000 or so, caught in all these stings, represents, perhaps, one day’s trading - and that is a gross underestimate). I am not speaking of ‘world-wide kiddie porn rings’, or organised crime or devious, anti-capitalist cyber terrorists.

These are single or married men, women and children (though far fewer children, than the press would have us believe, as traders and users) of all ages and classes, sitting at home, perhaps in your street right now, participating in an edgy activity, which has been spawned and encouraged by the unregulated Internet; and, do you know? - you do not have pay or talk to anyone after a small period of time and effort. Of course, there is always risk.

If I know this, then the authorities also know that this is true.

However, during all this, a small but, otherwise, valuable number of naive and, possibly, depressed, men have their lives (and that of all close ones) damaged forever, for what, I suggest, is nothing more than extreme curiosity (and, for the record, it is not illegal to masturbate about anything). Anyone else would not be so foolish, so as to use credit cards etc. - a naive action by a naïve body (though perhaps not) to catch naïve victims?

I will tell you, in all certainty, that, in fantasy, when such a state of mind is coupled with years of repression, required by society, and apparently insurmountable stressors, that deterrence means absolutely nothing.

Adshead believes that many human actions can indeed be termed evil — and that all of us are capable of committing them. Neither, she says, must the perpetrators be ill, psychopathic or serial offenders. They can briefly enter a psychopathic state of mind then go back to living perfectly normal lives, as did the Bosnian soldiers who raped women then returned home to become model citizens.

“I prefer to use the word (evil) as an adjective, not a noun,” Adshead says. “Rather than an entity out there, it is a state of mind . . . and everybody has the capacity to get into an evil state of mind. There are people in evil states of mind up and down the country, all day, every day. As we speak now somebody is getting it together to smash his wife in the face. Somebody will be getting into a state of mind that may end up in rape. I see people who have been fantastically cruel to their children but they aren’t mentally ill at all.

“If you feel that nothing matters and there is only despair then the moral walls that connect us to each other fall down,” she says. “Briefly, in a moment of cruelty, such people triumph over the pointlessness. But it is brief.”

Dr Gwen Adshead, Consultant Psychiatrist at a London trauma clinic, 2002 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7-485909,00.html

“I believe there is such a thing as an evil act, but not an evil person. We are all capable of wicked things. Most of us have very bad thoughts, road rage for example, when you find yourself putting your fingers into the shape of a gun. Some people happen to take it a step further.”

Dr Robert I Simonk, Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream

Finally, on this topic:

"If there were not people like you prepared to download material of this nature it would not appear on the Internet, and innocent children who have been victims of exploitation and abuse in the most depraved manner would be better protected."

Recorder Peter Hughes, 1999

"The potentially corrupting effect of such filthy and revolting material on those who view it is obvious. The effect on the innocent children whose bodies have been abused to satisfy the perverted tastes of men like you can hardly be imagined."

Mr Justice Butterfield told ... that he was being imprisoned as a punishment and to send a message to others who satisfied their "perverted desires" by gathering child pornography. "This is not a victimless crime," he said. "The victims are the little children whose images you wish to view. Without the ultimate consumer, men like you prepared to pay for this material, there would be no market for this filth."

Justice Butterfield, 1999

..... the trial judge who said it could have incited sexual abuse of the innocent. Mr Justice Owen told ..., that the sentence was intended to act as a deterrent to others considering using the computer information network to circulate pornography. ..., was also jailed for six months for providing ... with up to 30 pornographic pictures of children.

Justice Owen, 1996

“Every picture of a child of that age is an abuse of that child. The possession and exchange of these photographs fuels the appetite so offences of this nature are practised. It is a pernicious exchange and by distributing the photographs you spread the evil around the world.” Assistant Recorder Simon Privett, 1996

Clearly, not a group of men able to avoid emotive language, apparently unable to divorce fantasy from reality and seemingly unaware of distribution practices.

However, as correct as they are about the real abuse of children being damaging and unacceptable, is the legal and judicial system effective? Have events, more recent to these, indicated that something more powerful is in operation here.? Something, so fundamental and instinctive, that it leads to actions which destroy so many lives? Something, that years of sentencing have made no impact upon, whatsoever - in fact, things have exploded. Time to think again, perhaps. Time to face a few difficult truths.

The Government's Response To Date

I should like to offer my thoughts (and I do apologise for appearing a little flippant, but that is my mood today) on comments made by Hilary Benn in a speech to the Policing Child Abuse on the Internet conference at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. Mr Benn praised the police for their response to the challenges posed by online paedophile activity (sic) and said recent operations had set a benchmark for other countries to follow.

OK, let's have a look:

"The Internet offers both huge benefits and also new challenges to law enforcement and the wider community."

Yes - I agree.

'The UK police are at the cutting edge of developing new techniques to detect and combat paedophile activity on the Internet and recent successful operations have demonstrated the effectiveness of an intelligence-led and co-ordinated approach."

At the cutting edge? You visited the addresses (obtained from credit card companies) provided by the FBI (or similar). This is what we have so far.

You are developing techniques - good, but, let's be honest, how hard is it, really (if you were really serious) for those of us who know about the Internet? I look forward to seeing them in operation.

Recent successful operations? Well, we know what they are. Intelligence-led - ("Hello, is that Hilary? it's the FBI/Postal Service here") and a co-ordinated approach - ("We just got this from the FBI/Postal Service, here are the addresses, officer").

'We have supported the police by providing £25 million in extra funding, over three years, to tackle hi-tech crime including Internet child abuse."

£25 million - seems a great deal - over three years. How will this split? - one department or many? and, note well, "... including Internet child abuse".

I see, good, perhaps the police are very happy, but, what do they say at the moment?:

Britain's chief police officers have asked the Government for more money to fight paedophiles lurking on the internet. The Association of Chief Police Officers has asked for more cash to fund a national strategy against child abuse on the net.

The move comes after reports that senior officers are concerned that some forces do not have the funds to properly investigate and bring to justice suspected paedophiles operating via computers.

A recent FBI investigation snared up to 7,000 possible paedophiles in the UK downloading porn from a website which showed children being raped and tortured. The details of British users were passed on to the UK six months ago, and officers launched Operation Ore to catch the culprits but individual forces, some with few resources, were left to investigate each suspect.

A report by the BBC claims hundreds of paedophiles have since been arrested by British police, but hundreds are still free because police do not have the resources to make arrests.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Carole Howlett, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, told the BBC: "I have no doubt that in the future there are going to be operations of a similar scale and nature to this (Operation Ore)."

The BBC report claims 95% of the paedophiles arrested were previously unknown to the police and were mostly middle class professionals. One in five are accused not just of viewing indecent images of child abuse, but of physically abusing children .

Home Office minister Hilary Benn, who chairs the Government's Taskforce on Child Protection on the internet, said: "We fully support effective intelligence-led policing. That is why we have already provided an additional £25 million over three years to tackle hi-tech crime, including internet child abuse, above existing funding for forces."

He said the government will respond to the ACPO plea in due course in the context of the wider home office spending decisions and the publication of proposals for legislating on sex offending and sex offences.

Ananova, 11/11/02, http://www.ananova.com/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,838572,00.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,838581,00.

Update (27/1/03)

BETRAYAL OF OUR KIDS

As PM blows £1bn on asylum seekers, a top cop reveals how government have just £500,000 to pay for Operation Ore child porn probe costing £100m.

A DEVASTATING indictment of the government's total failure to tackle paedophiles revealed by Britain's top child- porn cop. In a shock interview Det Chief Supt Derrick Kelleher discloses how the battle to nail kiddie-porn addicts is crippled by a scandalous lack of cash.

>POLICE handling Operation Ore - which caught out Who star Pete Townshend - urgently needs £100 million.

>YET when the Association of Chief Police Officers asked for more cash to combat Internet child abuse they were given a pitiful £500,000.

>THAT money averages only £11,000 for each of Britain's Police forces - about the cost of investigating just ONE paedophile per area.

>FORENSIC examination of paedophile's computers will cost £4.8 million in London alone, Mr Kelleher has got just £300,000.

>MANPOWER is needed too. Chief Supt Kelleher has just 69 officers to probe 1,200 Operation Ore suspects in London. And that's in addition to the capital's masses of other paedophile cases.

>THE CRISIS is set to deepen with a second list of up to 10,000 more UK perverts already known to be on its way from the FBI.

>AND the News of the World can reveal that a THIRD list of suspects is being studied in America - which could expose thousands more UK cases.

Chief Supt Kelleher said:

"We have to risk-assess cases. If there is a child specifically at immediate risk we carry on with the investigation. If there is no evidence of immediate risk, I won't and I can't carry on. That is high-risk management and I don't like it. But we have to make some hard judgment calls on what we pursue.

On average, we seize 2 to 3 computers per person arrested on the list. Each computer costs £2,500 to examine.

Nationwide, if you multiply that by the 7,200 people on the Operation Ore list you are looking at £50 million for forensic examination alone.

It is fair to say that including the costs of manpower and the new list, Operation Ore is likely to exceed £100 million.

We are only 10 per cent of the way through our list in London ...

Contrary to popular belief were were given credit card numbers and not names.

... a child has to be abused to provide every picture on the Internet.

Personally I cant bear it. How anyone can like this is beyond my comprehension." (perhaps you are in the wrong job, Mr Kelleher).

... a spokesman for David Blunkett said:

"By 2004 the police will have received a 25 percent increase in their budget. It is up police chiefs to decided how they spend money and allocate officers."

Lucy Panton, News of the World, 26/1/03

I cannot recreate all the content of the article, as it is does not have a free web presence, and I will not copy information already available elsewhere on the site. Suffice it to say, that Lucy and the Chief Supt have combined Operation Ore, the killing of Sarah Payne and asylum seekers, all in one article.

They have also provided an, almost. full page picture of a weeping toddler, which will become part of the collection of some paraphiles - well done, News of the World.

The leader article, blatantly, combines all the issues into one hateful diatribe, which I will not recreate.

Let us now see how the informed readers responded, one week later:

News of The World LETTERS - Give police the funds to nab perverts

£50 - I WAS absolutely stunned to read last week that police handling Operation Ore - a probe into child porn which will cost £100 million - have only been given £500,000 by the government.

Compare this to the £1.4 billion of taxpayers' money which is being spent on the open-door asylum policy, which has seen thousands of illegal immigrants pour into Britain. It is clear that New Labour's priorities are all wrong.

Until Mr Blair starts to tackle Internet child abuse by properly funding those who are trying to stop it, our children will continue to be in danger from perverts.

Dave Jeffs, Rochdale, Lancs

10 quid for the other contributors:

HOW right the News of the World in drawing attention to the miserly amount of money the government is allowing the police force to protect our children.

Surely our Prime Minister, a father himself, knows how precious our children are to us. They need to be protected from these perverts who prey on them and abuse them and sometimes murder them. Our children are our future and should be top priority.

Carry on the good work - maybe the message will get home to the government.

Mrs Ellen Gray, Southall, Middlesex FINDING the funds to not just continue, but step up, the war against paedophiles should be the government's main agenda.

Spending cash willingly on asylum seekers and their needs while innocent children are being abused is the sign of a government which has totally lost the plot.

Operation Ore has revealed that perverts can no longer be seen as anonymous, dirty, old men in raincoats. Many hold responsible positions, posing as pillars of the community. We simply MUST find the cash to help stamp them out.

L. Maynard, Fawdon, Tyne and Wear

THIS isn't a bankrupt Third World country, it's the fourth richest nation on Earth.

That makes penny-pinching and abdicating responsibility even more abhorrent where the abuse of children is concerned.

Only 10 percent of those uncovered by Operation Ore have been arrested. Around 6,000 potential paedophiles remain untouched.

The government's response to this has been to offer a pathetic, paltry £500,000 in extra funding for the police.

But £1.4 billion has been found to deal with asylum seekers. Small wonder asylum and lunacy are often muttered in the same breath.

Anthony Morley, Tollesby, Middlesborough.

THE News of The World should be heartily congratulated for exposing the scandalous state of affairs of the government squandering £1.4 billion of taxpayer's money on so-called asylum seekers, while giving a paltry £500,000 towards the Met's campaign on child porn.

Surely the protection and moral safety of our own children should take a far higher priority over the interest of outsiders?

Gordon McLean, Maidstone, Kent

WE have a genuine opportunity to clean up many paedophiles through the FBI list but as usual we have our priorities wrong.

Sometime this country acts like a banana republic, the lack of sense it shoes on serious issues.

Steve Rush, Botley, Hants

NOT only is little spent on the hunt for web paedophiles, but money spent on care for the elderly and the postcode lottery for lifesaving drugs is pitiful.

So long as asylum seekers' human rights are met the human rights of legal UK residents are null and void.

John Hawkin, Carterton, Oxon

YOUR shocking report last week about the under-funding that is stopping the police dealing with paedophiles is quite scandalous. Paedophilia is a deep-rooted problem with networks of perverts passing on material and often making indecent pictures of innocent children.

We must make it so dangerous to either picture or assault children that even hardened criminals shudder at the thought of capture.

David Granger, Whitley, Hants

News of The World, 2/2/03

Is there any wonder our country is confused? I keep emailing The News of The World - but I have not received a reply.

Oh, by-the-way, I told you so.

'MORE FUNDS NEEDED' AS PAEDO INQUIRY EXTENDS TO 250,000

POLICE investigating allegations of child pornography say they are not being given sufficient funds to do their job - amid claims that as many as 250,000 British men may be suspected.

The Metropolitan Police force's head of child protection has warned that more government cash must be made available for the inquiry, dubbed Operation Ore.

Chief Superintendent Derrick Kelleher said officers face the dilemma of either chasing and prosecuting paedophiles or pursuing other measures to protect children.

Mr Kelleher said the lack of funding meant that only 10 per cent of the 1,200 men suspected of child porn crimes in London had so far been investigated.

Meanwhile credit card giant Visa has launched its own inquiry into how many customers may have paid to download pornography.

Mastercard and American Express have also said they want to co-operate with any ongoing police inquiry.

According to industry sources, as many as a quarter of a million individual accounts will be checked.

Research has revealed that Britons are the world's biggest users of internet porn sites.

America has provided British police with a list of more than 7,700 UK residents who are suspected of paedophilia.

The roll-call of shame includes a host of TV celebrities, MPs, football stars and police officers.

Operation Ore has already resulted in the questioning of rock superstar Pete Townshend, who has admitted downloading porn for what he claimed was research.

AOL, 27/1/03

'Internet Child Abuse' - a new term, I believe. Could we please have a legal or, at least, working definition?

"In addition we have raised the maximum sentences for the possession and distribution of child pornography in order to send a clear signal to those who view or distribute such material ..."

Ouch, yes, I may be finding this out in the very near future (and I did). Send any signal you want, it will make not make a scrap of difference to those who do not care because they can't, or for those where financial gains are so massive, or for those who think the risk is worth taking, for whatever reason.

You obviously believe this to be a small number of people.

" ...that they are participating in the sexual abuse of a child."

Yes, this is the new emotional tool being used to aggravate the situation. Participating in the sexual abuse of a child? Well, we know what ‘the sexual abuse of a child means’. In what way was I participating? We had better have a definition first:

Participate

/p:"tspet/ verb (-ting) (often + in) have share or take part. participant noun. participation noun.

·assist, be active, be involved, cooperate, help, partake, take part; (participate in) contribute to, engage in, enter into, join in, share in.

Participation activity, assistance, complicity, contribution, cooperation, engagement, involvement, partnership, sharing. http://www.askoxford.com/dictionary/participate

The skill of a politician - to choose a word, so widely applicable, that it makes rhetorical sense, but little else.

I will still respond, even with such unfair tactics (who believes life is fair?). The sexual abuse of a child is an act, carried out by an individual, or group, and is defined and well understood. My offence, is that I have downloaded, looked at and stored some pictures - against the law, and enshrined as such, for which I will be punished, whatever my thoughts may be, however:

I have not sexually abused a child.

have shared or taken part - I have not shared or taken part in an act.

assist, be active, be involved, cooperate, help - I did not assist with, was not active or involved in, or cooperate or help, with an act.

partake, take part, contribute to - I did not partake in, take part in an act or contribute to an act, in any way.

enter into, join in, engage in - I did not enter into an act, join in or engage in an act.

partnership, complicity - I was not a partner in the wrongdoing, i.e. an act.

If anyone accuses me of participating in the sexual abuse of a child, they had better have some proof at hand.

Yes, of course, if someone were to pay a neighbour to take pictures of him abusing his child, then that would be participation in the act. My point is, that we are dealing with such blanket terms and such emotive language, in such an ill-focused way, that the truth is not only shielded, it is completely obscured.

It seems some Judges are a little more guarded in their language these days:

"These images are clear evidence that at some stage serious offences were committed, not by you but by others, involving the exploitation and abuse of young children." "It must be made clear that those who use the internet for such purposes will almost without exception go to prison."

Child Porn 'Librarian' Jailed, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,839472,00.html

Which, at least, is accurate. Although, I think he meant, those who "use the internet for such purposes" and get caught, because, if not, that is a lot of prisons.

The judge's belief didn't turn out to be true - did it?

"But the challenge is not for law enforcement agencies alone."

I should hope not, in all honesty, I really feel for them.

"The Taskforce on Child Protection on the Internet has brought together representatives of the Internet industry, children's charities, law enforcement, politicians and academics; all with a shared determination to make the UK the best and safest place in the world for children to use the Internet." Outstanding - was that a change of subject?

"Over the last 12 months the Taskforce has developed a number of practical measures to help achieve this aim."

Please go and have a look on just how they tackle the issue being discussed.

Home Office, 16/7/02 http://www.britain-info.org/law/xq/asp/SarticleType.1/Article_ID.2482/qx/articles_show.htm

... and to think, Hilary and I are supposed to have shared the same political foundations and both come from a comprehensive school.

Absolutely all for the right reasons, but, Hilary? - ah well, that's what politics will do to a man.

"David Blunkett yesterday warned against hysteria over allegations of child pornography, in the wake of the arrest of Pete Townshend. The home secretary said people should not rush to judgment: "It is important that we do not finger small groups of people, who may then be known to colleagues, without evidence being produced."

Jamie Wilson, The Guardian, 15/1/03

Since when has that stopped the system before?

Twisted ... Unnamed Star Allegedly Had Computer Porn Like Glitter

I do not intend to make much comment today (14/1/03), as I will let the following articles speak for themselves. As further names emerge, no doubt the issue will continue to flare and I will consolidate the information when we know more. I did expect that as high profile characters were involved, a debate would ensue and many would be more vocal about all sides of the issue. I think these articles illustrate this. I will offer, as Ms Williams quite correctly states:

"There has been insufficient debate, and weird opacity in this matter. Everything about it resonates with mystery, panic and taboo. That is not how sensible laws come about."

Never were truer words spoken, on this issue, outside this site.

Rock Legend Faces Kid-Porn Probe

A BRITISH rock superstar faces a police probe into child porn, it emerged last night. The hell-raising music legend is said to have downloaded sick images from the Net.

The rocker, identified by the FBI, is married with children and lives in Britain. He has not been named. His name was on a list of 7,000 subscribers to internet child porn. His credit card details and email address turned up when US authorities smashed a sick pay-per-view computer service.

The hell raising rocker, who is married with kids and lives in Britain, is now at the centre of inquiries into whether he downloaded porn.

He is the third high-profile British music personality to be linked to child sex offences. Glam-rock star Gary Glitter was jailed for possessing vile computer pictures of kids while twisted pop mogul Jonathan King went to prison for attacks on teenage boys.

The Americans passed thousands of names on to British police after closing down the Texas-based ring.

The musician, who cannot be identified, is household name on both sides of the Atlantic and has been involved in major films. He is under investigation by detectives from Scotland Yard, who will decide whether to arrest him. If they do, he will become the highest profile person to be held under Operation Ore; the largest ever investigation into online paedophilia in the UK.

So far around 1,300 people have been arrested, including a judge, magistrate, dentists, hospital consultants and a former deputy headmaster. Fifty police officers have been arrested and eight charged. They include Det Constable Brian Stevens, 41, of Cambridgeshire Police, one of the family liaison officers in the Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman murder inquiry in Soham. DC Stevens has been charged with making indecent images of children and indecently assaulting two girls.

The rock star’s name and details were given to British police last month. Their investigation into his background is expected to last for several weeks. They are especially anxious to make certain his credit card had not been stolen or cloned by a criminal before being used to download porn.

They are also investigating the possibility that the card had been used by someone else. A police source said: The high profile of this celebrity means we have to be absolutely sure before we make an arrest;

The names of the 7,000 suspects passed to Operation Ore have been put into several different categories. One category is made up of anyone with direct access to children such as teachers, doctors and social workers. Another is for those who hold positions of authority, such as cops and magistrates.

Operation Ore began last spring after the US postal service uncovered a subscriber website for paedophiles which had 75,000 names worldwide.

Glam-rock star Gary Glitter, 59, was previously the highest-profile paedophile snared for downloading kiddie porn. He was jailed for four months after vile pictures were found stored on a laptop he took into PC World for repair. Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, was cleared of having under-age sex with a 14-year-old girl at his trial but admitted building up the disgusting hoard of porn. He fought back tears after pleading guilty to having pictures of kids as young as two. Judge Neil Butterfield was slammed for sentencing him to just four months at Bristol Crown Court when he could been jailed for three years on each of 54 charges After being released from prison Glitter fled abroad. Only this week he was also arrested and deported by the Cambodian authorities. He was held on Christmas Day in the capital Phnom Penh for offences against young boys and locked up for three days in a filthy cell. He fled to Thailand after being given bail and then jetted off to Vietnam’s capital Ho Chi Minh City two days later. The fallen star, already banned from Cuba, has been high on Cambodia’s list of foreign undesirables since The Sun tracked him down there.

Jonathan King, 59, was jailed for seven years in 2001 for sex attacks on five boys. After his trial cops revealed he may have preyed on hundreds more over 30 years. He showered lads as young as 14 with gifts, took them to lavish restaurants and his £850,000 home and showed them porn before abusing them. King, a singer, producer and broadcaster famed for his lop-sided grin and big glasses, even reassured their parents they would come to no harm.

The Sun, 12/1/03

Well done Steve, every possible aspect in one story of, at the time, an innocent man; child porn, abuse and murder. I will not comment on this again, but I have included this passage to show how even a preliminary report can be ‘extravagantly’ and incorrectly worded. Secondly, I soon intend to write a section on the ‘three categories’.

"I’m no paedophile, pleads rock star Townshend". The Sunday Times, 12/1/03

"Rock Star’s Child Porn Shame". Sunday Express, 12/3/02

"I'm Not Another Glitter" "I haven’t been charged with anything ... but I think I’m f****d ..." News of The World, 12/1/03

I am not here to pillory anyone, quite the opposite, as should be clear from the site. However, because of the manner in which Peter has responded, I feel I need to cover this situation in some detail. I am more than aware of the feelings he may be experiencing and I do not wish to cause offence or grief. However, Peter does claim a wish to research the topic, so here is my contribution.

Let us first review the legal situation, as I see it, in England, at this time. Understand, this is not about morality or taste - they are your issues:

Activity English Status Precedent Thinking about anything. Legal Human Right Fantasising about anything. Legal Human Right Freedom of legal speech or written word. Legal Human Right Masturbation about anything. Legal Human Right Being a paedophile. Legal DSM-IV and ICD-10 Sexually abusing a human being. Illegal Human Right and English Law Taking decent/'indecent’ ('in a certain context') photographs of Legal, although English O’Carroll case children in public. possibly a breach of the peace Taking ‘indecent’ pictures of children anywhere - here, again, is the Illegal Human Right and issue of the, still ill-defined, understanding of ‘indecent’ in a court of English Law law; this context is that which shows genitalia, sexually provocative poses or worse. Masturbation, using pictures of naked or clothed children. Legal English O’Carroll case Accessing the Internet and websites (including using credit cards). Legal Human Right Making and storing (downloading purposefully or unknowingly), with Illegal English Law a computer, obscene publications of a number of types, text and graphical. Distributing (purposefully or unknowingly), with a computer, obscene Illegal English Law publications of a number of types, text and graphical. 'Inciting' others to distribute child pornography - this seems to a rather Illegal English Law? obscure area of law, as it was dropped, as a charge, against the Soham Officers, but has been stated for Townshend. It appears the police (or, more correctly, the CPS) are connecting the incitement with credit card access to a site, which appears to a stumbling block, at this time.

Q&A: Internet child porn

With increasing police investigations into child porn on the internet, BBC News Online asks John Carr, assistant director of the Children and Technology Unit at the charity NCH, what is the legal position for web users:

What is illegal?

Looking at an indecent picture of a child on the internet is not actually a crime, because it might not be a deliberate act.

But a crime is committed if that image is copied or forward to someone else.

This is classed as making and distributing indecent images of children and is taken very seriously. The penalty is a custodial sentence of up to 10 years.

A crime is also committed if someone registers their credit card details with a child porn site, as this shows they have deliberately looked for such images.

They could face a custodial sentence of up to five years.

If someone downloads any such images onto their hard drive they are also committing a crime and face up to five years in prison.

What if you inadvertently stumble across child porn pictures?

It is hard to just stumble across child porn on the internet, but if it does happen you are not committing a crime because it was not deliberate. What should you do in this situation?

You should make a note of the web page address and exit is as soon as possible.

You should then report it to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), whose job it is to monitor and tackle illegal and offensive content on the internet.

The police prefer the IWF to deal with such issues initially as it can filter out what is illegal and what is not.

Some images, however much they offend and upset people are not illegal.

What if you are sent indecent child images by someone you do or do not know?

Again, viewing it is not a crime but it should be deleted as soon as possible and reported to the IWF.

How tough is the legal system on offenders?

Child porn offences on the net carry tough custodial sentences, but the severity of the offence is taken into account.

If a person has downloaded one image onto their hard drive they are unlikely to be sent to prison.

But if they have a number of images and they are particularly vile then they will be treated far more severely. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2657381.stm

I am sure there is something wrong here. I am certain most of what is said here is true and I advise readers to take it all as being true. I appreciate that I am an amateur, but I cannot help but think that some of these statements are interpretations of the law, and not the law, as stated. At this time, I advise that readers take it all as being true, but I will continue to find the full details, as I trawl through Hansard, The Protection of Children Act and The Obscene Publications Act.

It just goes to show, even though ignorance of the law is no defence, how difficult it is to actually find out just what is illegal and what is not.

Update (1/2/03)

During correspondence with my legal team, I was provided with the following documents:

The Panel's Advice to the Court of Appeal on Offences Involving Child Pornography, August 2002, Professor Martin Wasik, Chairman of the Sentencing Advisory Panel

An interesting summary was:

Sentencing Those Having Indecent Pictures of Children, The Times, 6/12/02

Well, it really is all very interesting, for clarification (I was aware of the contents of the document, to some degree). Suffice-it-to-say, wading through the confused (based on debatable foundations of clinical psychology and law - bearing in mind this is a court of appeal recommendation), emotion-driven and out-of-date content, I was able to confirm the approximate range of custodial sentence, which I may expect; and that's about it (no disrespect, to you, My Legal Expert - thank you for the information, it was truly enlightening).

It is interesting to note that, at least, one 'user' was consulted in its creation, but one can imagine the identities of the majority of the contributors were to the consultation exercise (hello again, Mr Findlater):

"A few respondents to the consultation paper thought that the possession of child pornography for personal use should not be an offence (are they Canadian?). A large majority, however, supported the general approach outlined in the paper, which we have followed in the proposals made here."

Well, if you saw the list of respondents, you would observe a slight skew in interests, to say the least.

Pseudo-photographs would normally result in a fine (and registration as a sex offender, I expect) and, of course, they use the word, 'paedophile' incorrectly. The document is available here.

Some things belong on paper, others in life ... Blessed fool, who can't tell the difference.

Madelaine Le Clerc to Marquis de Sade, Quills, Screenplay by Doug Wright, 2000.

In his (Townshend's) own words (and mine):

Pete Townshend released this statement to the media outside his house in Richmond, London, yesterday afternoon;

I am not a paedophile.

For someone researching the subject, I should expect more accuracy in terminology. However, I am not aware that he has been diagnosed, as such, so it is probably true.

I have never entered chat rooms on the internet to converse with children.

Well, chatting is not illegal and why should it be curtailed?

I have, to the contrary, been shocked, angry and vocal (especially on my website) about the explosion of advertised paedophilic images on the internet.

At this time, I have not visited his website, but I accept the statement.

I have been writing my childhood autobiography for the past seven years. I believe I was sexually abused between the age of five and six and a half when in the care of my maternal grandmother who was mentally ill at the time.

As we know, from elsewhere on this site, this is the real danger to children. It is also the case that this suggested abuse occurred long before the availability of pornography including minors on the Internet.

I cannot remember clearly what happened, but my creative work tends to throw up nasty shadows - particularly in Tommy.

Repressed experiences will almost certainly surface.

Some of the things I have seen on the net have informed my book which I hope will be published later this year, and which will make clear that if I have any compulsions in this area, they are to face what is happening to young children in the world today ...

Noble and understandable,

... and to try to deal openly with my anger and vengeance towards the mentally ill ... sorry Peter, a flaw in your research here, there is no issue of mental illness,

... people who find paedophilic pornography attractive. not an illness, nor illegal.

I predicted many years ago that what has become the internet would be used to subvert, pervert and destroy the lives of decent people.

Tools for good or bad, as we know.

I have felt for a long time that it is part of my duty, knowing what I know, to act as a vigilante to help support organisations like the Internet Watch Foundation, the NSPCC and Scotland Yard to build up a powerful, well- informed voice ...

Noble, although the use of the word ‘vigilante’ is unfortunate. ... to speak loudly about the millions being made by US banks and credit card companies for the pornography industry. That industry deliberately blurs what is legal and what is illegal, and different countries have different laws and moral values about this.

This is the truly valid point in this statement. Indeed, it constitutes a section of this website, which I am presently preparing.

I do not want child pornography to be available on the internet anywhere at any time.

On this, as a matter of principle, we disagree. It is also, now, impossible.

On one occasion I used a credit card to enter a site advertising child porn. I did this purely to see what was there.

So, the access was noted by FBI entrapment, the data stored, at least, in the computer cache. The offence is committed. Peter has pleaded guilty, and his ‘machine’ will now need to be analysed. If traces of data remain, the offence is secure. If there are no traces, is the access and pleading of guilt enough for charge? We will see.

I spoke informally to a friend who was a lawyer and reported what I'd seen.

Interesting.

I have enclosed my website article about my friend Jenny who commit [sic] suicide because of sexual abuse she suffered as [a] child. I hope you will be able to see I am sincerely disturbed by the sexual abuse of children, and I am very active trying to help individuals who have suffered, and to prevent further abuse.

I need to see Peter’s site before I comment on how much he helps.

In earlier remarks, Townshend said: "To fight against paedophilia, you have to know what's out there."

"I have done a lot of work on paedophilia and my website has highlighted it."

"I have looked into the abuse that children have suffered in Chechnya and Kosovo and the portrayal of these children on the internet and it appals me. I was worried this might happen and I think this could be the most damaging thing to my career."

He said he was interested in adult porn, adding: "I've always been into pornography and I have used it all my life."

"I'm going to talk to my lawyers to see what happens next."

The Observer, 12/1/03 also, at least, covered by ITV, The Guardian and The News of The World (it was a Sunday!)

I cannot speak for Peter here. When I was creating my statement, the day following my arrest, it read very much like that I see above. Using denial and noble ideals to ‘stop suffering for others’ was very soothing and, it may, in fact, have reduced the negative response which I was about to receive from those around me. Later, when I read the ramblings of someone in shock, I then created my actual truthful statement, contained on this site.

I am not accusing Peter of this, in any way, I only indicate the process which I experienced.

Whatever Peter’s motivation, denied or not, hidden or noble, the fact is that he has, at least, broken the The Protection of Children Act, 1978. His defence could be used in many of the cases of the ‘7000’. Although it may affect sentencing, it is unlikely to avoid him being charged. If he is not charged, I am interested to see why that will not be the case.

Rock star is arrested over child porn

Pete Townshend freed on bail after police take items from home.

PETE TOWNSHEND, the guitarist and songwriter with The Who, was arrested by police last night after admitting that he had paid to look at a child pornography website. He was later released on bail after being questioned for an hour and 20 minutes on suspicion of making and possessing indecent images of children and inciting others to distribute child pornography, under the Child Protection Act 1978.

A number of items were taken from the musician's home, including several computers.

Mr Townshend's solicitor, John Cohen, gave a statement outside the police station shortly after midnight.

"Mr Townshend has been interviewed this evening by police. He has not been charged with anything and has been bailed to a future date when he may be required to answer some questions," he said. "He is going home to get some rest. He is tired but all right."

As the statement was being read, Mr Townshend was spotted leaving the police station lying on the back seat of a Mercedes, partially covered by a bag or a coat.

Fifteen Scotland Yard detectives earlier spent more than four hours searching Mr Townshend's £4 million mansion in Richmond, south-west London. Another search was carried out at his recording studio in Twickenham.

The officers arrived with a search warrant drawn up after Mr Townshend claimed that he accessed the website during research for a book.

Asked why so many policemen were needed, one detective entering the front door replied: "It's a very big house."

Mr Townshend, 57, unshaven and wearing a black jacket, had left by a side entrance at 7.20pm and was driven to Twickenham police station. He had said that he was ready to hand his computer to police and was happy for them to visit his home and check his computer for child porn.

He told The Sun newspaper yesterday that he had looked at the front pages of child pornography sites perhaps three or four times after accidentally stumbling across one. But he had never downloaded the material and only entered a site once, using a credit card, purely as research for a book he plans to publish later this year.

Since his admission at the weekend, Mr Townshend has been rounded on by internet watchdogs, who dismissed his explanation as "no excuse".

Mark Stephens, a lawyer and vice-chairman of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said: "If you want to help children you don't pay money to a child porn site."

The star has said that he believes he was sexually abused between the age of five and six-and-a-half when in the care of his mentally-ill maternal grandmother.

He was on a list of 7,272 names passed to British authorities after thousands of credit card details were recovered from a US-based child pornography website. This led to Operation Ore, Britain's largest paedophile investigation.

The American investigators found the credit card details and e-mail addresses of 75,000 subscribers who allegedly accessed a pay-for-view website called Candyman and two similar sites which operated in the late 1990s. They involved the sexual abuse of children as young as two. The list of Britons - 99.9 per cent of whom are men - was handed to the the National Crime Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service almost a year ago.

At present 1,300 people in the dossier have been arrested. Police sources confirmed yesterday that two politicians were also on the list. The two men are said to have been MPs between 1997 and 1999. It was unclear whether they still had seats in the Commons or which party they represented.

Yesterday MPs received e-mails warning them that their use of computers may now be monitored by the Parliamentary authorities.

Meanwhile, it emerged last night that the deputy governor of Bullingdon Prison in Oxfordshire has been suspended from duty after he was arrested by police investigating the list. Terence McLaren, 47, a former vice-chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, was arrested at his home near Banbury last week.

However, Scotland Yard dismissed reports that another rock star and a television presenter were also on the list.

Ian Cobain, Stewart Tendler and Richard Ford, timesonline.co.uk, 14/1/03 Townshend arrested over child porn

Scotland Yard detectives last night released Pete Townshend on bail after earlier arresting him on suspicion of possessing and making indecent images of children following the rock star's admission that he paid to enter an internet site containing child pornography.

The 57-year-old lead guitarist with the Who was taken to a south-west London police station for questioning by officers from the child protection unit after a team of detectives spent several hours searching his home and an office in Richmond, west London. A number of items, including computers, were removed for forensic examination.

His solicitor, John Cohen, said last night that he had been questioned for an hour and 20 minutes by officers at Twickenham police station. "Mr Townshend has been interviewed this evening by police. He has not been charged with anything and has been bailed to a future date when he may be required to answer some questions," he said. "He is going home to get some rest. He is tired but all right."

Scotland Yard said he had been arrested under the Protection of Children Act 1978 on "suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, suspicion of making indecent images of children and suspicion of incitement to distribute indecent images of children."

A police source warned that the word "making" should not be taken too literally.

Unshaven and wearing a black jacket, Townshend had earlier been driven away from his home by a side entrance.

The team of Scotland Yard detectives arrived at the rock star's home at 3pm, armed with a blue plastic crate containing evidence bags. A police spokeswoman at the scene said the detectives were conducting a thorough search that would take "as long as necessary".

She declined to say how many officers were involved, but said they included members of Scotland Yard's paedophile unit, major investiga tion team, and child protection units, all of whom are attached to Operation Ore, the largest inquiry into child pornography undertaken in the UK.

The spokeswoman said the officers, including experts in computer forensics, were there by prior arrangement, although they did have a search warrant. Speaking outside the house, Mr Cohen also said the meeting was by mutual agreement. "We approached the police and said that we should meet," he said.

Townshend admitted on Saturday that he had used his credit card to access a child pornography website after it emerged his details were on a list of more than 7,000 British subscribers sent to Scotland Yard by US authorities. So far more than 1,300 people have been arrested as part of the operation, including a judge, magistrates, dentists, hospital consultants, soldiers and a teacher, along with more than 50 police officers.

Two MPs - both said to be former Labour ministers - and a television presenter are also on a list of police suspects.

In an interview with yesterday's Sun newspaper, Townshend said: " It's important police are able to convince themselves that, if I did anything illegal, I did it purely for research."

Jamie Wilson and Nick Hopkins, The Guardian, 14/1/03 ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,874374,00.html

He (Townshend) was on a list of 7,272 names passed to British authorities after thousands of credit card details were recovered from a US-based child pornography website. This led to Operation Ore, Britain's largest paedophile investigation.

The American investigators found the credit card details and e-mail addresses of 75,000 subscribers who allegedly accessed a pay-for-view website called Candyman and two similar sites which operated in the late 1990s. They involved the sexual abuse of children as young as two. The list of Britons - 99.9 per cent of whom are men - was handed to the the National Crime Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service almost a year ago.

At present 1,300 people in the dossier have been arrested. Police sources confirmed yesterday that two politicians were also on the list. The two men are said to have been MPs between 1997 and 1999. It was unclear whether they still had seats in the Commons or which party they represented.

Yesterday MPs received e-mails warning them that their use of computers may now be monitored by the Parliamentary authorities.

Meanwhile, it emerged last night that the deputy governor of Bullingdon Prison in Oxfordshire has been suspended from duty after he was arrested by police investigating the list. Terence McLaren, 47, a former vice-chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, was arrested at his home near Banbury last week.

However, Scotland Yard dismissed reports that another rock star and a television presenter were also on the list. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-542538,00.html

Rocker: It's a witch-hunt

ROCKER Pete Townshend wrote an amazing letter defending suspected paedophiles and claiming they were victims of a witch-hunt, it emerged last night.

The Who guitarist, free on police bail yesterday after being quizzed about internet child porn, posted the open letter on his website in October.

Townshend, 57, said: "On the issue of child abuse, the climate in the Press, the police and in Government in the UK is one of a witch-hunt."

He claimed innocent men were being wrongly convicted on child pornography charges because the police were "over- zealous".

And he blasted officers for "snooping on customers downloading illegal pornography" instead of simply blocking access to the websites.

In the open letter, now deleted from the site, Townshend also said: "There is hardly a man I know who uses computers who will not admit to surfing casually sometimes to find pornography. Certainly I have."

The star has admitted logging on to child porn sites but insists it was only done as research for a book.

His website letter also included a reference to another man arrested for accessing child porn - believed to be shamed pop star Gary Glitter.

Townshend wrote: "A man who briefly worked for me was arrested for downloading paedophilic pornography. Until then I was unaware of the scale of the problem. He performed in one of my musicals."

Glitter was jailed in 1999 for having child sex images in 1997. He took part in the rock opera Quadrophenia with The Who in 1996.

Townshend wrote that the man allegedly used the word Lolita in internet searches. And it was one of the UK's most- searched words.

But the guitarist said: "Who were all these people typing Lolita into their browsers? They were surely not all paedophiles. Perhaps they were simply curious."

Townshend returned to his £15million home in Richmond, South West London, yesterday looking shattered after his grilling by detectives.

The father-of-three was accompanied by a woman thought to be his current girlfriend Rachel Fuller, 29.

It came 19 hours after his arrest on Monday, when 16 cops swooped on his home and seized computer equipment, diaries and CD-roms.

He was held on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, making indecent images and of incitement to distribute them.

No charges were made but he must report to police later this month.

His mother Betty, 79, told The Sun: "Pete telephoned me at 1.30am. He sounded tired and upset.

"He also phoned his children. We are a loving, Christian family and will continue to support Pete. "I believe all families face crises at some point and we must do everything to stay close together."

Townshend has hired a team of eight guards to protect him round the clock from vigilante attacks.

He is paying £2,000 a day for the tough ex-SAS and Paras men.

Yesterday an advanced team checked security at his house - which is already protected by close-circuit television. Three burly men in plain clothes turned up in a silver Land Rover Discovery.

One lost his cool with photographers taking his picture and snapped: "What the hell are you doing?"

He then rejoined his colleagues who were carrying notepads and files and entered the home via a side entrance.

Later the trio were joined by a fourth man and walked around the perimeter of the property.

A source told The Sun: "Pete is taking no chances. He is well aware of the public disgust at paedophiles - indeed, he shares that disgust."

Elton: I'm right behind you, Pete

TROUBLED Townshend was last night backed by his close pal Sir Elton John.

Speaking in the US, Elton, 55, said he was shocked by Townshend's arrest. He added: "I love Pete and my thoughts are with him."

The Sun, 15/1/03

Prison boss is held

A PRISON governor was yesterday arrested by cops hunting child-porn perverts.

Terry McLaren, 47, was nicked a day after detectives held rock legend Pete Townshend.

A top aide to London Mayor Ken Livingstone was also under arrest last night. And a Thames Valley Police source revealed several MORE people occupying "prominent positions" in public life were expected to be arrested in the next few days.

McLaren - who is married with children - is deputy head of Bullingdon jail near Bicester, Oxfordshire.

He is one of several governors in charge of 1,000 male prisoners, including sex offenders. McLaren, a former vice- chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, had only been at Bullingdon for four months.

He was released on bail by Thames Valley Police pending further investigations and must wait a fortnight to find out if he will be charged.

A warder at Bullingdon said last night: "I'm amazed - it makes you wonder who else is going to come out of the woodwork.

"A lot of the inmates are laughing their socks off."

The Prison Service last night refused to comment on the arrest. Meanwhile, it was revealed that senior civil servant Yusef Azad has been arrested over allegations he used a credit card to download child-porn on his computer.

Mr Azad, 39, is a £78,000-a-year aide to Mr Livingstone. He monitors the mayor's popularity ratings and helps deal with complaints.

But he has not been suspended from his job following his arrest last month. Mr Azad refused to comment at his home in Brixton, South London, last night.

So far, more than 1,300 people have been arrested under Operation Ore, the nationwide police crackdown on internet porn. They include 50 cops, a High Court judge, lawyers, magistrates, doctors, clergymen and teachers.

The Sun, 15/1/03

Porn to run

A web world of child abusers

Leader

The most dramatic aspect of the internet paedophilia story that swept through the press this weekend is not that it involves the Who guitarist Pete Townshend. It is that Mr Townshend is merely one out of 7,300 suspects whose internet child pornography access is now being investigated by police in Operation Ore. As we report today, there is almost no area of society untouched by an inquiry of this scope. The involvement of rock stars, politicians and judges inevitably makes headlines. But the investigators are looking at butchers, bakers and probably even candlestick- makers too - to say nothing of some 50 police officers.

In the past, in spite of the media attention that it receives, paedophilia has been seen as extremely rare. A few hundred people, at most, are convicted of serious paedophile offences each year, about the same as for murder. Does Operation Ore mean that Britain - and not just Britain - is awash with paedophilia on a scale that few suspected? Possibly. But be careful not to leap to conclusions. Child sex is a famously disputed subject. And not all those who have access to pornography are sexual offenders. Even in the more serious case of child sex, there are differences between looking at images, paying for downloads, and committing an assault, even though all are against the law.

What is clear is that the internet has produced a quantum leap in domestic accessibility of pornography of all kinds. The web is a source of temptation unprecedented in history; modern society has still not properly adjusted to it. It tempts men (or, in a few cases, women) who have found that the internet gives access to images of sexual activities they hardly even thought about before. At one remove, it offers temptation to police who know the media will pay big money for stories like Mr Townshend's. Child porn is as revolting as it comes. But if we put temptation in people's way, we must be prepared for some to fall for it.

The Guardian, 13/1/03

Townshend: I can clear my name

Pete Townshend claims to have the evidence that will clear his name on allegations of child porn offences.

Townshend was arrested and released on bail by police earlier this month.

His house was searched and computer equipment seized, but so far he has not been charged with any offences.

On his official website, petetownshend.com, the guitarist reveals that he has email evidence to verify that he had previously been in touch with the Internet Watch Foundation, an online watchdog, to complain about websites with material aimed at paedophiles.

The IWF had previously denied having spoken to Townshend, and they have now been asked to explain their comments.

On the website, Townshend explained: "You may recall that among the media frenzy of a couple of weeks ago, representatives of the Internet Watch Foundation told the press and the news stations that they had never heard from me.

"I, of course, know that I did communicate with them several times last year and they have now supplied to us copies of my e-mails to them, one in August and the rest in November.

"My lawyers have written to the founder of the IWF, Mark Stephens, who was adamant that they had never heard from me, asking for an explanation."

ITV.com, 30/1/03 Pete Townshend On Sex Register Over Child Porn

PETE TOWNSHEND will be on the Sex Offenders Register for five years after receiving a police caution for viewing a website containing child pornography.

The 57-year-old rock musician and founder member of The Who will also have a lifelong criminal record for the caution, after a four-month investigation by Scotland Yard’s Child Protection Group. Police said yesterday that Mr Townshend had viewed, but not downloaded, images of child abuse on to his computer.

Mr Townshend acknowledged in a statement that he was wrong to use his credit card to enter a website offering images of child abuse and said he accepted the police caution. “I accessed the site because of my concerns at the shocking material readily available on the internet to children as well as adults, and as part of my research toward the campaign I had been putting together since 1995 to counter damage done by all kinds of pornography on the internet,” he said.

He added: “The police have unconditionally accepted that these were my motives in looking at this site and that there was no other nefarious purpose, and as a result they have decided not to charge me. I accept that I was wrong to access this site and that by doing so I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution that the police have given me.”

A police spokesman said: “It is not a defence to access these images for research or out of curiosity.”

The children’s charity NCH said Mr Townshend’s crime was “not a small matter”. Claiming accessing images was research could not be used as an excuse, John Carr, the charity’s internet safety adviser, said. “It is not an acceptable defence and it only helps keep the child porn industry going.”

The NSPCC welcomed the caution for Mr Townshend, who has said he was abused as a child. He wrote the rock opera Tommy about an abused boy. An NSPCC spokesman said: “This shows that police are taking the viewing of child pornography extremely seriously. We believe it could act as a deterrent to people who just want to view rather than download images.”

Those found to have distributed or saved abusive images on their computer’s hard drive are likely to be charged and dealt with much more harshly, the NSPCC said.

Mr Townshend joins all those cautioned or convicted of a sex offence in being placed on the Sex Offenders Register. He will stay on the register for five years, the minimum spell. After registering with a local police station, where he will be fingerprinted, photographed and sampled for DNA, he must report back there every year.

He is also obliged to contact police if he leaves his £4 million mansion in Richmond, southwest London, for more than two weeks within Britain, or if he travels abroad for more than eight days. The Home Office said the British authorities would not prevent him from travelling abroad for concerts. The Who toured the United States last year.

A Home Office spokesman said: “As long as he informs police, he has no restrictions on what he does. The Sex Offenders Register is not a punishment, it is a monitoring tool for police.”

The father of three children, Mr Townshend was one of The Who’s four founder members and went on to become one of the best-loved songwriters of the Sixties. In 1969, he asked John Entwistle, the bass player, to write the song Fiddle About for the rock musical Tommy, because he found the subject matter too painful.

Mr Townshend said he was abused while in the care of his maternal grandmother, who was mentally ill. His brother, Paul, has also said he was abused as a child.

The rock star later overcame alcohol and drug problems. He separated from his wife of 31 years in 1998.

During the investigation, Mr Townshend was backed by Roger Daltrey, the band’s vocalist, who said: “He may have done something naive and stupid, but I’m telling you one thing. Pete did what he did for the reasons he said he did.”

Townshend could find future trips to the United States curtailed by the country’s strict immigration laws. He would have to declare his criminal record.

Patrick Barkham, May 08, 2003, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-673078,00.html

Well, there you go. I have more to say on this, but it requires access to the paper material I collected inside - to follow. I was not going to include the Matthew Kelly story here, as it was not a pornography issue, but recent events indicate that it may turn out to be.

TV HOST KELLY ARRESTED IN CHILD SEX ABUSE PROBE

MATTHEW Kelly is being questioned by detectives investigating allegations of sexual abuse against young boys.

The 52-year-old Stars In Their Eyes host, from Chiswick, west London, was arrested by Surrey Police at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre where he had been appearing in pantomime.

A second man, in his late 50s, was also arrested in connection with the same allegations at his home in Edinburgh.

He has been named by police sources as Tam Paton, former manager of the Bay City Rollers.

Kelly, a married father of two, was driven 130 miles to Guildford police station, where he is being held in connection with allegations of sexual abuse against boys under 16 in the 1970s.

A police spokesman said: "Two men have been arrested by Surrey Police in a co-ordinated operation in connection with historic allegations of sexual abuse against boys under the age of 16.

"The allegations relate to offences in the 1970s. They are not current offences and the allegation is not that they have been going on since then, but they relate to some specific incidents in the 1970s."

The spokesman confirmed the two men arrested being questioned in connection with the same investigation, which had been ongoing for several months.

Kelly has been married to wife Sarah for more than 30 years but the pair are understood to live apart. They have two grown-up children - Matt, 31, and Ruth, 28.

A spokeswoman for Granada, which makes Stars In Their Eyes, refused to comment.

AOL, 16/1/03

Kelly denies sex allegations

Matthew Kelly has issued a public denial of the sex allegations which have been made against him.

In a statement, he said he "emphatically denied" the claims.

The 52-year-old Stars In Their Eyes host, from Chiswick, west London, was arrested last night by Surrey Police at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre where he had been appearing in pantomime.

A statement read by his lawyers said: "Mr Kelly emphatically denies the allegation made against him which has come as a complete shock and surprise.

"He has co-operated fully today with the police and will of course continue to do so should that be necessary. It should be noted that he has been released without charge."

Kelly was released on bail by detectives investigating allegations of child abuse.

He then returned to Birmingham to perform as Captain Hook in the pantomime Peter Pan after being arrested at the theatre and taken away for questioning by police yesterday.

Theatre manager Nigel Cairns said the star had entered the stage at the beginning of the evening performance to loud applause and cheers.

He added: "We are delighted that he has been able to make the show. It was touch and go as to whether he would be able to make it."

Later, former Bay City Rollers manager Tam Paton has also been released on bail by police investigating allegations of sexual abuse against young boys. Ananova, 16/1/03

Matthew Kelly arrest 'not a celebrity witch-hunt'

Police questioning Matthew Kelly over allegations of sex abuse against young boys have denied they are carrying out a celebrity witch-hunt.

Reports claimed that dozens of stars and politicians could face arrest after it emerged that the Stars In Their Eyes hosts was arrested as part of the sex abuse inquiry that jailed pop mogul Jonathan King.

But Surrey Police insist their investigation was focused on specific allegations and is not a "wide-ranging trawl into the showbusiness world".

"We don't have a list of other celebrities that we wish to interview in connection with this inquiry," a force spokeswoman said.

"Surrey Police are carrying out a focussed investigation into specific allegations of offences against named individuals," she added.

Mr Kelly, 52, from Chiswick, west London, was arrested at 6pm on Wednesday by Surrey Police at a theatre in Birmingham where he had been starring as Captain Hook in the pantomime Peter Pan.

The married father of two was driven 130 miles to Guildford police station, where he was being held in connection with allegations of sexual abuse against boys under 16 in the 1970s.

A second man, in his late 50s, was also arrested in connection with the same allegations at his home in Edinburgh.

He was named by police sources as Tam Paton, former manager of the Bay City Rollers.

A police spokesman said: "Two men have been arrested by Surrey Police in a co-ordinated operation in connection with historic allegations of sexual abuse against boys under the age of 16 years old.

"The allegations relate to offences in the 1970s. They are not current offences and the allegation is not that they have been going on since then, but they relate to some specific incidents in the 1970s."

The spokesman confirmed that the two men arrested were to be questioned in connection with the same investigation, which had been ongoing for several months.

"They were arrested together, this is part of the same investigation. It is a joint investigation rather than two separate ones," he said.

He added that the two men were the first to be arrested in connection with the inquiry.

Police said the arrests were not connected to Operation Ore, a US investigation into Internet child pornography, and they were understood to have been triggered by allegations made during the Jonathan King inquiry.

Ananova, 17/1/03

MATTHEW KELLY THANKS PANTO AUDIENCE

MATTHEW Kelly has thanked the public for their support while on stage performing in pantomime.

The 52-year-old Stars In Their Eyes host was given a loud round of applause at the Birmingham Repertory theatre last night, where he is currently performing in Peter Pan.

After taking his bow in the pantomime, in which he plays Captain Hook, Kelly told the audience: "I would just like to say a very big thank you for your support in this

"You obviously know it's a really hard time. Thank you for your time. Keep coming to live theatre."

Kelly was arrested at the West Midlands theatre at 6pm on Wednesday evening and driven 130 miles for questioning by Surrey Police at Guildford. The arrest was in connection with allegations of sexual abuse against boys under 16 in the 1970s.

After being bailed last night until March 12, Kelly said in a statement he "emphatically" denied the allegations and said it had come as a "complete shock and surprise".

He said he had co-operated fully with the police and would continue to do so.

Theatre officials in Birmingham, where Kelly went immediately after his release, said they were "delighted" he had made last night's performance.

He was greeted at the start of the 7.30pm performance to loud applause and cheers, they said.

AOL, 17/1/03

POLICE RAID MATTHEW KELLY'S SRI LANKAN HOME

THE Sri Lankan holiday home of TV presenter Matthew Kelly has been raided by police, confirms the head of the country's child protection agency.

Officials from Sri Lanka's National Child Protection Authority, accompanied by local police officers, seized 54 video tapes and a computer from the house in a suburb of Colombo.

NCPA chairman, Harendra De Silva, says the raid was carried out after a tip-off from a British journalist.

The Stars In Their Eyes presenter was arrested and bailed by Surrey Police last week over allegations of sexual abuse on boys under the age of 16 during the 1970s. Kelly, 52, has denied the claims

Professor De Silva says his investigation team are playing through the videos, which mostly appeared to be cartoons and children's films.Experts will begin analysing the contents of the computer on Monday but an initial search showes a number of adult sites have been accessed.

Professor De Silva said: "If we have any evidence of any wrong-doing taking place in Sri Lanka we will take action."Prodessor De Silva says Kelly's caretaker Aruna Rodrigo has been questioned by the NCPA team and released to return to his home, yards from Kelly's £100,000 four-bedroomed house.

AOL, 19/1/03

Police raid Matthew Kelly's holiday home in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan holiday home of TV presenter Matthew Kelly has been raided by police, the head of the country's child protection agency said today.

Officials from Sri Lanka's National Child Protection Authority, accompanied by local police officers, seized 54 video tapes and a computer from Kelly's house in a suburb of Colombo.

NCPA chairman, Harendra De Silva, said yesterday's raid was carried out after a tip-off from a British journalist.

The Stars In Their Eyes presenter was arrested and bailed by Surrey Police last week over allegations of sexual abuse on boys under the age of 16 during the 1970s. Kelly, 52, has denied the claims.

Professor De Silva told PA News his investigation team were playing through the videos, which mostly appeared to be cartoons and children's films, from the start to the finish of each tape.

Experts would begin analysing the contents of the computer tomorrow but an initial search showed a number of adult sites had been accessed, Professor De Silva said.

He added: "If we have any evidence of any wrong-doing taking place in Sri Lanka we will take action."

He said Kelly's caretaker Aruna Rodrigo has been questioned by the NCPA team and released to return to his home, yards from Kelly's £100,000 four-bedroomed house.

Granada announced yesterday that Davina McCall is to step in for three special celebrity editions of Stars In Their Eyes. The company said it fully supported Kelly, but that "in the circumstances" he was being replaced.

Kelly was arrested by plain clothes officers as he came offstage from a performance as Captain Hook in Birmingham on Wednesday.

As soon as he was released Kelly returned to the performance of Peter Pan where he was given a rapturous applause by the audience.

Granada said he would start rehearsals in 10 days' time for Birmingham Repertory Theatre's touring version of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

He was questioned by Surrey Police at Guildford in connection with allegations of sexual abuse against boys under 16 in the 1970s.

He has been bailed until 12 March and said in a statement that he "emphatically" denied the allegations and said it had come as a "complete shock and surprise".

He said he had co-operated fully with the police and would continue to do so.

Kelly was questioned about allegations understood to have surfaced because of Operation Arundel, the inquiry which saw pop mogul Jonathan King jailed.

King, now 58, was given a seven-year jail sentence for a string of sex crimes against schoolboys, who the Old Bailey heard, were lured by his celebrity status.

King was convicted of four indecent assaults, buggery and attempted buggery on five youths aged 13 to 15 between 1983 and 1989. He still denies the charges.

Nick Mead, PA News, Independent.co.uk, 19/1/03

A COMPUTER, DOCUMENTS, AND A BOX OF KIDS' VIDEOS

POLICE working in relay carried boxes of documents out of Stars In Their Eyes presenter Matthew Kelly's holiday home yesterday.

In another container a pile of children's favourite videos could clearly be seen.

Titles included the cartoon classic Hercules, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame and the musical Mary Poppins.

Several unmarked videotapes were also seized and taken away for examination.

When police first arrived at the house in a suburb of Colombo, Sri Lanka, they found evidence that a computer had been in one of the rooms.

It was no longer in place but after an extensive search they discovered it in a bedroom cupboard. Detectives said the machine had thousands of images on its hard drive and they were taking it away for examination.

Houseboy

Initially, Kelly's houseboy Aruna Rodrigo had refused to let the police enter the £100,000 house, saying Matthew Kelly owned the place and they had no right to enter. But they showed him a search warrant and stormed in.

The four-bedroom home with swimming pool and high fence is in the heart of a district known as a paedophiles' haunt.

Harendra De Silva, who led the raid, said: "We're investigating allegations that boys as young as 12 may have been abused by British citizens visiting Mr Kelly's house."

Distressed Kelly frantically phoned Aruna from Britain as police turned his house upside down, looking for evidence of child abuse. Later police searched Aruna's house, a few yards away from Kelly's. They left those premises too with several bags of videotapes and computer discs. They also took a bundle of correspondence. Aruna will face further police questioning once the material has been analysed. He is to be quizzed over claims that he procured young children to entertain foreign tourists.

Mr De Silva, head of the Sri Lankan child protection agency, added: "One man is being questioned over procurement. We would like to question Mr Matthew Kelly and will be liaising with British police."

Kelly bought the house seven years ago.

It is in an area largely inhabited by poor fishermen who often encourage their children to entertain paedophiles to raise cash. Children as young as five have been abused by Western tourists. The kids, many of them orphaned as a result of the island's civil war, offer sex for just £1 a time-a large amount in the ravaged country. An average fisherman would expect to earn around £2 a week.

Last week undercover News of the World reporters were approached by four young boys.

"You go with me and my friends," asked one angel-faced lad aged eight. He was accompanied by three older boys, the biggest being 15.

He said: "We're very good. You can have one of us, whichever one you like. We do sex good."

When we declined his offer the boy cut his price to a mere 50p. Matthew Kelly and his pals regularly stay at his palatial holiday home. In an interview the star spoke of his fondness for Sri Lanka, saying that his perfect day would be spent there. He said: "I'd want to be in a small village in Sri Lanka.

"I have friends there and I visit as often as I can. I'd watch the sunset and then amble along the beach at dusk. Otherwise I'd just lounge around reading and watching the world go by. Ideally. I'd take off all my clothes."

Kelly, 52, is on police bail in Britain after being questioned about child sex claims that arose from the inquiry into shamed pop tycoon Jonathan King, now in jail.

Last night the father of two grown-up children played Captain Hook in the last night of a Peter Pan panto in Birmingham.

Panto

He lives alone in Chiswick, west London, while his wife of 33 years, Sarah, 53, lives in Winsford, Cheshire.

Kelly, who earns around £200,000 a year, became a regular visitor to Sri Lanka, always travelling without his family.

He used to stay in hotels on the island but liked the place so much that he decided to buy a house.

A fortnight ago houseboy Aruna told News of the World reporters: "I look after the place and get it ready for when Mr Matthew or one of his friends comes over to Sri Lanka. Some of his friends are here at the moment. Money is not a problem. Mr Matthew looks after me very well."

Aruna told how he befriended the star in 1980 when he was just 11 years old.

And he has served him faithfully since.

News of The World, 19/1/03

Third man held in Matthew Kelly investigation

Police investigating allegations of child sex abuse against the television presenter Matthew Kelly have arrested a third person in connection with their inquiry.

Record producer Steven Jolley, from Barnet, Herts, was arrested after voluntarily going to Guildford Police Station.

The 52-year-old wrote and produced 1980s chart hits for bands including Spandau Ballet, Bananarama and Kim Wilde.

Kelly, also 52, was arrested last Wednesday along with the former Bay City Rollers manager Tam Paton by Surrey Police officers investigating allegations of sexual abuse against young boys.

It is understood Jolley was scheduled to go to the police station following a police search of a property in Barnet last week.

A Surrey Police spokeswoman said: "Following two arrests last Wednesday in connection with historic allegations of sexual abuse against boys under the age of 16 years old, a 52-year-old man from Barnet, Hertfordshire, voluntarily attended Guildfo rd Police Station by appointment this afternoon.

"He was arrested and interviewed. Two addresses in Barnet and in Brentwood, in Essex, were searched by Surrey Police officers in relation to this operation last Wednesday."

Mr Kelly, of Chiswick, west London, was arrested at Birmingham Repertory Theatre last Wednesday where he had been appearing in the pantomime, Peter Pan.

He was released on bail the following day after being questioned at Guildford Police Station. He later vigorously denied that there was any truth in the allegations.

Mr Paton was arrested in Edinburgh and released on bail after being questioned at a police station in the north of England.

Ananova, 22/1/03

Matthew Kelly T-shirts withdrawn

A clothing store which was due to launch a line of T-shirts bearing Matthew Kelly's catchphrase has withdrawn them from sale.

The men's T-shirts, which carry the saying "Tonight Matthew I'm Going To Be..." had been delivered to the Peacocks stores this week.

But the company has decided to keep them off the clothes racks, following the Stars In Their Eyes presenter's arrest on child sex abuse allegations.

A spokeswoman for the Wales-based retailer says the decision has been made because the T-shirts "are inappropriate in the current circumstances".

Kelly was arrested by Surrey Police last week in connection with allegations of sexual abuse against boys under 16 in the 1970s.

He was not charged and was bailed to return on March 12.

Kelly has "emphatically denied" the allegations, saying they came as a "complete shock and surprise".

Ananova, 23/1/03

I felt I needed to respond to the following contribution, and this was my email to the author:

"It is possible that this evil lurks at the very heart of human sexuality."

"It is certain that this sexual interest (my original, incorrect, word was 'preference') exists, quite obviously, as part of human sexuality."

Each new revelation makes the heart sink a little lower. Whether you were a fan of Gary Glitter or not, it was still a grim discovery to hear that he derived his sexual pleasure from children.

It came as a surprise, that is for sure.

The jailing of Jonathan King was no less bleak. Not because those two were particularly cherished entertainers - but because they proved that paedophilia was not as rare as we wanted to believe. Welcome to reality.

The arrest on child porn charges of two police officers involved in the Soham murder inquiry was sadder still. Who could we trust if not a policeman out to get the murderer of two little girls?

Of course, you and others are unable to distinguish between professionals carrying out their duty with essential professional detachment, and the same people being, naturally, aroused by pictures, or even the real thing.

The only common factor here is 'girls'.

What you and others suggest is even less an issue, than the conundrum, "how is it that a soldier can possibly kill his enemy and at the same time be sexually aroused by comrades in his barracks?" In medico-legal terms, there is, essentially, no difference.

This is another lesson you will all need to learn.

No one knows the truth of the Pete Townshend or Matthew Kelly cases, but even the police interest in those two men has struck a similar blow.

And who, exactly, has the problem here, when these men, at this time, are innocent?

Together, all these episodes have forced us to realise that the ranks of the child abusers are not made up solely of dirty old men, unshaven and in dirty macs, hanging around playgrounds and school gates.

In fact, by far, the smallest group of actual child abusers is over the age of 50 - and once again, you directly relate those aroused by pornography to child abusers, even though the correlation and causality is not proven.

Indeed they include some of society's most admired individuals; even a judge has been arrested in the Operation Ore swoop.

Even a judge? Wow! Once again, your failure to separate sexuality from the ability to do a job, or even to operate successfully in the aspects of life - nothing new there for and intolerant and ignorant society.

Maybe we should just adjust our understanding of child abuse: to realise that it is not just the oddball who is sexually aroused by the young, but a large numbers of people.

Reality knocks, once again, as does the whole issue being clumped into 'child abuse'.

Perhaps we should go further and face a dreadful thought: that the evidence of paedophilia is now so widespread that sexual interest in the young may not be the freakish exception we once believed - but an all too common, though vile, part of human sexuality.

The exception 'you' may have believed. How can a 'part of human sexuality' be 'vile'? I presume you mean the act of child abuse is vile?

How else to understand the huge appetite Operation Ore uncovered for websites with names like Child Rape or F***ing Little Girls?

If you think this is huge and representative, then your learning curve may be even steeper than you imagined.

How else to comprehend the 250,000 individual subscriptions for The Landslide Company which served as a gateway to these wretched images?

You have seen them, have you? Although some are 'wretched', do you think the majority of child erotica is child abuse?

The people who ran Landslide were making £1million: you don't make money like that unless there is a market for your product.

Please see my site for why this is a relatively minor issue.

Or take a look at the study which found close to one in three women and one in four men had either been abused or on the receiving end of unwanted sexual attention before the age of 18. Actually, 16 should be your cut-off, but I agree in principle and would appreciate details of the study to which you refer.

Case after case suggested this is no longer the work of the occasional monster preying on kids in the playground.

No longer? Do you really think the authorities, who knew, believed that?

It's too widespread for that

Knock, please come in reality.

We have to face a more awful possibility: that this enemy lurks within human sexuality itself.

You certainly do, but, when you separate crime from sexual preference, you may find it is not so awful, and that, as with any enemy, it can be understood and negotiated with, so as to end the war - in this way, the number of casualties, on both sides, will be much reduced.

Jonathan Freedland, Daily Mirror 18/1/03.

Should It Really Be a Crime to Look at Child Pornography?

I wanted to look at some pictures of child pornography from the internet this week and then tell you all about them, but I couldn't because my stupid modem broke down. I'm not sure how the law or, for that matter, society will view my failure. The intent, clearly, was there. In mitigation I suppose I could say I was planning to do it all on your behalf and would gain no pleasure from the operation myself. That's what I could say. In which case perhaps the policemen should turn up at your house instead.

Imagine the modem had worked exactly as the smug, acne-ridden computer salesman had assured me it would. Could I have told the police, and later the courts, that my motives were in the glorious traditions of Woodward and Bernstein, James Cameron and Donal MacIntyre - ie, serious campaigning investigative journalism? Would they have scoured the bedroom floor for incriminating evidence to disprove my plea of mitigation? And why, exactly, is it a plea of mitigation in the first place? Why is it any less exploitative of the unfortunate children concerned for me to download pictures of them and write about it, in a harrumphing fashion, for this newspaper? Does it hurt them any more or any less than if I had simply downloaded the pictures for my own gratification? I would be, in my own fashion, gaining from the experience and - worse, you might argue - gaining remuneratively.

And what about the police? They would have to look at the pictures, too. And the court officials and maybe the members of the jury, all united in their unbridled repulsion. What if, secretly, one of them, poring over the evidence and sweating slightly, rather enjoyed it? Does that matter, as far as the law, or society, is concerned?

The law prohibits, in theory, even an accidental visit to a child-porn website. But we are told that prosecution would be unlikely to occur if it could be proved that the visit was, indeed, accidental. How do you prove that? No, really, officer, it was all a ghastly mistake. Will that wash?

Scotland Yard is, at present, scouring its files for evidence of a telephone call made to them, supposedly, by the rock guitarist, Pete Townshend. He says he visited a child-porn website and, appalled, rang the police to tell them about it. Does that make it OK, then, telling the police about it afterwards? Can I visit a child-porn website and, perhaps having sated my paedophilic lust with various grotesque fantasies, tell the police later how horrid it was? And get away with it? Why does that make a difference?

The latest statement from Scotland Yard suggests it makes a big difference. That, after all, is why they are searching their files for the alleged telephone call. "The timing [of the call] could obviously put a different slant on it," a police spokesman said yesterday. Why? Because it would suggest Townshend hadn't really enjoyed looking at the pictures? Is it the sexual psyche of the individual we are attempting to legislate against, or the exploitation and abuse of children? Will the authorities start poking around in Townshend's mind to discern, once and for all, what his motive was in downloading the stuff? We know Townshend enjoys pornography; he has said so. What's more, he wrote what must be the first ever pop song about masturbating to pornographic magazines, Pictures of Lily. Hell, the prosecution rests its case, M'lud.

How absurd the law is. But at least it is an appropriate reflection of our collective neurosis and confusion about paedophilia generally. The one laudable and necessary aim - to protect children from abuse - has become warped by our consuming, obsessive hatred for those who find children sexually attractive. There is no causal link between viewing child porn and abusing children. And even if there were, it would not be sufficient, within the philosophy of our judicial system, to simply assume that an unpleasant penchant for the former presupposes guilt of the latter.

How much police time is tied up in Operation Ore, the police investigation which has so far uncovered the names of 7,000 people who have visited child-porn websites? And how many children will be protected from abuse as a result of the prosecutions? No matter how vile we may consider the sexual predilections of paedophiles, we should not be in the business of putting people in prison for simply looking at things. The law should be above the blind, howling, rage of Rebekah Wade's moronic vigilantes. But there is the whiff of Salem about it all.

Rod Liddle, The Guardian, 14/1/03 http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,874336,00.html

Web Abuse

I am shocked at Rod Liddle's glib dismissal of "any causal link between viewing child porn and abusing children" (G2, January 14). People who look at such material for sexual gratification may well never progress to physical abuse, but the children in the photographs or films were abused on their behalf. Where there is no demand there is no supply. Good luck to the police in pursuing as many prosecutions as they can. The inevitable consequence will be that paedophiles will be forced to stay away from these sites for fear of discovery. Children will be protected from abuse as a result. The pornographers won't abuse them if no one's prepared to pay to watch.

Jenni Murray, The Guardian, 16/1/03

London Take Temptation Out of People's Way

If I could hug Rod Liddle for his courageous article (Should it really be a crime to look at child pornography?, G2, January 14), then I would. At last some honesty and common sense. Our only son was university-educated, in a salaried secure position for 12 years, own house, on his own since his divorce, kind, and seemingly content.

All this is irrelevant now, since one year ago his home was raided by the police, his PC confiscated and he was charged, and pleaded guilty to, 11 counts of "making" indecent pictures of children. (This predates Operation Ore; our son did not "pay to view".) He went to prison for one month and his name is on the sex offenders' register for seven years. His case was reported on the front page of the local paper, together with details of his job, his salary and the name of his street. He was branded "porn pervert" in letters two inches high.

Now he is trying to rebuild his shattered life. He has lost most of his friends, resigned from his job, moved out of his house and is claiming sickness benefit. He can't even find property insurance.

Our son is not a paedophile. Yes, he looked at these awful images, probably at times when he was lonely, depressed and had drunk too much. But he never would harm a child, or anyone. As Rod Liddle says, there is no causal link between viewing child porn and abusing children. If viewing certain images made us go out and perform the acts depicted, then we had better ban all violent films and adult porn before our civilisation is torn apart. Yes, children must be protected and those awful people who set up the abuses, film and put them on the internet must be prosecuted. But to waste police time pursuing voyeurs is nonsensical. Meanwhile, ordinary families like ours are being crucified.

Name and address supplied, The Guardian, 16/1/03

Internet is where the big growth in abuse will be

The abuse I suffered as a child came back to haunt me in a big way in adulthood. But as I quickly found, there was no national organisation that could help me.

In desperation I rang ChildLine (not easy for a 38-year-old) and I was lucky to get someone who told me that what I went through at the hands of a non-family member would have left very deep scars. It explained a lot.

Child abuse is a total betrayal of trust. When judges tell people convicted of it - teachers, pop stars, preachers or doctors - that they have "suffered enough", it makes me cringe.

A Guardian editorial six years ago said there should be a "national organisation for adult survivors of child abuse". Now there is, Napac.

With a Department of Health grant and a House of Commons launch, we have just started the first national free telephone information line for adult survivors (0800 085 3330).

In our first eight weeks we have received about 2,500 calls, 60% from women and 40% from men. That male figure is quite staggering to me.

Deputy assistant commissioner Carole Howlett , the Metropolitan police's head of child protection and spokeswoman on internet child abuse for the Association of Chief Police Officers. It's very difficult to tell whether abuse of children is increasing. The greater the media and police focus it gets, the more willing victims wil perhaps be to report it to us, particularly historical abuse.

But there has certainly been big growth for the past five years in child abuse on the internet. And that's where the big future growth will be.

Until recently people really have not realised what child abuse on the internet is. There's been this sense that, OK it's not much more serious than mucky pictures.

Every sexual image of a child on that internet is a child being physically and sexually abused and we cannot forget that. We have got to gear up our response.

The most significant piece of research done recently into links between child pornography and abuse was one that analysed people arrested in a fairly large operation in the United States for viewing or possessing child pornography. Thirty per cent had abused or were abusing children. The other frightening thing is the number of people we are arresting nationally under Operation Ore [the rolling UK investigation into thousands of Britons identified by US authorities as users of child pornography websites] who are involved in abusing their own children.

My biggest wish for child protection overall is that it becomes a ministerial priority, by which I mean that the home secretary cites it as one of the key objectives for policing nationally.

As long as child protection is not there - but street robberies and burglaries and drugs are - then it's those issues that are going to have the greater focus and attract the resources among the 43 chief constables across the country. The Met is one of a very small handful of forces which have child protection as a key priority. Also, less than 50% of London boroughs cite child protection as a priority within their local crime and disorder strategies. I find that absolutely amazing. It's not mainstream.

An absolutely critical thing I would also like to see is an IT system which is multi-agency and is completely integrated, so we have accurate and up to date intelligence and information. When a decision is being made - about whether a child should go on the at-risk register, for example - we could be confident we had all relevant information. That is not always the case.

I think police and social services are now working closer together than we've ever worked before, but sharing of information, where we've fallen down in the past, is still a key issue, particularly with health, where are confidentiality questions.

I'm currently working with health on identifying [at risk] children early and tracking them through childhood. Regularly in London, they get lost in the system when families move across boroughs.

We're also looking at a possible one-stop approach for suspected abuse victims. Under one roof the child could be physically examined, forensic evidence could be obtained and police officers could come to interview them in a video suite.

At the moment there are instances where children are being taken halfway across London, or we're having to wait 24 hours, before they can be medically and forensically examined. But as ever, it's a matter of funding.

We've cautioned, though, against the idea of a single child protection agency grouping the key statutory authorities, because blurring responsibilities can happen if the teams come together. Also there is cosiness that sets in: as agencies, it's important that we challenge and question each other.

What I do think is important is much closer working and training together. But I don't think police should become social workers; equally, I don't think social workers should become police.

Peter Saunders and Carole Howlett, The Guardian, 15/1/03

Panic On The Screens

The Pete Townshend case has highlighted our confusion over the nature and accessibility of child porn.

There is no telling at this stage whether or not Pete Townshend is a paedophile. Obviously, a committed journalist could trawl his oeuvre for ambiguity and dodgy sentiment, but given the choice, I'd rather bob him in a well and see if he drowns which, if no fairer, at least has a stronger precedent in British legal tradition, and would be more fun to watch.

Besides which, he appears to have committed a crime, and effectively pleaded guilty to it. Whatever his purpose, he admitted to paying to look at child pornography which carries a maximum sentence of five years (not the 10 that I've seen reported). His defence, that he was researching a book, seems pretty thin - given the widespread publicity of the Gary Glitter case, he ought to have known that this is illegal. A cannier operator would have pursued his research through more official channels, rather than just logging on with a credit card. But then, he is a superstar, so he may think he's exempt from the law (a lot of them do, that's why they're always driving at 120mph).

The fact is, this is an unusual crime. Not in terms of the volume of people committing it; police have the details of 7,200 subscribers to one website alone. Nor in terms of the coverage it gets, which is copious. No, in terms of the fact that its meaning is completely unknowable. I have no idea whether the offending images are real or doctored - this may sound like a nice distinction, but it must surely have a bearing on the seriousness of the crime. If real children are harmed in the production of porn, then it's a matter of such urgency that to pursue the buyers rather than the producers seems absurdly circuitous.

If, on the other hand, it's all photoshopped, then although it remains very unpleasant, it's nevertheless victimless. We know that some of this output must be authentic, since there have been children taken into care - furthermore, since we know that child abuse exists, it would be a logical conclusion that photos exist of it taking place. But the technological advances of photography have effectively nixed its legitimacy as proof of reality; a photo is no more necessarily true now than a painting is. To become inflamed by images whose truth content is open to question seems irrational. Naturally, nobody wants adults to have lascivious thoughts about children, still less to have those thoughts serviced and legitimised by an online community. But the internet has thrown up questions about the ethics, legality and authenticity of porn, and at the moment we're letting hysteria supply the answers.

For instance, we've all seen nauseating images of adults on the web, because we all have a friend who's bored at work and sends them out for fun. Nobody has a problem with this, because nobody believes they're real.

Legally, even if they were real, that wouldn't be a problem because the subject is an adult, and consenting. However, if it transpired that the image was authentic, the notion of consent would carry very little weight, since it's almost impossible to see a person, say, trussed up like a chicken with projectile excrement arcing into their mouth and think they're doing it for fun. So, in deciding what is and isn't acceptable, we rely much more on our incredulity than on our understanding of adult sexuality, and rightly so, since true scatological masochists are hard to find, while photoshop is pretty easy to use. The fact our understanding (that it's fine because it's fabricated) dovetails with the word of the law (that it's fine because they're adults) is coincidence, rather than coalescence.

Further, we rely on our lack of interest - so, if I got some spam email with the subject line "twin-on-twin sex; guaranteed 15-year-olds!" (which I have had), I won't break the law because I can't be bothered. Clearly, the "twins" won't be 15, they'll be 29, and they won't be twins, they'll have been to the same plastic surgeon.

But if I do open that mail, I have presumably broken the law, although I can't be sure of that because the only people who know what this law entails are the police and the people who've broken it.

Another thing I don't know is whether you have to input your credit card details on a porn site in order to have broken the law. I'm assuming you do, because you can always come across something by accident and it would be daft to institute a law that didn't allow for that. On the other hand, I have no way of finding out, since even running a Google search on "child pornography" could land illegal matter on to my hard-drive which I would then, irrefutably, be in possession of.

Ultimately, most of us have no idea what child porn looks like, nor will we - unless we have a professional interest - ever meet anyone who admits to knowing. It could be so manifestly real that it's horrific, or it could be as airbrushed as the chicken lady. It could be five-year-olds or it could be pretend 15-year-olds. The only people with the answers are the police - the same police, remember, who can be found storming art galleries because they contain pictures of children on beaches without any pants on.

There has been insufficient debate, and weird opacity in this matter. Everything about it resonates with mystery, panic and taboo. That is not how sensible laws come about.

Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 14/1/03 http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,874323,00.html

Is it a Crime Just to Look at Pictures of Children?

Can we convict some for their thoughts, while excusing others, such as Townshend, for their actions?

The trickle of news stories has involved the following: Two politicians (said to be former ministers), a senior customs director (working in computers), civil servants, City businessmen, teachers (including one at a leading public school), university lecturers, magistrates, social workers, police officers (most notably two involved in last summer's Soham murder investigation, most dramatically one who attempted suicide after facing 27 allegations relating to the downloading of porn), lawyers, priests, a "television presenter" and "a legendary rock star".

All these men are among the 7,272 or so whose credit card details were handed to the British police in the wake of the US paedophile sting codenamed Operation Avalanche a year ago. Each and every one, by virtue of the fact that they appeared on the list at all, was a suspect. Investigation of the list has resulted, so far, in 1,300 arrests, with priority given to those who had committed sex offences before, and those who work with children.

At the time of writing though, only one had been subjected to trial by media. Poor old Pete Townshend is busy spilling his guts to the press, desperate to explain that, while his dark places are crepuscular enough to warrant researching a paedophile website, they are not so black that he feels anything but revulsion at what he sees.

His defence is compelling. He says that he looked at child pornography on the internet as part of his work on his autobiography, in which he writes about the child abuse he underwent himself when he was five or six. He cites the rock opera Tommy as containing material which draws on that buried experience, and also much charitable work in which he tries to combat child abuse. His account is entirely credible.

His actions, none the less, are condemned by all of the expert agencies working in this field. Or as Mark Stephens, vice-chairman of the Internet Watch Foundation, puts it: 'It is wrong-headed, misguided and illegal to look at or download or even to pay to download paedophiliac material, and if you do so you are likely to go to prison." Which is good advice for any person curious enough to imagine for any reason that they may be justified in trying to find and look at this sort of material themselves.

It is not likely, surely, that Mr Townshend will be going to prison, though. Certainly the police do not seem to be in any great hurry to help him on his way there. After all, it was he himself who contacted them when he read about Operation Avalanche, and its little sister investigation in Britain, Operation Ore. They did not concern themselves too much with his confessions then.

For those who believe that there can be no smoke without fire, such an investigation would not mean much anyway. Operation Ore has been criticised in the last year because so much time has elapsed since users were alerted to the fact that they could be traced, that any conclusive evidence could already have been disposed of by now.

In turn, the police complain that inspecting a computer alone costs an average of £2,000 and that they simply do not have the resources properly to investigate the sort of mass allegations of paedophilia that investigations abroad, chiefly in the US, are now generating.

The situation is freighted with irony. The internet has revealed to us how prevalent paedophilia is, and is also – as long as people continue to attempt to make money out of it – providing so much evidence connecting individuals to paedophile rings that our law enforcement agencies are swamped by it.

It would surely be best if all 7,272 British subscribers to this internet site had by now been investigated. Instead, by being put in a position where they have to prioritise, the police themselves are tacitly suggesting that looking at such material is not such a serious matter. The people targeted in this operation are the people the police judge – by the most screamingly obvious of criteria – to be in positions where they may be committing actual abuse. Their means of doing so are crude, to say the least. I'd feel a little happier with this situation, for example, if the police were not prioritising just previous offenders and those who work with children, but those who have children or step-children themselves. We know only too well now that it is from parental figures that children are most at risk of abuse.

But at the same time I am deeply troubled by the confusion many people feel about the quality of the gaze that is directed at pictures of children. Mr Stephens is right to condemn all consumption of paedophiliac images, but this is not where our only confusions lie. The most absurd recent example of how far our fear of abuse of image can be taken was the school that insisted that parents wishing to record their children taking part in a nativity play must seek written permission.

It is undeniable that paedophiles are themselves at pains to excuse their behaviour when looking at images which have not been procured by abusing children. I have, on other occasions when writing about paedophilia, received awful and pitiful letters from men explaining that they look at images of children – sometimes simply torn from shopping catalogues – and do not think they should be penalised because they are causing no actual harm to the child whose image excites them.

Usually, they claim as well that looking in such a way at such images is a means of controlling their urges. They say that without pictures on which to vent their feelings, they may not be responsible for their actions.

Attempting to get across to them the fact that nobody wants pictures of their children to be used in this way, no matter the lack of actual harm, is nigh on impossible, as I have learnt from trying.

There has been at least one recent occasion in which a British judge indicated that such excuses were legitimate.

The images available through the Landslide Portal, which have given rise to Operation Avalanche, were not innocent pictures, looked upon in a manner that made a travesty of them, but travesties in themselves, in which actual abuse was portrayed. So it is worth thinking about, this paradox whereby Mr Townshend's viewing of images of real harm being done may not lead to criminal liability, while another person's viewing of innocent snaps of bathtime may be freighted with paedophilic intent.

There is an amazingly difficult line to be drawn here, whereby unacceptable behaviour has to be defined not only by the securing of e-mail addresses or of credit card numbers, but by what we feel sure goes on in the mind of the person consuming the image. Can we convict some people for their thoughts, while excusing others, such as Mr Townshend, for their actions?

It seems that until we can find some better way of dealing with paedophiliac intent, we must. Which is why it is wrong that the police did not interview and investigate Mr Townshend, and thousands of others, long ago. I for one would rather that paedophiles stuck to pictures in shopping catalogues, instead of surfing the Net for something whose innocence was not defiled only by the eyes of the beholder.

The mastermind behind the Landslide Portal is now serving an unlikely 1,335 years in prison. But very many of his 300,000 subscribers will simply have moved on to another provider.

Deborah Orr, The Independent, 14/1/03

Remember: Paedophiles are People Too

Could the monster Gary Glitter once have been one of the innocent abused children we so want to protect?

Poor Pete Townshend, who probably isn't even a paedophile, is the latest victim of our – yes, our, not his – sick obsession with child abuse. Every time a child abuse story is thrust on to our front pages, I search fruitlessly for coverage that will answer basic questions about paedophiles. And every time I am shocked to realise that, in all the rotting acres of newsprint expended on this topic, there has been almost no discussion of such serious questions as: Can paedophiles be treated? How did they become this way? How can we reduce the odds of them abusing children, either for the first time or as repeat offenders?

Let us, for once, look instead not at the froth but at the facts. Press coverage and popular myth invite us to see paedophiles as cold, clever Machiavellian plotters. Sometimes this is true: the people who ran the "Wonderland Club", the foul paedophile ring that was finally shut down in 2000, do seem to have been intelligent and worryingly calculating. But far more often, they are sad, pitiful losers, the furthest of outcasts from our society. Last year I visited Maidstone Prison's Sex Offenders Wing, where Britain's most notorious child molesters, including Jonathan King, are held. Far from being the Hannibal Lecters I had expected, these paedophiles were mumbling, pitiful wrecks – barely literate, with no social skills or ability to make adult contact. One of them, Ray, did not look at me once during a half-hour conversation, his eyes fixed on the ground and his vocabulary fixed at the level of a five year old.

The lengthy and extensive sex offender treatment programmes they were on did seem to have genuinely made them think for the first time about the damage they were causing; when they had abused children before, they had been too mentally limited and socially stunted to understand that they were causing horrific damage. After all, they had grown up being told by their own abusers that this sort of behaviour was normal. Although what they had done was undoubtedly horrific, they, too, were clearly victims: of severely low intelligence, of their own distant but ever- present sexual abuse, and too often of poverty.

Even the intelligent paedophiles – like the two as yet unnamed Members of Parliament whom the police are investigating – have a strong chance of having been molested themselves, and therefore of having had their sexuality moulded at the earliest possible age into a horribly deformed shape.

Our hysterical climate about paedophilia had actually made them more likely to offend. As Jim, a thirtysomething man, explained to me: "I could never tell no one [sic], not even my best friend, how I felt because then they'd know I was a paed... a paedoph... [he couldn't quite say the word] and then they'd say I was just evil and totally beyond the pale. If I had been able to talk to somebody about it, I think I might have been able to control it more. I might not have, you know, actually hurt a kid. I might have been strong enough to get help. But because everywhere it was saying I was evil, even if I had not done nothing, I began to think I was evil and then I done it."

He began to abuse a six-year-old girl. If we had a culture that saw paedophilia not as an irrevocable sign of the beast but as a sad reality that will always afflict some people – people who then need our support and help to ensure that they do not act on their sexual urges – then that girl and hundreds like her might have been protected.

Pete Townshend says that he was a victim of sexual abuse, and that was why he felt so strongly about the subject that he looked at child porn. I do not know if he is attracted to children, but if he is, it would be typical for him to have suffered at the hands of a paedophile. Ray Wyre, an expert on paedophiles (they do exist, though we rarely call them), explains that "66 per cent of paedophiles claim to have been victims of sexual abuse, although that falls to 36 per cent when you use a lie detector". He added: "Paedophilia is often about learnt behaviour. The abuser almost clones himself by taking power over his victim, because, as the victim grows, he mimics this behaviour."

Most of the paedophiles I met had given credible testimony of sexual abuse. We do not like to admit this, because it muddies our moral indignation. Could the monster Gary Glitter once have been one of the innocent abused children we so want to protect? Can there be mitigating factors that make paedophiles human?

All of this will be hard for right-wingers to accept. They want straightforward evil; to condemn, not understand. But there is a hard truth that we on the left will have to accept, too: paedophilia is an intractable sexual orientation, like heterosexuality or homosexuality, that cannot be "trained out" of a person. This goes against our natural belief in the possibility of redemption and the possibility of criminals being allowed a "fresh slate" after their release.

Research by the Australian psychologist JK Marques and his colleagues, published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behaviour, indicates that a man who is sexually attracted to children always will be.

We cannot hope for a cure – that is not realistic, and paedophiles can never be released from the hell of being attracted to people who are incapable of reciprocating. However, they can undergo counselling that reduces their chances of reoffending substantially. (I was persuaded of this by the wealth of evidence forwarded to me by academic psychologists since I last wrote about this topic, where I said I suspected that even limited treatment would not work. Home Office research has proved me wrong).

The best we can hope for, then, is to help paedophiles to control their urges and to desist from harming children, and to imprison indefinitely the small minority – such as Sidney Cooke – who do not want to stop. This can obviously be done through the sex offender treatment programmes in prisons – and the prison officers and counsellors in Maidstone who toil at this horrific work every day are quietly heroic – but it would also be a good idea for the Government to launch a high-profile campaign that can reach paedophiles before they begin to offend.

This could take the form of adverts on national television, which should carry the message: "If you find yourself sexually attracted to children, we will help you to make sure you do not act on it." After all, most people who find themselves attracted to children have memories of their own abuse, and, when reasoned with, do not want to inflict that on somebody else. There needs to be a point where paedophiles can find help other than in prison. We should promise therefore to provide them with a therapist who will be available 24/7 to stay with them if ever they feel tempted to offend; who will keep them occupied and not alone; and who will, if necessary, house them in secure gated communities where they will never have access to children.

Instead of driving them underground as we do at present, where their only source of friendship and comfort is to get involved with on-line paedophile rings, we need to draw them out into an environment where they can be supported in their efforts not to offend. It is not perfect – but it is far better than the current situation, where under the guise of caring about children, we are making it far more likely that child molesters will strike.

Johann Hari, The Independent, 15/1/03

Operation Ore: Can The UK Cope?

The UK's largest ever police hunt against internet paedophiles - Operation Ore - has resulted in about 1,300 arrests out of a list of 6,000 suspects, but could be putting a strain on the criminal justice system.

The arrest of a computer consultant in Texas led to an international criminal investigation which is putting pressure on police forces in three continents.

Thomas Reedy was jailed last year for 1,335 years for running an internet child internet porn ring which was far bigger than police had imagined.

Credit card details used to access material gave police direct leads on 250,000 people worldwide, including The Who's Pete Townshend, who insists he was merely researching the subject.

Last year, police in the UK complained they lack the resources to investigate all the names passed to them by the FBI.

I doubt the system will be able to deal competently, and in a way that protects children, as these people go through the system - Donald Findlater, Child protection expert.

Now there are fears other parts of the justice system may creak under the pressure.

Donald Findlater was manager of the Wolvercote Clinic in Surrey - the only residential treatment centre in England for paedophiles, until its closure last year.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Operation Ore has presented enormous challenges which are currently being faced by the police in terms of properly investigating and accumulating evidence.

"The next challenge will be faced by the courts and probation service and maybe the prisons.

"We are going to see this large bulge of this group of individuals going through the system.

"And frankly I doubt the system will be able to deal competently, and in a way that protects children, as these people go through the system."

Mr Findlater said it was important to assume that people who viewed images of children were potential abusers.

In the US, he said, one-third of those found to have possession of indecent images were actively abusing children.

He added that treatment could reduce offending, although it offered no cure.

Home Office minister Hilary Benn said the government had implemented measures to deal with the matter.

Part of the role of the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, set up at a cost of £25m, was to support police forces by giving technical expertise.

And the National Criminal Intelligence Service also took some of the strain by initially sifting through the 7,000 names to prioritise who they considered were the worst offenders.

Mr Benn said there were also six-month, intensive courses in prisons which gave treatment to convicts to reduce repeat offences.

He said in many cases the images were of very young children.

The minister told Today: "That is why this is such a serious issue with tough penalties and why there has to be effective treatment with strong supervision once the offenders are back in the community, to make sure we take every possible step we can to protect our children."

He said in the vast majority of cases there was no excuse for visiting a site and using a credit card to download material.

John Carr, an internet consultant for the charity NCH Action for Children, said 95% of the 1,300 arrested had no criminal record.

He told the same programme: "We've got to stop thinking about paedophiles or people who use child pornography as the dirty old man in the raincoat."

BBC News, 14/1/03 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2652465.stm

Last week the Home Office published a paper on safe internet use. Several voluntary proposals are dependent for their success "on wide take-up" within an unwilling industry. The government ought to concentrate on those who upload child pornography, service providers that host the sites and the telecoms firms whose lines are used to access this illegal material. Then putting "temptation in people's way" will be avoided.

John Beyer, Director, Mediawatch-UK, The Guardian, 16/1/03

Child Abuse, Or a Crime in The Eye of The Beholder?

Contrary to the spirit of the age, I think we should have a graduated response to those troubled by a sexual interest in children.

The term “abuse” is now being used in a hopelessly unspecific way, covering behaviour ranging from the resting of an adult’s hand on a child’s shoulder for longer than appropriate to the sexual assault of babies. The intention may be to jolt people into understanding that even the lesser offences are a serious matter, but (as with “rape”) there is a danger that by always using the strongest available word, we may leach language of its power to shock, and rob ourselves of words we need — even in talking to ourselves — to mark important distinctions.

I rarely notice in others and have never experienced in myself any sexual interest in children, but I dare say that as a child at school or in the Boys’ Brigade I may have been touched, patted, cuddled or wrestled by an adult whose accompanying thoughts (though I was unaware of them) may have strayed a bit; but I do not conclude that I have been abused and feel no anger at people who never hurt me.

Make a criminal of someone in his own imagination, make him feel he has already crossed his personal Rubicon, and control over his subsequent behaviour is lost not gained. Criminalise tens of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens for viewing on computer screens images suggestive of thoughts which very few of them would ever have contemplated carrying into action, parade their disgrace through the newspapers, and you may, with the most moral of motives, be committing an injustice.

I am unsettled by the application of the 1978 Protection of Children Act to computer images. This week’s rumours, and the leaking to the press by the police of names which will now be ruined whatever their bearers’ culpability, is disturbing for more than the obvious reasons.

Disturbing first for a reason you may be sure Fleet Street will hardly mention. The increasingly routine practice of the British police in under-the-counter briefing of the media with information about arrests, cautions and even suspicions is an absolute disgrace. It should be a sackable offence in a police officer, but, instead, police stations establish informal but mutually understood lines of communication with reporters; and who believes there is no quid pro quo?

The practice is a denial of the human rights of those thus attacked, and seriously corrupt. There is no effective redress for the individual whose reputation may be permanently wrecked, and you can be sure the media will never take up his complaint. All sides to these deals should be ashamed and I cannot understand why it is not dealt with. What does it say about the professional ethos, the institutional morality and the managerial competence of our police service? But the week’s news about Operation Ore — the investigation into internet child pornography — bothers me for other reasons, too. I am uncomfortable that it should be an offence to look at something.

These are sensitive matters, and it is as well to take a dry-ish look first at the legal background. The mere possession of obscene material (of any kind, not only child-related) has not normally been an offence. The Obscene Publications Act and associated measures have concerned themselves with the publication of and trafficking in obscenity. Obscenity has been (rather problematically) defined in a commonsense way, the law’s targets being those who publish, distribute, import or post such material. Individual consumers have been left alone.

The 1978 Protection of Children Act went further, aiming to stop the very creation of indecent material if it involved children. In 1994 that statute was toughened to include what we might call “virtual” children — or “pseudo- photographs” created or altered by computer graphics — so that even if no real child was involved, the generation of images of children became an offence. But it remained the case that those who simply possessed or saw such material were not the law’s target.

In 1999, however, the Court of Appeal ruled that to call up an image on a computer screen was more than having it: it was “making” it. So the action of touching a key on a PC keyboard might put the viewer in the same case as those who took the photograph or sold the images.

The misconception has been gaining ground this week that it is buying the pictures (with a credit card) which constitutes the offence, but this is not so. Credit card purchase is simply the means the police at present use to track down offenders. If the day should come (it may) when traffic for which no viewer is paying can be more routinely monitored, a new class of gratuitous viewer will come into the criminal frame without any change to the law. The criminal act is the intentional downloading of a paedophile picture, an act which in principle can best be compared with the picking up and opening of a book entitled Child Porn, an action which remains lawful.

To put it at its minimum, if you, using computer graphics, generate an obscene apparent photograph of a wholly imaginary child, and e-mail it to me under the subject heading “child porn”, and I open the e-mail, we are both guilty under the Protection of Children Act.

This comes as near as dammit to deeming criminal the very act of looking at something. What arguments are advanced for such a law?

I have been discussing this widely with friends this week and, analysing their responses, find they fall into three clusters. The first, which I shall call the Illegal Ivory (Protection of Elephants) argument, is that because the use of a child to create pornographic pictures abuses that child, we should crack down on the trade in such pictures as an indirect way of discouraging further exploitation of children; and this is best done by criminalising the consumer as well as the merchant.

But when I have put it to those who advance the Protection of Elephants argument that soon we shall be able to make child porn without using real children, this does not seem to turn them into libertarians on the issue; more often they shift ground to the second cluster of responses.

This is that looking at something will quite likely lead to wanting to try it. This — I call it the Catch Them Before They Start argument — suggests that pictures feed a perversion: today’s web browser is tomorrow’s child molester. As an argument, “one thing will lead to another” does have great intuitive appeal. My hunch, however, is that the facts may not bear it out. The question is capable of research.

Plainly anyone who does abuse children will often have been drawn to child-abusing pictures too, but does the causality work the other way? Do the readers of penny-dreadfuls find themselves impelled towards murder? Or might gawping at pictures in the privacy of one’s own home serve as a safety valve or substitute, the living out in the imagination of what we know we couldn’t and shouldn’t do in the real world?

I genuinely do not know whether web browsing serves best as substitute for or stimulant to action, and in this state of unknowing am not (for example) attracted to the idea of banning car chases on television because couch potatoes may prove copycats and run people down.

But when I argue thus with the Catch Them Before They Start protagonists they seem surprisingly uninterested in the possibility of using research to help settle the argument. Crudely summarised, their response is: “It’s bad, it’s disgusting, nobody should get pleasure from looking at such things, and even if we can’t prove how or whom it hurts, we should stop them at once.” I call this third cluster of responses the Punish These Beasts Now argument, and I suspect it underlies and nourishes the first two.

I do not entirely disparage it. Nobody wants to live in a society where other people are taking pleasure in seeing disgusting things, whether or not they act on it. I have always been revolted by my countrymen’s strange delight in close-up inspections of the results of traffic accidents or medical pictures of deformities, and feel it must somehow degrade people, but — unable to demonstrate any clear link with any criminal behaviour — I would not criminalise morbidity.

It seems to me a useful general principle in law, on to which we might try where possible to hang, that people should be punished for what they do rather than what they may be thought likely to do, or what they want to see, or what they might think while they are seeing it.

To look at pictures is a kind of fantasising. We can call a picture to the mind’s eye, or we can call up a picture on a screen. That the latter involves a tiny but observable physical action may allow lawmakers to decree that in this case — but not the first — the individual has “made” the picture, but this, I suggest, is not the real reason for prosecuting him. The real reason is that he indulged a fantasy of which we disapprove.

It unsettles me that this should become a crime.

Matthew Parris, TimesOnline, 18/1/03

Our New Wonderland of Human Depravity.

It is the private equivalent of modern warfare, with its smart bombs and apparent lack of collateral damage

One by one, the high-profile suspects are brought into the spotlight: the rock star, the deputy prison governor, the civil servant, the former teacher. Soon to come, we are told, will be a couple of MPs and another "legendary pop star". There has been nothing too startling in this so far. Since the 1950s, rock music has been associated with a fondness for youth that is often taken too far. Prison officers are close to criminality. The pervy pen-pusher, dodgy music master and kinky politician are familiar figures from the scandal pages.

But the carefully leaked reports surrounding Operation Ore have suggested that the 7,000 or so individuals suspected of having downloaded images of child pornography from a website do not conform to the popular image of the paedophile – a mad-eyed oddball living alone in a bedsit. They are mostly, we are told, respectable family types who have until now seemed to live normal, irreproachable lives.

Already, a note of uncertainty has begun to appear in press reports. Not so long ago, the message seems to be, we knew who the enemies of innocence were. They were other people, strangers to normality, criminals whose very complexions and facial expressions set them apart from the rest of us. Now, they could be your neighbour. They could be Daddy, working on the household accounts upstairs in his office. They could be you or me.

Something interesting and unnerving is being revealed by the sheer scale of this case which, it should be remembered, was caused when a single illegal website of the many hundreds on the internet was busted. The potential for badness, for the heady adventure of breaking rules or taking an inadmissible short-cut, has always been part of human nature. Some resist temptation out of genuine moral choice but many – probably most of us – keep more or less on the straight and narrow for fear of being found out.

When the chance to misbehave without being detected offers itself, few resist as the well-publicised case of the Coventry cashpoint machines, confirmed only this week. Although only one family was convicted of withdrawing huge amounts of money from faulty cash-dispensers, a whole community was cheerfully helping itself for a while. "Everyone in the village caught on," one of the accused told the court. "If we went to the machine after midnight, there was a huge queue."

Nice, middle-class folk were probably not part of that particular scam – queuing up to steal at midnight is risky and undignified, after all – but they are every bit as likely to give in to their potential for badness.

The internet has brought temptation into the home, introducing an entirely new and 21st century form of sin. Until now, those with desires of which society disapproves, ranging from common-or-garden adultery to the wilder shores of decadence, have had to take action in order to satisfy them. Infidelity involves effort, nerve and organisation; paying a visit to a prostitute or a porn emporium involves the risk of humiliation and exposure. In almost every case, self-disgust is never far away. Now, thanks to the ruthless ingenuity of the porn industry, a wonderland of depravity, catering to the very worst in human nature, is available in the home to anyone with a computer and access to the internet. The most slothful and risk-averse of couch-potatoes can duck and dive through the Web and discover what it is like to be the pervert that they have eagerly read about in the press. The sin here is almost religious in its purity, offering the ultimate temptation, the nastiest fantasies effortlessly visualised, a quiet, seedy, forbidden thrill without consequence. It is a private equivalent of clean modern warfare, with its high technology, its smart bombs, its apparent lack of collateral damage.

The problem is that, in an age of sophisticated decadence, the appetite becomes jaded. One moment, Daddy has taken a break from the accounts to slip into a website porn shop, the next he is bored with the banal cliché sex that is on display. He wants more and worse – true, unambiguous badness. Inevitably, the desire born of boredom and satiety leads him towards the one crime that, by any normal standards, is unforgivable and beyond the pale, that against innocence itself.

It may or may not be true that this form of addiction will one day lead Daddy to switch off his computer and seek to enact in reality what he has experienced in cyberspace. What is undeniably the case is that his activities will have a direct consequence: all over the world, as a direct result of his vice, terrible crimes are being committed and young lives are blighted almost before they begin.

Soon there will be anguished headlines about the hidden evil in our midst. Politicians and policemen will quite rightly be taking steps to control the internet. But behind it all lurks bigger, more complex questions of private morality, of individual choice and responsibility, and of the limits a liberal society should place on itself.

Terence Blacker, The Independent, 17/1/03

Calm The Witch-Hunt

Even child porn suspects have rights.

The first group of victims in the current police investigation into child pornography on the internet are easy to identify: the children being brutally sexually abused in photographs or videos. Just one title from the thousands of pornographic websites says it all: Child Rape. The world's biggest criminal investigation into pornography began after an FBI raid on two internet membership sites in the US. They provided access to 300 pay-to-view pornographic websites, allowing the agents to collect the names of 75,000 repeat users, of whom 7,270 lived in the UK. The British names were passed on to Scotland Yard and have led to 1,300 search warrants and 1,200 arrests, involving judges, barristers, celebrities, hospital consultants, university lecturers, police officers, civil servants and a deputy prison governor.

But there is a second group of victims for whom there will be less public sympathy, but who need some protection: the suspects. Like the US, the UK is in the middle of a moral panic over paedophiles. It is in the nature of such panics that civil rights get forgotten. A witch-hunt is under way. A succession of names of repeat users of pornographic sites have been leaked. They range from unknown civil servants to high profile celebrities. The nefarious back-scratching between tabloid reporters and police is in full swing. One week ago the tabloid press splashed on a "rock star bombshell", forcing Who guitarist Pete Townshend to end the speculation by issuing a statement admitting he had visited pornographic sites for a book he was writing. There is no more vulnerable suspect than someone accused of paedophilia. It is regarded as the most heinous of crimes, by both the public and prisoners alike. Many arrests never lead to trial, yet once named, the suspect's life is ruined, even if eventually he is found not guilty. Two suspects in the current operation have already committed suicide. Even now, the tabloids are searching for the identities of two Labour MPs said to have been on the list.

Not everyone who visits a child pornographic site is a paedophile, but US research, which is disputed, suggests that a third of them might be. The reason why it is right to make visiting such sites illegal is not because viewing such pornography can turn one into a paedophile, but because people who use such sites encourage the pornography producers to commit further crimes against children in new films. Although the police are committed to investigating all 7,270 names, it looks as though they are being sensible about the outcomes and issuing many of the offenders with a caution. There have been few prosecutions to date. The suspects have been put into three categories: people with access to children or who are already on the sex offender register; people in positions of authority; low risk lookers. It is the first two categories that require closest scrutiny.

Ministers should pursue three reforms: stricter confidentiality rules for all squads in the operation; the recruitment of more technicians to end the long waits before confiscated hard disks can be analysed; and an urgent review of the Protection of Children Act, passed in a rush in 1978 as a private member's measure, that does not even include a definition of obscenity. Meanwhile, the best news is the readiness of credit card companies to help starve pornographic sites of income. Visa is scanning thousands of sites a day. Credit card officials are due to meet FBI officials next week. Now the service providers must follow.

Leader, The Guardian, 18/1/03 A 'Paedophile' Witch-hunt? A Media Circus? Or is Britain Really a Nation of Celebrity Sex Suspects?

The question is: who's next? Will it be one of the two former Labour ministers, or another television presenter? Or perhaps another internationally known pop star will be named as the subject of a police inquiry into serious sexual offences, his picture emblazoned across newspaper front pages, the press pack camped on his doorstep.

What is certain is that in the wake of the Pete Townshend and Matthew Kelly cases this week, it is only a matter of time before the identity of the next celebrity suspect is leaked to the media and the cycle of naming and shaming will begin again.

Indeed, it is a cycle that follows a familiar pattern: the first hints in the tabloids of "a well-known name" linked to paedophilia or child porn. Then, one media outlet is brave or foolish enough to use the name – and suddenly it's open season on that person's private life and public work. Then comes the high-profile arrest by police, accompanied by a media scrum and the popping of a thousand flashbulbs.

In some cases – Gary Glitter and Jonathan King, for example – the accused are guilty of awful crimes. But other cases – such as that of David Jones, the former Southampton Football Club manager – where individuals are cleared by a jury but must live with the stigma for the rest of their lives, raise serious questions about whether there are sufficient safeguards in place in both the media and the criminal justice system to protect the reputations of the innocent.

Whatever the outcome of the Townshend and Kelly cases, for the rest of their lives both men will see events of the past few days revisited every time their names are mentioned in the media. At the same time, if either of these cases does reach court, can they be guaranteed a fair trial? Or, as Townshend is reported to have said last weekend, "I haven't been charged with anything. But I think I'm fucked.''

The case of Mr Jones is a reminder of what can happen. In 1999, as manager of the Premiership club Southampton, Mr Jones was arrested by Merseyside detectives investigating child abuse allegations – part of the nationwide inquiry into abuse in care homes in the 1970s and 1980s. Mr Jones has worked in care homes in his native Merseyside.

A man well-liked within the football business, he endured 18 months of personal and professional turmoil before the charges were dropped in December 2000, after one of his accusers refused to give evidence in court. He had been given leave of absence by his club to fight the case, but was replaced by Glenn Hoddle before the trial. Dismissing the charges, the judge at Liverpool Crown Court congratulated him on the "restraint and dignity'' with which he had behaved, and added: "There will be people who are going to think there is no smoke without fire ... Such an attitude would be wrong. No wrongdoing on your part has been established.''

The judge's comments made little difference to his club, which did not offer him his old job back, or to those on the terraces who continue to chant insults at him at matches he now attends as manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Similar cases, such as that of Quinten Hann, the leading snooker player who was cleared of rape offences last year, raise the question of whether anonymity should be granted to anyone accused of sex offences. This had been the case, but the law was changed in the late 1980s because of the practical difficulties it created. If, for instance, a rape suspect escaped custody, the police could not issue a warning naming him as a potential rapist without getting judicial permission.

The Home Office, the judiciary and civil rights pressure groups such as Liberty are in rare agreement that the overriding principle of openness is a vital ingredient in the criminal justice system, while acknowledging the stress to some in specific cases. John Wadham, director of Liberty, said: "The right to open justice is a fundamental one and we believe that defendants should be tried in public and the public should know what goes on.''

Why single out sex offenders for anonymity and name those accused of even more serious crimes, such as murder? How would anonymity for sex offences apply where other offences are involved? Harry Fletcher, of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: "While cases like Townshend and Kelly do raise the issue of anonymity, it is difficult to see how to draw the line.'' What all sides agree on is that matters would be simpler if both the police and the media behaved themselves. The media should be well aware that the provisions of the Contempt of Court Act, which restrict the amount of background material that can be published, apply at the point of arrest and not, as is sometimes commonly supposed, at the point of charge. This has allowed newspapers to cite examples of Townshend's work as showing his interest in child abuse. Townshend has claimed that his interest arises from being abused as a child and his campaigning against child abuse.

The reluctance of government law officers to take action against the media in all but a few very high profile cases – such the Sunday Mirror's fine for its coverage during the trial of the Leeds footballers Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate – and the tendency of judges to dismiss defence claims of prejudice at the outset of trials has given the media considerable licence. Mr Wadham said: "My real concern is that the disclosure of details of [a suspect's] background creates real problems for people getting a fair trial. This is not simply in relation to celebrity sex cases, but the issue of terrorist crimes as well.''

Despite the fact that the Association of Chief Police Officers has warned all police forces that anyone under investigation, but not charged, should not be named, it is inevitable that famous names will unofficially leak out. Scotland Yard has still not officially named Townshend as the 57-year-old man they have interviewed.

However it is likely that somewhere in the Metropolitan Police lies the source of the original story which prompted him to identify himself. And it is quite possible that, at this very moment, that same person is scanning the list of thousands of people who logged on to paedophile websites and which forms the cornerstone of Operation Ore, in search of yet more famous names.

Six days of high-profile revelations

SATURDAY 11 JANUARY: The Daily Mail reports that a "legendary British rock star" is under investigation for allegedly downloading child porn. His name, credit card details and e-mail address were said to be on a list of people passed to police involved in Operation Ore.

SUNDAY 12 JANUARY: Newspapers carry a full statement issued by the Who guitarist Pete Townshend, above, in which he admits he paid to view a site for "research" into a campaign against child pornography. Mr Townshend, 57, insists he is not a paedophile.

MONDAY 13 JANUARY: A dozen police officers visit Mr Townshend's home in Richmond, southiwest London and subsequently arrest him. Two MPs are also reportedly facing investigation for paying to gain access to the same illegal website used by Mr Townshend.

TUESDAY 14 JANUARY: A senior employee at the London Assembly, Yusef Azad, 39, above, is arrested and bailed over allegations that he accessed paedophile material on the internet. Terry McLaren, 47, governor of a training prison in Oxfordshire, was also arrested and bailed.

WEDNESDAY 15 JANUARY: The TV presenter Matthew Kelly is arrested and held overnight at a Surrey police station, as part of an investigation into alleged abuse of boys in the 1970s. Police also arrest Tam Paton, former manager of the Bay City Rollers, in Edinburgh.

THURSDAY 16 JANUARY: Reports that police are investigating dozens of "showbiz stars and political figures", including celebrities who formed part of Jonathan King's friends, in connection with alleged offences against children. Mr Kelly was bailed after 20 hours' questioning.

Double trouble: the two investigations from which the current allegations originate

Operation Ore

The largest ever British police investigation into internet child porn. It began after the US Postal Service uncovered a subscriber website featuring child porn called Landslide. This was being run in Texas by a couple making millions of dollars a year from more than 75,000 worldwide subscribers.

Subscribers used their credit cards to access images of children as young as one being abused.

The British authorities were passed the details, from credit card numbers and email addresses, of about 6,500 people living in the UK. Of these, 1,100 lived in London, 700 in Scotland, 279 in Cambridgeshire, 200 in Kent and another 200 in Surrey. Of those suspects, around 1,300 have already been arrested. They include teachers, doctors, a judge and soldiers.

Fifty police officers have also been arrested, including Detective Constable Brian Stevens, one of the family liaison officers taking part in the Soham murder inquiry.

Thomas Reedy was involved in running the website. He is now serving several life sentences in the United States.

Operation Arundel

Grew out of the original inquiry into the activities of Jonathan King, the pop mogul. King, 58, was jailed at the Old Bailey for seven years in November 2001 for sex offences against boys. He was convicted of four indecent assaults, buggery and attempted buggery on five youths aged 13 to 15 between 1983 and 1989.

The offences came to light years after they took place when a victim complained to the police about one of King's friends, former Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning who has been convicted of child sex offences in Czech Republic.

The arrest of King in 2000 led to Surrey Police setting up Operation Arundel, to investigate other alleged child abuse involving a number of adults. Detectives may be about to arrest further suspects as part of this inquiry.

The arrest of Mr Kelly was the culmination of several months of investigation into claims that heallegedly sexually abused boys in the Seventies. Tam Paton, the former manager of the Bay City Rollers, was also arrested in Edinburgh.

Terry Kirby, The Independent, 17/1/03

Don't Let Perverts Determine What We Can Do

Non-sexual images should be seen as not just normal but as a desirable part of our enjoyment of our children

There's enough potential child porn in our house to keep a dozen paedophiles happy for a lifetime. Three kids in, and our drawers overflow with photos and videos of school concerts, school plays and school sports days. Since 1994 my daughters and their classmates have trooped on and off various stages, year in, year out, metamorphosing in height and costume from tiny mice with ears and tails, through snowflakes and flowers to lanky urchins and gangsters. Every now and again we watch the tapes back, and the wobbly camera attempts to focus on a small face in the third row, her eyes bright, her mouth wide in song. These are some of the most valuable things we have, and if I don't look at them very often, it's only because I'm too sentimental.

If we lived in Edinburgh, though, we could forget about adding to this stock of memories. The council there has just instituted a rule whereby no videos of kids performing can be shot unless every parent involved has given written permission. Well, we wouldn't get written permission from some of our parents to give their kids a million pounds, so averse are they to replying to any circular or filling in any form. So that would be that.

But what on earth are Edinburgh's councillors up to? A month ago I wrote that, in general, our precautions against paedophilia were sensible enough. I seem to have got that one wrong, because the council's defence is merely that paedophiles can obtain images of children acting in school plays and musicals and use them for their own sexual gratification, and that therefore such images should only be created by specific and unanimous parental agreement. Sports days and prize-giving ceremonies are also covered by the restriction.

Although the council argues that the rule is "common sense", it is actually the opposite. One senior councillor has commented that "we have heard of cases in Scotland and England where paedophiles are found with video footage taken at school plays". Maybe. Those same paedophiles are likely also to possess images of children shot on beaches, out skate-boarding, at the swimming-pool, walking around shopping centres and begging on street corners in South American shanty towns. In fact any images of children will do. There are "boy love" sites dedicated to early photographs of Princes William and Harry, to boy movie stars (Harry Potter has almost certainly been a big hit with the child-abusing fraternity), and Lolita sites that feature girl actors.

Actually "common sense" tells us to maintain our own idea of what constitutes acceptable behaviour, and not to have it defined for us by perverts. As the expert treater of paedophiles, Ray Wyre, has said: "People who offend should not be deciding how we should behave." The reproduction of non-sexual, non-exploitative images of children should be regarded as not just normal, but as a desirable part of our enjoyment of our children. To have this normality inverted, as Edinburgh has done, is profoundly wrong and – I think – psychically damaging. Edinburgh has form here. Two years ago, Edinburgh schools were warned not to put pictures of individual children on their websites. The guideline advised that "if pupils are identified on a school website and contacted by outsiders, the school could be held responsible for placing the child in potential danger". Warnings have been sent out about filming sports days, including this observation in bold type: "No matter what activity is being depicted, no child should ever be shown in a partial state of undress." In the same year, Perth and Kinross Council issued a similar warning in the wake of parental complaints.

In July 1999, a school in Yorkshire asked parents not to film its sports day. A Hampshire mother organised a campaign to stop schools using photos of named children in their internet websites, arguing that paedophiles could copy kids' faces on to pornographic images. A school near Luton has banned cameras from its nativity play, lest abusers wound up with exciting images of youthful angels and magi.

A lot of this is arse-covering. The Edinburgh director of education, defending the council's decision, argued this week that "it's always easy to say there's been an over-reaction and equally, when anything disastrous happens, the first question that is asked is 'did the authority, did the school, do all in its power to protect the children?'". In their darkest risk-assessments the council may be imagining a compensation case as a consequence of a child courted and perhaps physically harmed by a paedophile who located his or her victim through school pictures on the internet.

If this is indeed the Edinburgh calculation, it coincides with a report from the Actuaries' Working Party, revealing that this country pays out far more in compensation than any other in Europe. Not only are there over 78,000 applications every year (compared with less than 14,000 in France, the next highest), but the bill is now running at £10bn per annum. Many of the cases involve alleged negligence involving the police, the health service and local authorities. The report The Cost of the Compensation Culture points out that schools are particularly vulnerable to claims over school trips and – latterly – to actions over errors in exam marking. In other words, there is a lot of arse that needs to be covered, and we parents should consider whether we don't add to the problem.

But this isn't an article lamenting the growth of the compensation culture (though readers could do worse than look up Onora O'Neill's BBC Reith lectures on the internet, and reflect upon what she says about the erosion of trust). My purpose is to contrast false and damaging action against paedophilia, with the real thing. In Operation Ore – another tranche of which we saw yesterday – the police seem to be making genuine headway against those who reproduce and circulate child pornography. The internet has proved to be a vehicle for locating and hunting down abusers, just as it has also attracted them.

It was also positive that this Monday the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith QC, took the possibly unprecedented step of appearing in person at the Court of Appeal to argue for an increase in jail terms in several cases of child rape. This action followed new rape sentencing guidelines that were introduced last week.

Policing, prosecution, vigilance and sentencing are the major weapons in any battle against child sexual abuse. And institutions that deal with children have to be aware of the dangers and sufficiently responsive to complaint. We have the terrible example of the resigned Cardinal Law of Boston to remind us of what happens when an organisation denies the possibility or gravity of sexual abuse of children. But vigilance is not the same thing as a presumption of a continual state of abuse. It is absurd that we now have teachers on school trips who will not apply sun cream to toddlers because of fear of a complaint. It is stupid and counter-productive effectively to prevent parents and teachers from enjoying the rewards of child-rearing and working with kids; God alone knows we stress the negatives often enough. And it is just a human right to have pictures of your child as a snowflake.

David Aaronovitch, The Independent, 18/1/03

Paedophiles: The police hunt

A pop star, a judge, a TV personality, and hundreds of other men have been questioned so far. Further arrests are expected. Sophie Goodchild traces two parallel inquiries into the sexual abuse of children

The largest investigation into internet child pornography ever carried out in Britain resulted in the arrest last week of Pete Townshend, guitarist with The Who. A few days later the television presenter Matthew Kelly, host of Stars in their Eyes, was taken in for questioning about sex offences against young boys, alleged to have taken place during the Seventies.

Kelly and Townshend were both later released without charge on police bail. Their arrests were completely unrelated, the fruit of two separate investigations that had suddenly achieved very high profile results at the same time. Deliberately or not, the police teams have benefited mutually from heightened public support thanks to their simultaneous questioning of household names.

Surrey police brought in Kelly as part of their Operation Arundel, which began when Jonathan King, the former pop mogul, was jailed in 2001. He is currently serving a seven-year sentence for offences against four boys, and continues to protest his innocence. But detectives are more interested in what else he might have to say about others who were in his circle during the Seventies, as they look for evidence of more crimes. Tam Paton, who managed the Bay City Rollers during the same period, was also arrested last week and released after questioning.

Townshend, meanwhile, was of interest to the much larger inter-agency team behind Operation Ore, which began last summer when British detectives were handed a list of subscribers to a now defunct website called Landslide.

The site had been masterminded by a couple called Thomas and Janice Reedy, who appeared to live the suburban American dream of pool parties and beach holidays. They told neighbours in Fort Worth, Texas, they were in "the computer business". But the dream had been bought with money raised from the torture, rape and sexual abuse of children as young as two. After establishing an adult site, the Reedys enlisted the help of a Russian businessman and his two associates who had links with Indonesia where images of child sex could easily be obtained for a few dollars.

At its height, the Reedys' company had more than 75,000 worldwide subscribers and was recording profits of more than $1m (£620,000) a month, of which nearly 40 per cent came from child pornography. The Reedys employed more than a dozen staff, including a customer service representative and a receptionist.

Landslide was now the portal to more than 5,700 websites with names such as Child Rape and Cyber Lolita. The teaser menus for some sites included babies and young children being forced to have sex with each other. Some also provided soundtracks featuring the sobs of children being forced to take part in group sex with adults. With the aid of their credit card details, a password and a user name, this was all available to customers for $29.95 a month.

The Reedys soon found they had unwanted customers in the form of the US Postal Inspection Service which monitors the internet, and they were arrested in September 1999. Thomas Reedy, now 38, is serving a 1,335-year prison sentence. His 33-year-old wife received 14 years.

During their search of the Landslide offices in Fort Worth, investigators made a crucial discovery. On the Reedys' computer was their customer list, with details ranging from credit card numbers to fragments of information which had to be decoded by police.

Once the Reedys had been charged, the FBI passed any significant details to Interpol, which distributed them to crime-fighting services worldwide. British officers with limited resources sought 7,300 suspects.

Jim Gamble, Assistant Chief Constable of the National Crime Squad, is one of the senior officers in charge of Operation Ore. He said the priority was to identify children in the images so that they could be removed to safe houses. So far 60 have been taken into care. "We were overwhelmed, but it was not only the volume of names but also the amount of evidence," he said. "We wanted to identify all the children in the images and that takes time."

Officers prioritised the list of suspects into three categories, the most serious including teachers, social workers and anyone else with direct access to children. The second category included people holding positions of authority such as police and magistrates; and the third was for suspects who had no direct involvement with children.

On 20 May 2002, police officers began knocking on the doors of suspects, nearly all of whom fell into the first two categories. There were 1,100 in London, 700 in Scotland, 279 in Cambridgeshire, 200 in Kent and another 200 in Surrey. One was a father of three children, who had taken photographs of the child he abused. Fifty police officers have been arrested so far, including two who had helped investigate the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham.

Gathering evidence from a computer hard disk can take up to 15 hours, and some police forces have waited months for experts to become available. Of those suspects already investigated, 85 per cent have been found to be in possession of indecent material or engaged in making videos.

Last month the Met announced that it would take up to nine months to investigate all its suspects. "Clearly we have made mistakes because no one was prepared for the number of names," said ACC Gamble. "But Operation Ore will not be the endgame. It has fuelled many other investigations. Next time we will be better equipped."

Detectives have found it impossible not to become emotionally involved in the investigation, he said. "These images are beyond description. The sound alone would keep you awake at night.

"People who access these sites think they are innocent, but this is not innocent voyeurism. They are playing a part in real-time abuse and this is as serious as someone who holds down a child and abuses them."

Guilty

Gary Glitter

Seventies pop star served two months in prison in 1999 after being found guilty of possessing child pornography. Recently deported from Cambodia.

Jonathan King

Pop svengali serving seven-year sentence for sex offences against boys. Found guilty at Old Bailey in November 2001. Friends now being investigated.

Questioned

Matthew Kelly

TV presenter arrested on Wednesday night to face allegations of sexually abusing boys. Released on Thursday, appeared on stage as Captain Hook that night. Yet to be charged.

Pete Townshend

Guitarist with The Who arrested in Richmond, Surrey, last Monday. Says he downloaded images for research in anti- pornography campaign. Yet to be charged.

Independent.co.uk, 19/1/03

Paedophiles: Who are they?

Every age has its monsters, and ours is the paedophile. But how much do we really know about them? How should they be policed and punished? And how can we protect our children from them?

When a worker with the children's charity Barnardo's asked a class of 13-year-olds if they had ever logged on to an internet porn site, she was shocked at the response. Every hand in the room went up. Even if some were acting out of bravado rather than telling the truth, it would be disquieting enough. But the fact is that many of today's teenagers are so comfortable with computer technology that they are exposed to material in their own homes that a previous generation had little idea existed and even less idea of how to obtain. Put this together with a group of adults who get their sexual gratification from exploiting, abusing and, in some cases, torturing children, and you have a social toxin with the potential to create damage on a scale that we are only beginning to comprehend.

Every age has its monsters and one of ours is the paedophile. Not even the experts really know if there are more around than ever before, however. The problems of gathering evidence and having children testify in court mean very few cases are tried, which makes the criminal justice statistics unreliable.

What we do know is that "paedophilia" has become a modern obsession, to such an extent that the ubiquity of the word has made it almost worthless as any kind of clinical description of human behaviour. How can you encompass under the same label the calculating evil of a Roy Whiting (the man who abducted and murdered eight-year-old Sarah Payne) and a callow 18-year-old who has consensual sex with a girl of 14? Yet both will appear on the sex offenders register. The fact is that a paedophile may be married or single, may have a fulfilling social life or be a shy loner, or may crave sex with a child as an exercise in power or as a desperate plea to be loved.

Rachel O'Connell heads the cyberspace research unit at the University of Central Lancashire. To understand the paedophile mind, she entered a chat room and posed as one during online conversations. "The people I encountered talked freely of their fantasies and the sexual activity they had had with children," she recalls. "It is fascinating that, even though they were speaking to me as someone they thought shared their outlook, they still felt the need to rationalise and justify their behaviour. So, when someone claimed to have had sex with a friend's pre-pubescent sister, he would add that she was being screwed by her dad anyway, as if that sanitised the act. They don't want to appear as monsters – even to each other." It is this reflexive need of the paedophile to put his behaviour – and it is usually a "he" – in the most favourable light that makes the internet such a pernicious tool. Detective Inspector Terry Jones of the Greater Manchester force has played a leading role in some of the biggest online investigations of recent years. "Around 70 per cent of internet paedophiles have no previous convictions," he says. "Some may well have been abusing but have not come to our notice before. Others have not offended because something has inhibited them – possibly the feeling of being isolated. Then along comes the internet and, suddenly, at the click of a button, there is a whole community of like-minded people out there. Behaviour that a person on his own may have felt beyond the pale is now validated, because it is shared."

But let's define our terms. What exactly is the behaviour that police operations are slowly uncovering; and should we be worried, as some commentators suggested last week, about a law that criminalises the act of viewing child-abuse material?

The idea that there is one group of people who are lookers and another who are doers and producers of these images is simply a naive attempt to fashion an artificial debate about an individual's freedom of choice out of an enterprise so sordid and exploitative that it cannot be justified on any level. And it is disproved by the evidence. A survey by the US postal service of more than 1,000 people caught in possession of child pornography found that one in three was concurrently abusing a child. Polygraph tests on a number of US prisoners convicted of internet offences showed that three out of four were abusing.

Donald Findlater, who has treated hundreds of paedophiles over the years during his work with a child protection agency called the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, says this link is only to be expected. "Sex offending is about pushing back the boundaries of what is acceptable. The internet gives a paedophile a tantalising glimpse of what's next, what form of deviant behaviour he can move on to. In this way it can accelerate someone's offending potential and every day he goes online he becomes a little more dangerous."

It is this progression of criminality which should, perhaps, concern us most. Operation Ore relates to access to a child- porn "gateway" that was closed down in 1999. Who knows what sex offences some of the 7,000 or so UK subscribers may have committed since then while the police have slowly got round to interviewing suspects?

Donald Findlater believes this piecemeal investigative approach is hopelessly ineffective and that something more imaginative is needed. "I heard of one police force that knew it didn't have the resources to interview all the people on the Operation Ore list in its area, so it sent each one a letter saying 'We know what you've been up to – stop it or face arrest'. OK, so it sounds like a slap on the wrist but at least it let them know their behaviour was being monitored."

West Midlands police tried out an experiment in which selected suspects were offered police bail in return for taking part in a probation-run treatment programme. Those who completed it successfully were given a formal caution and were placed on the sex offenders register, a far quicker and cheaper response than invoking the full machinery of the criminal justice process. The Home Office has been made aware of this scheme.

Some people suggested that much of the sexually explicit material traded on the internet has less to do with child abuse than the application of technological wizardry. And it is true that "morphing" or the creation of pseudo images is one way in which the fantasies of internet paedophiles are fuelled. But Rachel O'Connell scorns the idea that this is anything more than a sideline. "Why bother confecting images when so much of the real thing is available? Frankly, those paedophiles with advanced computer skills – and there are a significant number – use them to avoid detection. And this is what we should be worried about. The people who get identified by their credit card details are the naive ones. There are plenty of adult paedophiles who have learnt how to cover their tracks and they are operating without any monitoring by the police."

Tink Palmer of Barnardo's is also anxious to cut out the distracting side issues and concentrate on what matters: child protection. "We have proof of teenage girls being pimped via the internet – in this country. Their faces are 'scrambled' to make them look older. We have evidence of pre-pubescent children being abused live on the internet. In other words, the abuser will put out a message saying that if you put x amount into my account by a certain date and time, you can access my website and see 'the entertainment'. And when you look at the surroundings in which this sex abuse is taking place, in many cases it is a child's bedroom – so we are talking about the abuser being a close family member."

How can they do it? That is the question to which one always returns. Gerald is not an internet paedophile but he was convicted shortly after his 30th birthday of indecently assaulting two brothers aged eight and 10. There were other victims who didn't appear on the charge sheet. Gerald used his position as a cub scout leader to win the boys' affection and found opportunities on trips away to abuse them. Gerald believes that his view of himself and his sexuality was distorted irrevocably because he was abused by an uncle.

"It had an almost immediate impact," he says. "From the age of eight or nine, I began to target other children, vulnerable kids, kids who were small for their age or were being bullied. I posed as their 'protector' and I was able to relate to them because I was also bullied at school so I knew what it felt like."

So the victim becomes tormentor and creates new victims – a classic path to paedophilia. But it's not the only one, of course. By no means all abusers were abused themselves. Some people working in the field believe paedophiles suffer from an illness that can be treated. Others specialise in the few who can be shown to be mentally unbalanced. But the majority of experts describes paedophilia as a deviation from normal sexual behaviour, in which human relations are seen through a distorted prism. Their methods of dealing with it differ wildly.

The label we attach to sex offending may say as much about us as it does about the perpetrator. The only sure fact is that until we offer more protection to the child who is being abused right now, by someone he or she should be able to trust, we forfeit the right to call ourselves a caring society.

Jon Silverman, Independent.co.uk, 19/1/03 Author (with Professor David Wilson) of 'Innocence Betrayed – Paedophilia, the Media and Society' (Polity Press)

Don't Look Now

In the sordid world of child abuse, fantasy and reality are perilously intertwined

This piece starts inside a taxi parked near the Mumtaz restaurant in Baker Street, one evening in the early Seventies. There are five people inside, and one of them, a middle-aged celebrity, looks over to a 16-year-old boy sitting opposite, rolls his famous eyes, and says, 'I think Big John has the hots for somebody here, and my guess,' he pauses, and then points, 'is that it's you.'

The 'you' was me. A boy from school who had got a job as a part-time cleaner in the flat of the celebrity, and with the job came the invitation to be in the audience to watch a famous show being recorded at BBC Television Centre. He chose me. After the recording it was off to Baker Street with one of the stars and some of his friends, including Big John.

What did I feel? Bewildered. This had never happened to me before. Embarrassed. Repelled. Big John was not an attractive man, and he certainly was big. Scared. I wasn't quite sure how I would get home if I suddenly had to decamp (so to speak) from the cab. Fortunately the issue wasn't pressed. My face had registered all that it needed to - the taxi dropped me at the end of my road and sped off.

Ah, and I felt something else too, which is much harder to admit. I was very slightly (very, very slightly) flattered and intrigued. Flattered to be found attractive even by so dubious a catch as Big John, and quite intrigued as to what he would have done to me had I smiled at him, and had the taxi (as I suppose it would) taken us on to his flat. And what would I have done had the celebrity propositioned me on his own behalf? The same, I think. If the celebrity had been a woman? If Big John had been Big Johanna? If I'd been drunk? If they had all been more persistent?

What I'm saying is that I feel and felt some ambivalence, even in that situation, where the prospect was some form of sex with an ugly old man. (Can I really be writing this?) And that that ambivalence is, I would guess, far more a part of our sexual condition that we ever like to admit.

A year or two earlier, I had had a series of minor crushes on younger boys who were more conventionally handsome than me (admittedly a wide field). I never acted upon any of them, but I can just about recall the attraction. So the merest imprint remains, of something that I felt at 13 or 14.

Right now there is no public space for ambivalence. One newspaper spoke yesterday of 10,000 more names being on 'a new FBI list of British paedophiles' - ie, people who had, like Pete Townshend, used their credit cards to access pornography depicting children naked or being abused. In the same way, other celebrities are lumped in with paedophiles, and subjected to reputation-lynching, because they are being investigated for having sex with 15-year- old boys 30 years ago.

Here comes the necessary disclaimer. The sexual abuse of a child is a uniquely horrible crime, because it destroys the child's sense of him or herself and undermines the capacity for trust. The fact that this crime is usually carried out by a parent or a trusted adult, makes the damage worse. But two aspects of the current panic worry me. The first is that, like judges and the courts, I feel that circumstances can alter cases; had I decided to let Big John have his wicked way with me, I don't really think that he would have deserved prosecution. The second is that, no matter how often I turn this one round in my head, I cannot quite accept that thinking is the same as doing. I just don't agree that looking at child porn on the net is a similar order of crime to creating the abuse and then photographing it, or even to distributing it.

I understand the arguments. If you reward an abuser then you are encouraging the crime. In the film The Accused (based, I believe, on a true story), a woman successfully prosecuted several men who had egged on other men to rape her in a bar poolroom. And that is good enough reason for making it illegal to pay for internet child porn. But it is a step beyond that to argue that those who do pay are either paedophiles or sex offenders, or that they should be humiliated or imprisoned as if they were. We do not know what they are, just as we don't always know what we are.

That's because there's something else here too. The advent of the internet and the ubiquity of computers have shortened the distance between fantasy and its expression. This is a very dramatic change. It's not just about being able to access pictures and stories that once were the territory only of seedy sex-shops (though that's part of it), or even the realisation that there are people out there who are as weird as you may be. It is the ability, in the most unrestricted way, to explore simultaneously the inner and the outer world.

It is easy to see that this search can be motivated as much by a strange curiosity as by a desire for arousal or release. Some 'perversions' such as shoe fetishism have always existed and are relatively straightforward, but others are not. These, however, are now imaginable and available. It surely can only be in the age of the web that you could look up the phrase 'goat-fisting' and get 81 references. And if you follow them up, are you a goat-fister? I believe that some of those who have sent their credit card details off to child-porn providers have simply lost sight of themselves and of reality, and are actually no more likely to abuse children than any of the rest of us.

And there are big dangers in trying to look inside other peoples' heads. In 2001 Brian Dalton of Columbus, Ohio, got 10 years after his probation officer found a diary detailing his (admittedly horrible) fantasies about sex with kids. But they were fantasies, and Dalton was not trying to sell or distribute them. Similarly I worried about prosecuting people who click on dodgy photographs and, by so doing, download them onto their computers.

This is a plea for intelligence, not inaction. The fact that many people are in some way interested in children in a sexual context, is not a surprise to the psycho-analytical community. But they will not, routinely, be described as paedophiles, let alone as 'sick, twisted, perverts'. In any case, the hard-core active paedophiles probably never give out their credit card details, but instead exchange encrypted messages and pictures through hard-to-trace aliases and bogus websites. Such paedophiles, who need to be (and are) exceptionally devious and committed to their perversion, must be aware that overt internet child-porn is the biggest aid that law enforcement and child protection authorities have ever had. So I am in favour of spying on suspect sites and people, and doing everything possible to follow child- porn to its source - real children really being violated - and banging up those heartless, damaged bastards who create it.

But lets not pretend that, somehow, we have this sussed. Strangely I trust the police to act sensibly (because, like the analysts, they've seen it all): it's the rest of us I worry about. We're very anxious, a lot of the time, to act as though sexuality was a straight line from adolescent masturbation, via looking at nude pictures, to years of intermittent intercourse and eventually death. And we still get dangerously upset when there's evidence that it just isn't so.

David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 19/1/02 Texas trail that ended with child porn arrests in Britain An American couple grew rich on the misery of children until a tip-off on a post box number shattered the anonymity of the internet.

Julian Coman in Fort Worth talks to the team who caught them Postal inspectors at the Jack D Watson Post Office in Forth Worth, Texas, spend most of their days investigating credit card fraud, the theft of parcels and other abuses of the US mail system. Early in 1999, however, a very different kind of case came along. The tip-off that would eventually lead to the arrest of Pete Townshend, the guitarist with The Who, came from an acquaintance of Bob Adams, a postal inspector.

The friend, from Minnesota, who has never been named, stumbled upon a website operating under the name Landslide Productions Inc.

The name of the site was innocuous; its content was not. At the bottom of Landslide Productions' home page, which was illustrated with a scenic mountainside view, was an invitation to click on a button marked "child porn". Viewers were invited to subscribe by credit card. For those who had no card and wanted to pay by cheque, however, the website also gave a mailing address: a post office box in Fort Worth, Texas.

Mr Adams contacted the nearby Dallas police department, which had set up a unit to investigate the exploitation of children on the internet.

The undercover investigation that followed uncovered the biggest child pornography enterprise in American history. The Dallas police provided Steve Nelson, one of its detectives, with a fake identity and credit card number.

After entering Landslide's child porn site, Mr Nelson found a menu advertising selections such as "children forced to porn", "child rape" and "children of God".

Each selection cost $29.95 for a month's subscription. To join up, the surfer needed to give credit card details and choose a password.

Landslide Productions was traced to Tom and Janice Reedy of Fort Worth, a couple who had recently arrived in the city.

Tom Reedy was a former nurse and had never owned a home. Janice Reedy had lived most of her life in a trailer. Now the couple lived in a mansion and each drove a Mercedes.

The postal inspections service and the Dallas PD brought their investigation to the attention of Terri Moore, an assistant district attorney with a reputation for typically Texan straight-talking.

Under her guidance, the agencies tightened the net around the Reedys. America's laws on child pornography place a far greater burden on investigating authorities to show that a crime is being committed.

"The bigger this became, the more careful we were to get everything right," Ms Moore told The Telegraph.

A consultant from Microsoft was hired to make copies of the sites. The Reedys' bank accounts were tracked. Gradually the scale of the operation became clear.

Tom and Janice Reedy were not running a grubby backstreet service for local paedophiles. They were the middlemen for a global child pornography business, procuring customers to view horrific images of child abuse, usually shot far way in eastern Europe and Asia. More than 7,000 of their customers were British.

At a conservative estimate, Landslide Productions was making $1.3 million (£810,000) a month profit. "We discovered that this couple were making an absolute fortune," said Kenny Smith, a postal inspector at the Jack D Watson building.

Most subscribers, it turned out, could not resist sampling as many of the porn categories as they could afford. In all, there were 2,000 available.

A separate site of "adult classifieds" included entries from fathers advertising their children for sex. The company's outgoings included payments to Russia and Indonesia, where the images originated.

When the Reedys' lavish home was raided, a database was removed containing the names and credit details of 350,000 subscribers in 60 countries.

"Tom Reedy had been playing the role of a madam in a whorehouse and this was a list of the visitors," said Ms Moore.

"I went through my area of Fort Worth straight away and looked for the prominent names. There were lawyers, doctors, teachers. The database was a cross-section of respectable society."

The frustration for the assistant DA, however, was once again that American law requires prosecutors to catch subscribers online.

Had Townshend lived in America, Ms Moore could not have arrested him for previous visits to child pornography sites.

Instead, prosecutors monitored the website, intercepted letters and emails and amassed evidence. Then they moved against the Reedys. In December 2000 a federal jury convicted the couple on more than 85 counts of child exploitation. Tom Reedy was sentenced to 1,335 years in prison. Janice, for aiding and abetting, received 14 years.

"Reedy's emails buried him," said Ms Moore. "We read somewhere that he was trying to get stronger stuff on the sites. He was saying that customers weren't satisfied."

The conviction enabled the US authorities to pass on the identities of all the couple's foreign clients to Interpol: in September 2001 Britain's National Crime Squad received 7,200 names.

Detectives in Britain were horrified at the number of people on the list, which they knew would generate their biggest paedophile inquiry.

Carole Howlett, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the lead officer in the inquiry, immediately recognised more than a dozen household names on the list.

A colleague said: "The list was held in great secrecy. The few officers who did know were amazed at the extent of interest in child porn.

"We realised that most forces did not have enough expertise and manpower for a national swoop. Instead, it was decided to proceed with caution and arrest those who worked with children first."

Last month, rumours began to circulate in Texas that among those on the list was Townshend. Kenny Smith, the postal investigator, was in church when a colleague rang with the news of Townshend's arrest. "It was startling to think how far the Reedy case had gone," he said.

For Ms Moore, though, the news was painful. It reminded her that the vast majority of American subscribers were beyond her reach: the authorities could simply monitor them and hope to catch them if they reoffended.

As a music-lover, the news also affected her. "I love The Who," she said. "When I heard that Pete had been arrested it just made me sad." Townshend said that he had looked at the site only a couple of times for research.

Ms Moore remains proud of her achievement in breaking what is thought to be the biggest internet child pornography operation in the world.

"The case was pretty precedent-setting. Maybe it means a particular kid won't get molested. To feed the hunger of paedophiles is disgusting. These people were getting rich off the misery of children.

The Telegraph, 19/1/03

'I cannot admit what I am to myself'

The news that 7,000 men in this country had used a US child porn website shocked Britain. Were there really so many paedophiles among us? How could so many trusted professionals such as police officers, judges and doctors be implicated? But despite the acres of newsprint, we have learned little about the kind of images involved and what drives the people who look at them. Jim Bell knows about both: he was sentenced to two years in jail for secretly filming young girls and downloading indecent images of children from the net. Here he offers a rare insight into why most users of child porn refuse to accept they are paedophiles.

For three years, as an internet consultant, I collected child pornography off the web and saved it to disk. I used my knowledge of the internet to find it, from the mildest to the most extreme. Four thousand of these images and video clips were deemed indecent and I served a jail sentence [for downloading and storing these images, and also for secretly making indecent videos of young girls near his home]. I was locked up for a year with various other sex offenders: rapists, child molesters, those who used child pornography, those who tried to groom children in internet chatrooms. I can at least use this shameful expertise to explain why so many people have been caught subscribing to child pornography sites, and what may be happening in our society.

The internet is at the heart of this: an information resource without frontiers, that cannot be policed, and whose content is determined by individuals as much as organisations. It is a freedom that governments are quite keen to limit and was part of the objective, I suspect, of Operation Ore, which has identified 7,000 British users of an American child pornography site. The worst child pornography is free, posted on news servers by individuals who want to share their interests with others. By this I mean pictures of small children forced to engage in sexual activity with adults. I remember a picture of a sad little Asian child prostitute in a leather harness, seated on her client's knee. Such extremes of child pornography are free, fairly easily accessed by journalists and researchers, and tend to set the standard of discussion about this problem.

There are a few hundred such pictures that circulate on the internet. Few new ones ever surface: they are part of a grubby tradition of internet extremism. There may, of course, be more that are distributed within "paedophile rings", but I have no experience of that. I rather doubt that these rings are as common as the paedophile hunters claim. In prison, I never met anyone who claimed to have been a member of one, and paedophiles, frankly, are not clubbable people. Those who have pictures to share put them on news servers so that everyone in the world can see them.

Or they charge for them, and this brings us to the credit card subscriptions of Operation Ore. The commercial exploitation of the net is down to the global purchasing power of credit cards. You can buy services in Azerbaijan as easily as the UK. Up until now the credit card companies have distanced themselves from the content or nature of these services. The first time I saw line entries on my statement, such as "Pretty Preteens, Colorado - $40", I worried, but it clearly didn't worry the credit card company.

Nor, although I was an internet professional, did I have to search very hard for these sites. They are commercial sites; they do not hide themselves. We are not talking of secret addresses known only to the members of paedophile rings, but sites which publish their existence via the search engines. They have had - up to now - a spurious respectability. Tacitly accepted by the service providers that host them, the credit card companies that take subscriptions, and the search engines that publicise them, it is hardly surprising that men who enjoy such pictures have used them, and that, worldwide, these sites have become a very lucrative business.

My own experience suggests that many of these men did not believe, or did not allow themselves to believe, that they were guilty of using child pornography. As commercial site users, they were not downloading the extremes of child pornography that I described above. In three years, I never came across a website that took credit card subscriptions for its own photography that showed explicit sexual activity involving children.

We have to be clear as to what we are talking about here. By "explicit", I mean children engaged in intercourse, fellatio, sodomy, masturbation or any othe sexual activity that adults perform with each other, or alone. But I also mean any of the forms of softcore sexual titillation that you will see on the legal television porn channels.

All the subscription sites I ever came across advertised little girls (I never looked at the ones with boys) looking "pretty". Or "pretty and sexy". The ages would range from adolescent down to perhaps nine or 10. There was a very clear distinction between American and European artistic sensibilities. American sites would feature the girl next door, in a bikini or a sexy little outfit, looking like a fashion model or a pop star. European sites would favour nude little girls indoors or outdoors, singly or in groups, with a high standard of photography. A harder quality of porn than this is certainly available, but not from sites that are so easily accessible.

The website to which the men on the Operation Ore list subscribed was Candyman, one of a large number of American sites working to the standard girl-next-door formula. I vaguely remember seeing its banner, having a quick look and deciding not to subscribe because it looked as if it would duplicate the material offered on other sites. Perhaps I missed the only commercial hardcore child-porn site in America, but I doubt it.

You may wonder what the definition of an indecent picture of a child is. In a book of case law, I read of a picture of a girl of 13, dressed, wearing a loose top, and leaning forward to draw attention to her breasts. That is indecent. What counts is the intention of sexual display. So, let us be clear that all of these sites are illegal. The intention is always pornographic; that is to say, calculated to arouse sexual excitement. The advertising often claims that parental consent is obtained, and the content is, as I have said, somewhere between decorous and artistically or playfully nude. But the intention is to provide men with masturbation fantasies of young girls: in the case of Candyman, reportedly 250,000 men worldwide. If that number startles you, remember that anything up to 35% of internet traffic deals in pornography. The world's appetite for sexual titillation is inexhaustible.

The paedophile hunters do not correct the popular idea that child porn is about child prostitution and the miserable abuse of children, but it is actually about something far more insidious and pervasive. It is about innocence: the sexual innocence of the child offered for the pleasure of adults who have no innocence left. That is why these websites do not need to offer pictures of explicit sex acts. Hardcore is not the name of this game.

It means that it was fatally easy for 7,000 men to convince themselves that looking at pictures of heartbreakingly pretty little girls was not wrong. It is why I do not find it surprising that men who enjoyed teaching children, or keeping them safe in society, should have enjoyed such pictures. We obey laws most easily when they fit our own instincts of right and wrong. When they do not, we tend to finesse and rationalise our actions.

We have an infinite capacity for that. In prison I met perhaps 100 men who had been convicted of offences against children. None of them admitted that they were paedophiles - none. The social stigma is too appalling. I cannot admit what I am to myself.

One young guy I knew, a journalist and photographer, claimed to have been convicted for downloading two dozen pictures by the noted photographer David Hamilton, who specialises in art pictures of young girls. You can buy the pictures in a book, but on the net they might be considered child pornography.

"They are beautiful pictures," he would say. "Beautifully made pictures of beautiful girls."

Another man, also in his 20s, had been caught because he carried a picture of a nude little girl in his wallet. Foolishly, he left the wallet on a train and, even more foolishly, went to collect it from lost property. I asked him why he carried the photo. "Because she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen..."

And he had been caught as I had, and as these other men have been, because we do not think we are doing anything wrong - not really wrong - and therefore do not take sufficient care to avoid detection.

There is a wider perspective to be taken on this. The internet wonderfully reflects western society. It is not a separate world: it mirrors the attitudes and values of ordinary life. The sexualisation of children through television, pop music and fashion is acceptable, it is done for fun: the world of internet child pornography merely completes that process.

Please don't think that the two are unrelated. Many of the American credit card sites I visited purported to offer girls a first step to a modelling career. Of course they did. What better way to get a young girl to pose sexily, and her parents to agree to it?

The parents who encourage their girl-children to model themselves on pubescent pop idols, fashion models or footballers wives see themselves as part of a modern world of leisure, with a healthy attitude to personal relationships and sex. The men who look with sexual appreciation at pictures of those girl-children on the net are seen as perverts who may prey on children in parks or at swimming pools. I don't know whether the way our society sexualises children is healthy or not - you who are normal must consult your consciences on that. But it is a fact that internet child porn makes massive use of the combination of sexual innocence and allure that results.

But that doesn't really matter. What parents fear, and the law seeks to prevent, is harm to children resulting from either active or passive paedophilia. If Operation Ore had not been conducted, would these 7,000 men (not to mention the thousands who had used other sites) have eventually sought out children to achieve sexual contact? What people are most worried about is not parents allowing their 13- or 14-year-old daughters to pose on the net, but that some madman will abduct, rape or murder them. Do these men pose that sort of danger?

The effect of pornography upon the propensity to offend has been debated for decades. You can believe that it is a harmless substitute, or that it promotes offending behaviour. Pornography is, of course, commonly used by men who would like to do the things they watch, but never will. The step from a child pornography site to sexual contact with children is a big one - but, of course, the desire for such contact is implicit in the use of pornography.

You would expect me to say that there is no danger of these men graduating to serious crimes against children. That may be so, but there are things about this activity and the way our society handles paedophilia which you are entitled to worry about. My experience suggests that men become dangerous when they become obsessional: when they live alone, and their minds are filled with little else but thoughts of what they want but cannot have.

No, I do not believe that these 7,000 men are like that now. I do not even believe that the teachers and policemen among them pose any risk to the children with whom they deal every day. It is the lack of a normal, healthy relationship with children that makes men dangerous.

They are not dangerous now, but they may be in the future. I wonder what will happen to these men who will go to prison for looking at pictures of children on the internet. I know that none of them thought of themselves as paedophiles. None of us use that word or even admit to ourselves the thought.

But they are now perverts, "beasts", "animals". Their prisons will have to protect them from other prisoners who will try to assault them. Their social workers and psychologists will explain to them just how sick their minds are. They will be put on the sex offender register for 10 years. They are likely to lose their jobs, their marriages, their homes. Society does not distinguish between one paedophile and another.

Their professional lives will be over, and they will spend the rest of their days afraid that someone will find out what they are. But they will be given minimal, or no treatment, for what is wrong with them. Only serious sex offenders are offered a course of treatment, and only a small number of them actually take the course.

The justice system normally tries to dissuade first-time offenders; to give support, a stern warning and a second chance. But for the crime of "internet paedophilia", moral repugnance - uninformed at that - means these men can expect at least a one-year sentence in prison, and a life sentence in society.

So, yes, I fear that some of these men may ultimately pose a risk to society. Not now, but once they have been through the justice system, been labelled as perverts and deviants, and introduced to much more dangerous men in specialist sex-offender units; then, some of them may become obsessional paedophiles, justifying the label that society has already given them.

Operation Ore will succeed in frightening people away from the credit card sites which offered the milder forms of child pornography. It will not affect the undercurrent of hardcore child porn, nor child prostitution, nor the appalling, frightening ways in which adults hurt children. It will replace informed understanding with mass hysteria, will claim some victims, and do little good. That is always the way with witch hunts.

· Jim Bell was sentenced to two years in prison in March 2002 for downloading and storing child pornography, and using a video camera to film two small girls. He has just been released on licence. The fee for this article is being paid to the Prison Reform Trust.

The Guardian, 23/1/03

Child porn crackdown

Jim Bell's account of his use of commercial child porn sites was illuminating (G2, January 23). The current policy would appear to be to track down and prosecute individuals. The G2 cover, with its Visa statement, suggests a less resource-intensive approach - allocate an officer to ring the senior management of the major credit card companies, point out that their provision of credit facilities is aiding and abetting a criminal offence and, were they still to be providing such services in a month, they would be prosecuted as accomplices.

Prof Steve Uglow, Kent Law School, University of Kent, [email protected]

I remember reading in the Guardian about some social workers who were running an AA-style group in an effort to deal with child abuse and one of the things they found out was that paedophiles liked to "talk" about their activities, and so obviously does Jim Bell. Shame on you. There is no justification for what they have done.

Deirdre O'Connor, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

Jim Bell's article not only provides an insight into the "paedophile monsters", but it also illustrates how such demonisation is possibly creating a far greater and more real threat to children than the act of looking at indecent images. Whatever we think of Bell's activities, it is an important article.

Pete Reffell, Leeds

The Guardian, 25/1/03

City bosses named on child porn list

SOME of the City's leading businessmen are named on a confidential list compiled in an international police inquiry into internet child pornography.

The list of 7,272 British names has been obtained by The Sunday Times. It includes at least 20 senior executives in pharmaceuticals, stockbroking, manufacturing and retailing, at least seven of whom are thought to be multimillionaires.

They are among those caught by the American authorities using their credit cards to pay for graphic pictures of children as young as six being abused. The 1,000-page list, which was passed to British police last summer, details the names, addresses and the number of subscriptions paid to child porn websites.

Disclosure of the names to The Sunday Times is likely to prompt a major leak inquiry within the British police and other organisations in the UK supplied with the list.

It is also likely to renew concerns over the policing of the internet and the slow pace of the inquiry which has seen fewer than a third of those listed arrested. Names on the list include:

>The former chairman of one of the City's biggest firms of stockbrokers.

>A senior director of a well known drinks company. Contacted at home last week, he hung up when asked why his name was on the list.

>A millionaire business colleague of one of Britain's best-known entrepreneurs.

>A director of one of the country's biggest construction companies.

>A prominent City PR man who acts as an intermediary between boardrooms, the media and the government. He said last week that police had not visited his home.

>A former director of one of the world's biggest pharmaceuticals companies.

>A senior partner at a multinational accountancy firm.

>A top executive at a large manufacturing company.

The Sunday Times has decided not to identify the businessmen because the police have still not interviewed them or made arrests in most cases.

Others on the list include a senior teacher at an exclusive girls' public school, services personnel from at least five military bases, GPs, university academics and civil servants. Many are married and respected members of their local communities.

The identities of suspects had been a closely guarded secret. Fewer than 50 of the 2,000 arrested have so far been named in the British inquiry - Operation Ore. The list was generated after an inquiry by the US Postal Inspection Service in 1999 into a pay-per-view child porn website in Texas.

Adam Nathan and David Leppard, TimesOnline, 26/1/03

Net closes on child porn suspects

ON page after page the names unfold with numbing regularity in one of the most disturbing social documents of our time: a list of those suspected of paying to see computer images of children engaged in sex.

They are mostly ordinary names at ordinary addresses. Mr X at 74 such-and-such Avenue, Mr Y at 46 so-and-so Drive (they are nearly all men). They live in average homes in suburban roads from Chichester to Aberdeen, from Tiverton to Newcastle upon Tyne.

Outwardly they probably lead respectable lives but behind their front doors, in the solitude of the rooms where they keep their computers, they pay to become voyeurs in a cyber-world of depravity.

This is the list, compiled by investigators at the US Postal Inspection Service, of British people who have paid to access websites displaying graphic images of child abuse and bestiality. There are more than 7,200 of them, but the document runs to 1,000 pages because the entries log details of different user names and the frequency of their visits.

Then, as you scan down the list, names begin to jump out: senior business executives, a television producer, a historian at a top university. A few names are clearly false - used merely for cover - but in most cases, including that of Pete Townshend, the guitarist with the Who who has admitted accessing a child pornography site for research purposes, the names, credit card details and addresses do match. Fictitious "user names" can be used, but paying requires a genuine credit card, which has led police to their true owners.

A famous newspaper columnist is named, along with a song writer for a legendary pop band and a member of another chart-topping 1980s cult pop group. A well known City PR man and a management guru appear, along with an official with the Church of England.

Personnel at military bases are also represented: people logged on to the paedophile sites from Mildenhall, Suffolk, Buchan, near Peterhead, Scotland, Strike Command in High Wycombe, Waddington in Lincolnshire and Leeming in North Yorkshire.

For weeks rumours have circulated that the names of two Labour ministers appear on the list; but, other than obviously false names, none does.

The suspects come from all areas and all sorts of professions - the law, publishing, the civil service and teaching, including two staff members at Millfield, the private school in Somerset, who were recently arrested (after which the school made it clear that the police inquiry had nothing to do with pupils). A large number of entries appear to be merchant bankers, City lawyers, high- flying accountants and company executives.

A geographical analysis of names with addresses suggests that two-thirds are based in London and the southeast. The stockbroker town of Guildford, with a population of 130,000, has 10 people thought to have accessed child porn websites. Reading has 30 suspects, Southampton 15, Milton Keynes 14 and Brighton and Hove 12. The area around Cambridge, with a population of just over 100,000, has 20 people appearing on the list, with several in the small town of St Neots.

All the suspects are said to have used their credit cards to pay a £21 monthly fee to Landslide Productions, the Texas firm that provided them with links to 300 pay-per-view child pornography websites.

With titles such as Cyber Lolita and Child Rape, the sites were so explicit that they shocked even the most seasoned detectives. An eight-year-old girl and her six-year-old brother, both from Manchester, are among the few youngsters so far identified. A Scotland Yard officer said they had been abused by their stepfather and photographed in sex acts.

The US inquiry began three years ago and investigators face a mountainous task in corroborating the details. Forces across Britain have spent seven months working through the names of those in their area. So far more than 1,200 have been arrested. Hundreds more will be questioned in the next few weeks, their homes and offices searched and their computers seized. Some users accessed the sites only once. But many on the list cannot argue that they did not know what they would be viewing: the records show that some accessed the internet service at least 50 times.

The investigation into the "master list" of 7,272 British suspects, drawn from an estimated 75,000 international subscribers, is known as Operation Ore. Detectives privately admit that in its early stages it was mismanaged and that a shortage of resources led to a huge logjam at police forensic science laboratories, where seized computers are examined.

"It was a shambles," said one senior Scotland Yard detective. The National Criminal Intelligence Service initially focused on suspects who had most frequently accessed the site. Only later did senior officers realise that they needed to concentrate first on those who posed the greatest threat to children.

Officers then divided the suspects into three groups. The highest priority was given to anyone who had access to children, a previous conviction or who was on the sex offenders' list. The second category covered those in a position of official authority. The third and largest group covers those who are not regarded as posing a direct risk to children.

Operation Ore has already ensnared the majority of those in categories one and two. They include teachers, barristers, solicitors, university lecturers, hospital consultants, a deputy prison governor, a senior Treasury civil servant and 50 policemen (including two involved in the investigation into the murder of two girls in Soham, Cambridgeshire, last year).

But police have hardly begun approaching those in category three, which contains some 6,000 apparently respectable members of society.

Robert Winnett and Gareth Walsh, additional reporting: Zoe Thomas, Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas, TimesOnline, 26/1/03

An Amnesty For Internet Paedophiles?

Police are considering launching a computer hard drive amnesty as part of a crackdown on internet sex offenders, BBC News Online has learned. The scheme, which would operate in a similar way to a gun amnesty, would aim to prevent child abuse by getting people who have images of children to volunteer for counselling.

People concerned about images they have accessed on the internet would be able to hand in their computer hard drives to police, to be destroyed or wiped clean.

They would then be assessed by a psychiatrist and if, after appropriate treatment, were judged to be no risk to children, would be given a caution.

The men would still be placed on the sex offenders register, but would be spared the humiliation of a court appearance and a formal prosecution.

Controversy

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) has told BBC News Online it thinks a hard drive amnesty is a "good idea" for offenders in possession of low grade paedophilia.

Stuart Hyde, Acpo's spokesperson on combating child abuse on the internet, and Assistant Chief Constable of West Midlands Police said the idea would "need the most careful consideration" and it will be discussed at a routine meeting in the new year.

If it finds favour with senior officers it could eventually be trialled by police forces around the country.

The idea also has the backing of children's charity Barnardo's, although it says there are practical problems to overcome.

The man behind the idea, Donald Findlater, deputy director of child protection charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, believes it could help nip child abuse in the bud for many offenders.

Mr Findlater was director of the Wolvercote Clinic, the UK's only residential treatment centre for paedophiles, which was judged highly successful by the Home Office, but closed two years ago amid controversy over moving to a new location.

He believes the easy availability of material on the internet has caused a substantial increase in sexual offences against children.

Push boundaries - "Exposure to child pornography increases the likelihood of people becoming riskier around children. It is likely to reinforce images, attitudes and disposition and leak out into the way they conduct themselves in real time.

HOME OFFICE HELPLINE

Hundreds of men have called the Home Office's Stop It Now helpline

It aims to prevent abuse by urging people to confess inappropriate thoughts about children

One caller smashed his hard drive and threw it in the sea

"It leads them down into deeper problems," says Mr Findlater.

It is in the nature of human sexuality to indulge in increasingly risky behaviour and "push at boundaries", he argues. For paedophiles, this means seeking out ever more extreme material and, eventually, turning their sexual fantasies into reality.

Mr Findlater wants to stop men before they reach that stage - and make them acknowledge that they have a problem.

But under the current approach, they face prosecution and demonisation by the media, if they break cover. As a result, Mr Findlater believes, paedophilia and child abuse will never be eradicated by law enforcement alone.

"I don't believe that criminal law is the best way of resolving these major social problems. Three quarters of child sex abuse is never reported anyway," says Mr Findlater.

At the same time, he does not believe paedophiles can be "cured" - or that every offender will respond to treatment. Intelligence gathering

But, as with other forms of compulsive behaviour, he believes some paedophiles can learn to modify their attitudes and keep their urges in check.

The problem is treatment programmes are thin on the ground, and men are afraid to seek them out for fear of prosecution.

Surrey Police say they are currently looking, "among other options," at the possiblity of setting up a pilot project called Caution Plus in which selected suspects who successfully complete a course of treatment are given a formal caution, rather than being prosecuted. West Midlands police have also piloted a similar scheme.

The advantage of combining it with a hard drive amnesty is that it would help gather information for investigations into the porn trade and reduce the number of images of children in circulation. It would also bring potential abusers to the attention of the authorities, rather than driving them further underground.

Tink Palmer, principal policy officer at children's charity Barnardo's, says she favours an amnesty but adds it would have to be piloted very carefully.

"I think it is an excellent idea, but there have to be clear messages about what will occur when men hand their computers in.

Police deluged

"We can't have people who know they have been up to something thinking they will escape prosecution if they hand in their hard drive."

Thousands of men are now suspects

She says there would need to be resources to assess each person regarding their risk.

John Carr, internet consultant at charity NCH Action for Children, is more cautious, saying there is no clear correlation between the seriousness of material on someone's hard drive and the likelihood that they are abusing children.

Then there is the question of resources.

The police already have the details of 7,200 internet sex offenders as a result of Operation Ore, which followed the closure of a US-based child porn "gateway" in 1999.

But they have so far been able to arrest and charge only a fraction of that number. Many people on the list have reportedly been let off with a caution.

According to Donald Findlater, some forces have even resorted to sending out a letter to suspects saying "we know what you've been up to, stop it or face arrest".

Whatever the figure, the scale of the problem is much bigger than even the most pessimistic commentators would have predicted a few years ago.

"If every person who had a sexual interest in children was identified," says Tink Palmer, "I think you would be amazed."

Brian Wheeler, BBC News Online Magazine, 9th December, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3254382.stm

NEW PAEDOPHILE INTERNET LAWS TO BE UNVEILED

NEW laws to crackdown on paedophiles who use the internet to meet children are due to be unveiled.

Adults befriending children with the intention of abusing them face five years in jail as part of the first radical overhaul of sex laws in half a century. The new offence of sexual "grooming" of children will allow police officers to intervene and arrest a suspect before any sexual activity takes place.

Wednesday's bill will flesh out details of plans announced last year to shake up the UK's sexual offences laws.

Sex offenders from overseas will now have to register when they come to the UK .

And British sex offenders will have to re-register annually, instead of every five years, or face five years in jail.

Home Secretary David Blunkett has previously said the new offence of sexual "grooming" would "protect children from the insidious use of the internet by paedophiles".

The government this month launched a £1m advertising campaign to raise awareness of online dangers.

Under the new laws, anyone found guilty of having sex with a child aged 12 or under would be charged with rape, with a maximum penalty of life in prison.

AOL, 29/2/03

Sex law reforms leave confusion over public acts

Consenting adults will be allowed to have sex at home with the curtains open but will face jail sentences of up to six months for making love in the back garden, the Government said yesterday.

In what ministers describe as the biggest change to the sex laws for 50 years, the Home Office's Sex Offences Bill proposes scrapping discriminatory legislation on homosexuality and aims to increase the proportion of rape cases that lead to conviction.

But the planned changes in the law on sex in public places could cause confusion, civil rights groups said yesterday.

In explanatory notes published with the Bill, the Home Office said an offence would be committed if a sex act took place in a private place and "where activity in that place can be seen in a public place''. The notes said: "An example would be a private garden which can be seen from the street."

The Bill said a distinction was drawn if sex took place inside a "dwelling".

It said: "Where A has sex in his bedroom, leaving his curtains open so he knows there is a risk he will be seen from the house opposite, he does not commit an offence.''

The Bill appears to allow gay men to engage in "cottaging'' – having sex in public lavatories – provided it is done with discretion and out of sight.

It allows for sex in such public places unless "someone will see any part of him or of another participant''.

The Home Office minister Hilary Benn, who outlined the Bill yesterday, said: "If the cubicle door is open then clearly an offence is committed. If it's closed it is different.''

The most important change in the Bill is probably the re-definition of the law on consent in rape cases, an effort to improve the rape conviction rate of seven in every 100 cases.

Mr Benn said that in future juries should presume that consent has not been granted if sex takes place in five given sets of circumstances, including where there has been violence or abduction or if the complainant was asleep or unconscious at the time.

The Bill also attempts to counteract the effects of the Morgan judgment, which allowed rape defendants to claim they "honestly believed'' a complainant had given consent even if no reasonable person would have agreed. Juries should expect men to have taken "reasonable'' steps to ensure that a partner consented to sex, Mr Benn said.

He said: "We are emphatically not saying that you need a piece of paper and a pen but it is saying that if you are going to have sex with someone you need to be confident that they are consenting.''

The Bill proposes a new sentence of up to five years for paedophiles who attempt to "groom'' children for sex on the internet. It also introduces an assumption that children under the age of 13 can in no circumstances be said to have consented to sex.

Ian Burrell Home Affairs Correspondent, 30/1/03, The Independent

Sex to be legal in public lavatories

A new offence of sexual activity in a public place, carrying a maximum jail term of six months, was proposed in legislation published by the Government yesterday.

For the first time, the law would define the circumstances in which sex in public could happen. The new offence would rely upon whether the activity was witnessed and the couple was reckless about being seen.

Sexual activity in a "dwelling" would be exempt - even if it could be witnessed through open curtains - whereas a couple engaging in sex in their own garden which could be seen from the road would be guilty of an offence.

For the first time since the 19th century, the sex offences laws would be neutral in their treatment of homosexual and heterosexual behaviour. The proscription on homosexuals engaging in sexual activity in public or soliciting for partners - the so-called cottaging laws - would end.

Hilary Benn, the Home Office minister, said homosexuals meeting in a public lavatory would avoid prosecution provided the participants were not seen.

"If the cubicle door was open then clearly an offence was committed. If it's closed, it's different," he said.

"No one wants to be an unwitting spectator to other people having sex in a public place. At the same time it's not intended to catch activity which takes place in private, which is no business of anybody."

Provided someone was not "reckless" about whether they could be seen, they could engage in sexual activity in public, he explained.

The Bill exempts from its definition of public sexual activity touching through the other person's clothes. This is to avoid criminalising teenagers who get over-familiar on the dance floor - or someone innocently, if inappropriately, scratching themselves.

Explanatory notes accompanying the Bill said it would also not be an offence where "a person's knee might touch another person's crotch while they are simply embracing fully clothed".

Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor, 30/1/03, The Telegraph

'Grooming' outlawed in abuse crackdown

Laws on sex offences get biggest shake-up in 50 years

Ministers are to outlaw "grooming" of children for sexual abuse on the internet and offline, despite criticism that it amounts to the creation of a "thought crime".

The child protection measures form part of the sexual offences bill published yesterday, which marks the most radical overhaul of Britain's sex laws for 50 years.

Most of the measures, which include reform of the laws on rape, repealing Victorian gay sex crimes, and targeting the commercial sexual exploitation of children, were welcomed by civil liberties campaigners.

"The current law on sex offences is inadequate, antiquated, and discriminatory, and does not reflect changes in society, social attitudes, and what we now know about patterns of abuse, particularly the extent and nature of child abuse," said the home secretary, David Blunkett.

"We are dealing with difficult and sensitive issues. The new offences in this bill clearly set out what is and what is not acceptable behaviour, together with the appropriate penalties, giving the public confidence that they are adequately protected."

The Home Office minister, Hilary Benn, said the government considered but ruled out granting anonymity to those accused of rape, and had decided not to create an offence of "date rape", on the grounds that "rape is rape and cannot be divided into more and less serious offences". The limited criticism of the bill yesterday centred on the introduction of a civil preventative order on the "grooming of children", which will enable restrictions to be placed on people "displaying inappropriate sexual behaviour before an offence is committed". The bill creates a separate criminal "grooming" offence based on meeting a child, through the internet or not, with the intention of committing a sex offence.

John Wadham, director of Liberty, warned that the civil order would amount to prosecuting people for what someone thinks they might do, and not for something they have actually done. He also criticised the failure of ministers to remove from the sex offenders' register people convicted of consensual adult gay sex before the age of consent law was equalised.

But the bulk of the bill's proposals were welcomed by civil libertarians, including the controversial reform of the law on rape.

The bill confirms that ministers are to clarify the law on consent in regard to rape. It writes into law the circumstances where it is presumed that consent was not given, including instances of use of violence or the threat of violence, or where the victim had been abducted, or was asleep or unconscious, possibly through drink or drugs.

The bill proposes that the accused can continue to use the defence that he "honestly believed" that consent was present, but it will have to be a "reasonable" belief.

The legislation was also welcomed by the National Association for Care and Resettlement of Offenders.

Paul Cavadino, Nacro's chief executive, said that the bill enshrined the principles of public safety and protection of the vulnerable without resorting to populism or knee jerk reaction.

"The campaign for public notification of paedophiles must now surely be dead in the water," he said.

Main points

· New offences to tackle sexual abuse of children, including assumption in law that under 13s cannot consent

· New offences to protect those with learning disabilities or mental disorders from sexual abuse

· Redefinition of incest to reflect modern family life

· Reform of the sex offenders register

· New offences of voyeurism and sex in public

· Clarification of law on rape

Alan Travis, home affairs editor, 30/1/03, The Guardian

(Oh dear Hilary, talk about digging yourself into a hole by clarification).

The following is possibly 'a flash in the pan', but it has some relevance here (incidentally, the age of female-female sexual consent in many European and eastern countries is lower than the UK (e.g. 13 in Spain etc). In some paraphilic circles, 'Tatu' would, in any case, be referred to as 'grannies'.

Teen 'lesbians' head for No 1

Russian teenage "lesbian" popstars Tatu are on course to bag their first number one this Sunday.

Retailers have said the girls' single, All The Things She Said is flying off the shelves since its release yesterday.

The accompanying video is likely to raise a few eyebrows. It features the two girls, sporting tartan micro mini-skirts, kissing and holding hands in the rain as a group of people watch on in shock.

However, their supposed sexuality is said to be no more than marketing ploy and that the two - Lena Katina, 18, and Julia Volkova, 17 - are just average Russian teenagers with obligatory boyfriends. The duo were formed in 1999 by the script writer and director Ivan Shapovalov, who is now their producer.

Their first single I've Lost My Mind was released in Russia in September 2000 followed by They're Not Gonna Get Us in May 2001.

Later that month the duo signed a contract with Universal Music Russia which released their debut album 200 In The Wrong Lane shortly afterwards.

Early last year, Tatu began work on an English version of the album for release in the US. They also re-recorded the singles working with Trevor Horn in London and in Manchester.

However, fans will be disappointed to hear that a scheduled appearance on ITV1's CD:UK has had to be cancelled as Julia needed an operation on her throat.

A spokesman for the duo recently said: "Julia's condition has not resolved itself with the daily treatment she has had in Moscow.

"Her doctors have recommended that she undergo surgery in the next few days. Julia and Lena are disappointed that they will not be able to visit the UK on this occasion.

"They had both been looking forward to visiting following the amazing support they have been getting."

ITV.com, 28/1/03

'It is paedophilic entertainment'

ITV News presenter James Mates talks to TV's Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan about the controversial 'lesbian' pop-act Tatu.

James - Judy, what is it that is worrying you about this so much?

Judy - It's not the song and it's not the girl's themselves, it's the way that their manager has admitted that he specifically marketed them and groomed them as what he called 'under-age entertainment'. Which basically means it is paedophilic entertainment.

I just think it is ridiculous that in a society where we are obsessed with police arresting paedophiles and child-porn sites that we can get behind, or a record company get behind, a record that has been manufactured for that purpose.

James - Richard, aren't we slightly playing into their hands. They admit they are doing it to shock and yet we're talking about it on the news and you are on your program - aren't we doing their job for them?

Richard - It's Catch-22 isn't it. I think you are partly right. But I think we have to talk about it because of the back story that comes with this record and these girls. I see nothing offensive in anything Britney Spears does. She is marketed as a wholesome person. But here we are told that these girls actually had, in real life, underage lesbian sex.

And we are told by their manager that he has found a gap in the market - a paedophile gap in the market - and he is pushing them to that market.

Now that is sick and it's wrong. Personally I think that Polydor should not be selling the record in this country. They are supporting a straightforward open paedophile message and that is terrible.

James - Should they ban it?

Richard - I think they should ban it. Radio stations should take it upon themselves to ban it. Not, as Judy says, because there is anything wrong with the song or the video - I think pop and rock is meant to shock and be sexy - but this is going way too far and yes I think people should boycott the record.

ITV.com, 31/1/03

There are increasing calls for Tatu, the latest pop sensation to hit Britain, to be banned.

As their debut single heads straight for number one, an increasing number of people have accused the teenage Russian duo of promoting paedophilia.

In their video the two girls are seen kissing and fondling each other while wearing school uniforms, and their manager has even admitted that he created the band as an "underage sex project".

The Russian teenagers Julia Volkova, 16, and Lena Katina, 17 claim to have been lesbian lovers for years.

Earlier, TV presenters Richard and Judy added their voices to the growing number of people who feel the duo should be banned.

Richard Madeley branded them "sick" and attacked their record label Polydor for supporting their "open paedophile message".

"We are being told that these girls actually have underage lesbian sex in real life and we are being told by their manager that he spotted a gap in the market - a paedophile gap in the market," he said.

"That's sick and it's wrong and personally I think Polydor should not be selling the record in this country. I think they are supporting a straightforward open paedophile message and that's terrible.

"I think they should ban it, I think radio stations should take it upon themselves to ban it," he said.

Wife Judy Finnegan added: "It's not the song, it's not the girls themselves, it's the way their manager has admitted that he's specifically marketed them and groomed them to be what he calls underage entertainment - which basically means paedophilic entertainment."

Child protection charity Kidscape has branded the group "pathetic and disgusting".

The band's manager Ivan Shapovalov, a former child psychologist, has said Tatu are aimed at men who visit pornographic websites looking for underage girls.

He said: "It was five years ago that I decided to do this underage sex project in Russia. Why underage? Because I wanted it and found it funny.

"People visit porn sites above all others. I analysed it and found 90 per cent of people using the Internet go to porno sites first.

"And of this 90 per cent, nine in 10 are looking for underage entertainment. This means there is big interest as well as some dissatisfaction - their needs are not being met."

Although the girls claim to enjoy a sexual relationship, many suspect the lesbian image is manufactured - they are said to have boyfriends back in Russia.

ITV.com, 31/1/03

TV SHOWS BAN VIDEO

Lesbian chart topping duo tATu have caused such controversy with their raunchy pop video, which shows the girls snogging, that the footage has been banned from Top Of The Pops and cd:UK.

The video shows Lena Katina, 17, and Julia Volkova, 18, wearing school uniforms as they smooch.

A BBC1 spokesperson said: "We think it's too raunchy for our viewers."

Instead, Friday's Top Of The Pops will show different footage of the singers, who are currently at Number One with All The Things She Said, and they will perform live.

But ITV1's Saturday morning music show cd:UK - a favourite with youngsters - will not be showing the video at all.

The video has been shown for months on MTV, which insists there is nothing wrong with the contents. But the music channel has admitted to cutting one scene where one of the girls shows her knickers.

But there's more of tATu's erotic performances to come. The next shocking, x-rated video to be released, for their song Simple Motions, shows them masturbating. Children's charities worrried the Russian duo are promoting paedophilia have welcomed the TV bans.

Kidscape has condemned the way the band is being marketed.

A spokesman for the charity told the Daily Star: "It is disgusting the way the record firm is appealing to the dirty old man market."

Sky News, 4/2/03

Why 'Mainly' Middle Class, Crime-Free Professionals?

The most recent UK sting ('Operation Ore') 'snared', mainly, middle class professionals with no previous criminal record - why? Well, of course, I do not have the answer, it is too early for all of us, although I am sure research grant applications are being put together, as I type. I will offer this, as an X-middle class, crime-free (OK, one for parking and one for speeding) professional:

I repeat;

I will tell you, in all certainty, that, in fantasy, when such a state of mind is coupled with years of repression, required by society, and apparently insurmountable stressors, that deterrence means absolutely nothing.

I suggest that this is the knife-edge position of many middle class, professional men. I also believe that this group of men see themselves to be a little bit more ‘able to deal with edgy issues', whereas, others are less able to cope with them (a bit like the view that clinicians and police can deal legally and safely with pornographic materials, but no one else can). This creates a bravado, coupled with the persuasive international nature of the Internet, which, under certain circumstances, makes them feel 'safe'. I also think that access to credit cards may play a part, but that may be minimal (can the ‘entrapped’ men claim on their credit card insurance?). It may be that the FBI only 'entrapped' this group. It may be that some of us think it is our right and, when anything else really does not matter, then we will take that right - freedom, I suppose. It may be that there is higher proportion of men with paedophilic tendencies, which have degrees (that is my second facetious comment).

Whatever the reason may be, it is happening now, it is a tiny drop in an immense ocean and it will only get worse (or better, depending on your stance).

The FBI Frustration and The Hypocrisy of The Issue

As we are aware, the information for Operation Ore originated from The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States. Notoriously keen and efficient, I am certain that the FBI is carrying out its function in its inimitable manner, however, there is a massive irony in this notion:

US Supremes Affirm Virtual Kiddie Porn

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a blow to prudes throughout the land, when it ruled 6-3 that sexual material which doesn't involve the abuse of actual children is legal.

At issue was the Child Pornography Prevention Act, which Congress passed in 1996 to purge society of dangerous images and ideas.

The Act would have outlawed anything which 'appears to depict' an underage person in a sexual act. That would mean a movie scene where young-looking adult actors give the impression that teenagers are doing the deed. We've seen that in scores of films like "Endless Love", "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", "Lolita", and even the recent "Traffic" (in which, ironically, a conservative US Senator Orrin Hatch appears as himself in a brief cameo). It would also cover realistic-looking art.

Part of the rationale behind the Act was to prevent children from being exposed to images and performances which might suggest to them that having sex with Uncle or with Coach is a fab idea, and quite popular among their peers.

According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, "the mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it."

The Court also observed that speech and art would be preempted out of fear. "Few legitimate movie producers or book publishers, or few other speakers in any capacity, would risk distributing images in or near the uncertain reach of this law,'' Justice Kennedy wrote.

US Attorney General John Ashcroft whinged during a press conference that prosecuting KP perverts will become "immeasurably more difficult" now that it will be necessary to prove that an objectionable image or performance is the real thing. Apparently, the DoJ has been prosecuting people for materials it isn't quite sure are actual child porn. This will have to stop. But the Lord Protector said he would do his best to tack on other recognized offenses to keep current prosecutions from evaporating.

It is of course still extremely illegal to produce or possess pornography which involves the sexual abuse of children, or which uses the image of an actual, identifiable child in such materials, but simulations are acceptable. Score one for the porn lobby.

Thomas C. Greene, The Register, (USA), 17/4/02

High Court Allows Virtual-Child Pornography

Citing the distinctions between idea and deed, the court says free speech covers computer-generated imagery.

WASHINGTON – The US Supreme Court has taken its first bold steps into the world of virtual reality, overturning an attempt by Congress to ban computer-generated images of child pornography.

In an important First Amendment decision, the nation's highest court ruled yesterday that digital images of "virtual" children engaged in sexual activity must be afforded a higher level of constitutional protection than pornography involving real children.

Should the 1st amendment protect computer-generated images of child pornography?

The 6-to-3 ruling marks a major victory for free-speech advocates, who worried that the law represented the thin edge of a wedge that could be used to justify ever-broader censorship. It is a setback to those who had argued that there is no way for viewers to differentiate between real-child pornography and virtual-child pornography and that they should be attacked legally as the same evil.

Supreme Court precedent permits the government to enact an outright ban on all pornography involving real children, in large part because it victimizes the children who are its subjects. In their action today, the justices stood by that precedent and refused to expand it to include virtual depictions on a computer screen.

"The Court's First Amendment cases draw vital distinctions between words and deeds, between ideas and conduct," Justice Anthony Kennedy writes for the majority.

In a dissent, Chief Justice William Rehnquist says that court's decision will make it harder for law-enforcement officials to protect children from child pornographers and pedophiles.

"The aim of ensuring the enforceability of our nation's child-pornography law is a compelling one," he says. "The [Child Pornography Protection Act] is targeted to this aim by extending the definition of child pornography to reach computer-generated images that are virtually indistinguishable from real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct."

In striking down two provisions of the Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996, the court found that the law was unconstitutionally overbroad, saying it sought to censor a wide universe of speech that was neither obscene nor child-pornographic.

Bill Lyon, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association of adult businesses, supported that determination. "Our whole argument was that the law is overly broad and it was unnecessary to criminalize a visualization in which no child was sexually abused," he says. "Adults have the right to view and discuss what they want, and every time we try to make a dent and say, 'All except this,' we start to harm the Constitution."

On the other hand, pornography opponents argued that pedophiles use virtual-child pornography to lure children into illicit sexual relationships and that such potential criminal use of computerized images should strip them of any protection under the First Amendment.

The high court disagreed, declining to adopt an analysis of the case that turns primarily on either the content or the effects of virtual-child pornography. Instead, the court made clear that the ban on child pornography is justified in large part by the abuse suffered by real children.

When that abuse is not present, other legal avenues must be used to attack pornography, such as obscenity laws. "Congress may pass valid laws to protect children from abuse, and it has," writes Justice Kennedy. "The prospect of crime, however, by itself does not justify laws suppressing protected speech."

He adds that the law is so broad that it prohibits speech despite its serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. "The statute proscribes the visual depiction of an idea – that of teenagers engaging in sexual activity – that is a fact of modern society and has been a theme in art and literature throughout the ages," he says.

Kennedy warns the law might have a chilling effect on literary and artistic works that in some minor way involve images of teens engaged in sexual activity. He cited the motion pictures "Traffic," and "American Beauty."

In the end, the decision is likely to overturn some cases and will change the way future ones are prosecuted say anti- child porn advocates. "This case adds an additional burden on the prosecutor," says Dan Armagh, former state prosecutor who is now at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. "Now, the government must prove the identity of that child."

Ron Scherer and Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0417/p01s06-usju.html also http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/news11.htm

If you think that the USA have interesting double standards, what of Canada?

Canadians Have a Right to Possess Child Pornography

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has just ruled that Canadians have a constitutional right to possess child pornography if it is for private use and not for distribution, according to a decision made public on Friday.

The judge dismissed two counts of simple possession against a Vancouver man, ruling the threat to privacy and freedom of expression rights posed by that section of the Criminal Code outweighed its limited benefits to society. The man in question had been arrested by Canadian Customs agents after he had ordered a computer disk titled: "Sam Paloc's Flogging, Fun and Fortitude, A collection of Kiddie Kink Classics." Police then raided the Vancouver man's home and seized additional books, manuscripts and pictures they allege contained child pornography of young boys.

The Judge - Justice Duncan Shaw - said that the invasion on personal privacy and freedom of expression was "profound" and there was not enough evidence that the total prohibition reduces social problems such as child abuse. "I find that the limited effectiveness of the prohibition is insufficient to warrant its highly invasive effects,'' Shaw said.

British Columbia Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh said the province was considering an appeal, but would not make a decision until after it received rulings on other aspects of Sharpe's case. http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/news9.htm http://www.c-a-s-e.net/Children%20At%20Risk.html

Beloved Reader,

I leave you now, with a tale penned by The Abbe de Coulmier. A man who found freedom in the unlikeliest of places;

At the bottom of an inkwell, On the tip of a quill.

However, be forewarned,

Its plot is blood-soaked, Its characters depraved, And, its themes, unwholesome, at best.

But, in order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the full measure of a man.

So come;

I dare you; turn the page ...

The Abbe de Coulmier, Quills, Screenplay by Doug Wright.

I have highlighted the interesting aspects, so as to indicate how the FBI must have great difficulty in coming to terms with the time (thus, expense and effort) incurred by their work, only to find out that most (all?) computer- related pornography, including minors, may now falter in court.

Being very proficient in morphing and creating digital fantasy graphics, of many types, I can assure you, not only can 'pseudo-photographs' match the 'real thing', but specific fantasies can be catered for, by the modification of sizes, cross-matching and in the addition of other details, perhaps relating to death and destruction (source materials being widely available on the WWW).

In the UK, our system is in its infancy, struggling to walk and come to terms with the world (and not only with this issue). It is attempting to apply outdated and, to be honest, contradictory laws (in an international human rights context), and this is the 'witch-hunt' referred to, by many. I avoid the use of the term, 'witch-hunt', as, historically, most people were not witches, whereas, we need to accept, that many more people are active in this sexual area, either in fantasy, curiosity or even, actuality; such is the fear-driven ignorance and hypocrisy in the United Kingdom.

This is is how the USA is coming to terms with many of the issues, causing such overload in the UK. By paying attention to the abuse of 'real' children, criminality is much reduced and, therefore, more manageable. However, incidentally, I challenge the reader to search for any successful prosecutions, relating to this issue, in the media, in the USA, in the past few months - I can assure the reader, things seem to have quietened down, to say the least. Ironically, it is the actions of a liberal constitution, which allows this to be the case in the USA, whereas, our repression of such issues (even discussion) leads to the difficulties we are now experiencing.

Another aspect of this issue, is the legal status of chatrooms and stories in the USA. I am aware of two legal sites. I will refer to them as Site A and Site B. Now, it is possible that Site B is not located in the USA, but many of the users are from there, or so they claim (and by timezone observation). Site A is (proudly) hosted in the USA (as is my site, incidentally).

I do not wish to exaggerate, for effect, so I guarantee, what I say now is true and easily verifiable, should the reader wish to take the chance. It would be possible, right now, with the legal use of a credit card, from Site A (essentially, a writer's co-operative), in the USA, to obtain many 'erotic' stories relating to sex with children, down to the age of babies. Stories which, at the most extreme, graphically describe the abduction, rape and killing of infants. There is also a busy selection of discussion areas.

On Site B, without credit card access, discussions take place within a certain chatroom (and a forum, to a lesser extent). Nicknames, again at the most extreme, are used, such as, 'baby=fucktoy', 'mom3ynggirls' and 'evilperve'. Obviously, within this open arena, every area of child (and adult and animal) abuse is openly discussed, cybersex takes place and stories are traded. Now, given the argument (although I challenge it elsewhere on this site), put simply, that 'one thing leads to another', which does the reader think to be the more, likely, exciting activity; looking at pictures/videos, or discussing, interactively, anything in this realm, with an uninhibited friend or friends?

Apparently, the USA has a problem with the former (although, only in the case of 'real' children - anything else is fine), but not with the latter. Of course, the UK seems to have no idea that it happens or, at least, seems unable to face it and publicise it, at this time.

These are not secret MIRC-based areas; these sites may be found on Yahoo, with little difficulty. Now, I have no doubt, that these sites are visited by the law enforcement agencies. However, that is irrelevant, as their right to free speech (essentially as an art form) means there is no legal recourse - this is another aspect of the hypocrisy, if the USA, truly, believes that fantasy is a prerequisite of, or forerunner, to reality.

Are we ready, yet, in the UK to visualise the future, once this quasi-witch-hunt is complete? Well, at least we are now considering the issues, which is healthy - although, probably, this is a little late for me - so it goes.

Police Launch 'Porn' Website to Snare Perverts /Police Develop 'Child Porn' Web Site

A website purporting to contain images of child sex abuse has been launched by police as part of a new global scheme targeting internet paedophiles.

Anyone who chooses to enter the site will be given the option of continuing through a series of pages while being prompted to withdraw from the process at every stage.

Those who choose to continue will ultimately be faced with a screen telling them they have entered a law enforcement website and that their actions constitute an offence. Their details will be captured and they could face prosecution in their country of residence.

The initiative, codenamed Operation Pin, was launched by the National Crime Squad (NCS) and is supported by other UK and international law enforcement agencies.

It was originally developed by a specialist team at West Midlands Police but has now been expanded and adopted as a global weapon in the fight against online paedophile activity.

The NCS said it was warning those who view images of child sex abuse that the internet was just another public place and would be policed as such.

NCS assistant chief constable Jim Gamble said: "We hope this initiative will disrupt the activity of paedophiles operating on the internet, discourage those who facilitate the supply of images of child abuse online and undermine the confidence of those who hope to use the internet anonymously when searching for sexual gratification by viewing images of child sexual abuse.

"It is vital to remember that those viewing or attempting to view this material are committing an offence in the UK, and if they are abroad they may well also be committing an offence in their own country.

"It is crucial that the public understand that those who search and view online images of child sexual abuse fuel the demand for new pictures and films, contributing to the real-time abuse of many new victims every day."

Ananova/AOL, 18th December 2003, http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_848118.html?menu=

Fake Sites Set to Trap Paedophiles

Police in the UK, Australia and the US will employ decoy Web sites in a bid to catch Internet paedophiles

Police from Britain, Australia and the United States are to launch a crackdown on Internet paedophiles with a sting using fake Web sites, UK police said on Thursday.

The drive, dubbed "Operation Pin,'' is being launched amid a fresh row in Britain over how police handle criminal investigation details of sex crime suspects. The Home Office has called for an inquiry into how police checks of a man convicted of murdering two ten-year- old girls failed to reveal he was the subject of multiple sex crime allegations, none of which resulted in a conviction.

The man, Ian Huntley, was sentenced Wednesday to two life prison terms for murdering Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in the summer of 2002. He met the girls while working as a school caretaker in the English village of Soham.

What has this to do with Operation Pin?

Police forces across the world have set up online dragnets to round up those who set up child pornography Web sites and those who pay to visit them.

Operation Pin is a landmark operation, setting up Web sites that purport to contain pornographic images of children, police said.

Visitors to the site will be alerted that they are breaking the law and that their details could be circulated to law enforcement officers in a host of countries.

In the past, police have swooped on frequent visitors of such sites, often identifying them through credit card details they used to pay for viewing the images.

Reuters, December 18, 2003, http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39118645,00.htm

Comment: Sounds good on paper (or,on screen), but will evidence hold-up in court?

Is it not the case that the authorities can be accused of acting as "agent provocateur", therefore being guilty of enticement and open to counter-suits of corruption et al? The law, likened to a door, swings both ways.

Des Saxby, http://www.zdnet.co.uk/talkback/?PROCESS=show&ID=20015340&AT=39118645-39020375t- 10000025c

Website To Snare Net Paedophiles

An international operation has been launched to trap internet paedophiles who search online for images of abused children.

Police forces in Britain, the US and Australia are setting up websites which claim to contain pornographic photographs of youngsters. Anyone entering the sites will be able to continue through a series of pages ending at a screen which tells them they could face prosecution.

The initiative, codenamed Operation Pin, was launched by the National Crime Squad (NCS) and developed by a West Midlands police team.

A spokesman for the NCS said it was a warning to those who viewed images of child sex abuse that the internet was a public place and would be policed as such.

NCS assistant chief constable Jim Gamble said: "We hope this initiative will disrupt the activity of paedophiles operating on the internet... and undermine the confidence of those who hope to use the internet anonymously when searching for gratification with images of child sexual abuse.

"It is crucial that the public understand that those who search and view online images of child sexual abuse fuel the demand for new pictures and films."

Assistant chief constable Stuart Hyde, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "This is a major contribution to our national strategy that makes it more difficult for would-be paedophiles to post or download abusive images."

Chris Atkinson, NSPCC child protection policy adviser, said: "The internet is no longer the last hiding place for people who view and download images of children being sexually abused."

Matthew Taylor, The Guardian, Friday December 19, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,1110090,00.html

It is not an offence, in the UK, to visit a website or pay for access to any website. The only way this could possibly serve its purpose, is that, in the website they have 'created', actual images are on, at least, the final page, thus, propagating the distribution of child pornography.

There may be the issue of 'inciting others to distribute', but, surely, Operation Ore has shown us that the resources are not there for prosecution.

Once again, this is a publicity stunt, littered with emotive and, at least, debatable propaganda. What is more, it is not even novel:

Italian Police Bust Net Child Porn Ring

The borderless, anonymous Web makes it difficult to track child pornographers.

Italian authorities have charged nearly 1,500 suspected pedophiles with supplying and downloading child pornography on the Internet, according to European news sources.

Of the people named in the indictment, 660 are Web users traced to locations outside of Italy, including the United States, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Malaysia and Russia. International arrest warrants have been filed against the foreign nationals in the hope that they will stand trial along with the 831 Italians accused.

The case centers on videotapes supplied by a Moscow-based pedophile syndicate. The Italian Police have petitioned its Russian counterpart to arrest the suspected ringleader, who has been jailed for distributing pornography in the past.

High-Profile Task Force

With a task force comprised of technology experts associated with U.S-based software giant Microsoft, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and even a few hackers, the Italian police set up a phony Web site designed to attract child pornography offenders.

The site was called "amantideibambini," which means "lovers of children." Despite a filter posted on the site -- warning that anyone accessing the available material could be prosecuted under Italian law -- 1,032 people registered as subscribers.

The task force then bombarded the subscribers with computer viruses in order to track their links with other child porn sites around the Internet. The monitoring led authorities to the Russian criminals, who were supplying videos of child porn ranging in price from $400 to $6,000 (US$).

The Russian site offered videos of unwitting minors filmed in the nude, as well as "Necro Pedo" videos of children being tortured and killed. The violent videos fetched the highest prices.

Delivery Sting

According to authorities involved in the case, a task force based near Naples, Italy intercepted parcels sent by the site. Undercover officers masquerading as postal workers then delivered the packages to the addressees.

According to reports, the Naples task force learned that the Russian syndicate had been kidnapping children from orphanages and public parks for use in the videos.

Worldwide Epidemic

Child pornography has been labeled a problem "of international proportion." According to a brief written by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the anonymous nature of the Internet has benefited pedophiles and child molesters in countless ways.

In addition, inexpensive technologies -- from cheap personal computers to digitized video -- has provided offenders with exponentially more material. Moreover, the borderless Internet has made tracking child pornography much more difficult.

Still, the most frightening change brought about by the Web, according to UNESCO, is the fact that the Internet reassures child porn criminals that their orientation is shared by countless others, and is therefore in some way acceptable despite worldwide condemnation of the practice.

Founded in London in 1945, UNESCO aims to contribute to world peace and justice by promoting collaboration among nations.

Robyn Weisman, NewsFactor Network, October 30, 2000, http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/4680.html

Child Pornography Goes to College

Ohio police visit a small college to investigate what they call one of the biggest electronic collections of child pornography ever.

The small college town of Marietta, Ohio got turned upside down when it first became the focal point in an investigation of what police are calling one of the world's largest computerized collections of child pornography.

"There are over three hundred thousand images involved with the case," deputy director of Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigations Kathleen Barch told "CyberCrime" in a recent interview. "How many are pornography, how many are child pornography... that will take a while to process."

Late last year, police confiscated the images from computers at Marietta College and gathered evidence related to the on ongoing investigation at Ohio University, according to search warrants and affidavits filed with Marietta courts.

Despite the fact that Barch describes the size of the collection as shocking, large-scale electronic child pornography libraries like this one are becoming increasingly common.

In a 1998 landmark case, police in 12 countries arrested 107 men in a carefully orchestrated raid on an international electronic child porn ring known as the Wonderland Club.

The club was organized as a giant lending library of kiddie porn, allowing member pedophiles to exchange child pornography images online. Membership in the club was by invite only and required that each member provide a minimum of 10,000 images to share among other club members, according to police.

The raid, known as Operation Cathedral, turned up a total of 750,000 images depicting 1,263 children engaged in sexual acts, both with each other and with adults. Some of the images were of children as young as 3 months old.

In 2000, another international crackdown on child pornography netted nearly 1,500 arrests when Italian police raided 600 homes as part of an investigation into a child pornography ring based in Russia.

Italian authorities had secretly conspired with United States-based software manufacturer Microsoft to establish a fake pedophile website called "amantideibambini," or "lovers of children" in English. The phony website registered 1,032 subscribers despite posting clear warnings about the illegality of its content.

As a result of the sting, Italian prosecutors ordered 831 Italians to stand trial and called for the extradition to Italy of another 660 foreigners implicated in the Russian ring.

And, in December 2000, a separate Russian child pornography ring was smashed when Moscow police, working with British and American authorities, arrested two men for allegedly selling child pornography over the Internet.

Police seized 588 videocassettes, 112 videodiscs, and more than 1,000 pornographic photographs, many of them involving children.

These recent arrests and prosecutions in England, Italy, Russia, the United States, and other nations are just a few examples of the efforts international authorities are currently making to stop large-scale child pornography rings.

In Ohio alone, Barch says her department spends one-third of its time investigating child pornography cases.

Right now, a lot of that time is being spent looking into the Marietta College child porn collection.

"There is a huge amount of material to be sifted and sorted, and that sifting and sorting has not yet been completed," prosecutor Michael Spahr told "CyberCrime."

Spahr reports that Professor Eugene Robert Anderson, former head of the college's computer science center, is linked to the investigation.

According to a search warrant and affidavit, Marietta police have been investigating Anderson since the fall. The affidavit states that an informant told police that while he "was a juvenile," he had a "sexual relationship with Anderson" and that some of the encounters "occurred in Anderson's office at Marietta College."

Police obtained a search warrant to look for images the informant claimed Anderson allegedly took of him with a digital camera. When investigators executed the search warrant, they "found nude photographs of juvenile males" according to the affidavit.

Anderson resigned from his position at Marietta College after his arrest December 15 and was charged with one count of unlawful conduct with a minor. That count was eventually dismissed because Ohio law requires that someone charged with a crime be brought to trial within 270 days -- 90 days if they are in jail -- and prosecutors had not yet finished going through the images at that time, according to Spahr.

Spahr insists that he does intend to attempt to get a grand jury indictment against Anderson once the investigation is complete.

"Until they're finished [with the images], we're not even sure what we'll be able to charge him with," Spahr adds.

Anderson is denying that he should be charged with anything.

"I think he's very shocked," says George Consenza, Anderson's attorney. "He's more shocked about the type of things that have been said about him in the media and the allegations that he is a kingpin or head of the largest pornographic distribution network in the country. He specifically denies all of those charges."

In the meantime, Barch and her investigators are combing through the many images they seized from the college's computers in an effort to identify the children and build a case against Anderson. But that may take a while.

"You can picture a book that's 300,000 pages deep and actually have to go through and physically examine each of the pictures," Barch says. "It's going to take quite a time."

Jack Karp, April 17, 2001, http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/viceonline/story/0,23008,3321640,00.html http://www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/IRC/articles.asp?articleID=48&NewsID=12

Update (4/1/04): you have to love 'The People', with their biting scoops ...

COPS SNARE PERVS WITH FAKE CHILD PORN SITES

POLICE have launched fake child porn websites to snare on-line paedophiles, The People can reveal.

Perverts looking for child abuse images on the site will be constantly warned of its content and be given the option to leave.

Anyone ignoring the advice and looking for more sick images will finally be told they have been trapped by the National Crime Squad. They will be warned their personal details have been recorded, and told they now face up to ten years in jail.

Police worldwide will be given details of anyone using the phoney site.

The scheme - Operation Pin - was begun by West Midlands police and has now been adopted by cops in America, Canada and Australia.

Chief Constable Jim Gamble, of the National Crime Squad, said: "If you are a paedophile, we are going to make it much more difficult for you to operate."

Cops hope for a repeat of the successful Operation Ore - sparked when 7,000 suspected British paedophiles were exposed by an FBI raid on a US website in 2002. It has so far led to 277 convictions in Britain.

Newsdesk, Jan 4, 04, http://www.people.co.uk/ No One Expects the British Inquisition (2)!

The Label of Child Porn

Child porn is at the heart of our new sexual absolutism. Its laws have criminalized both artistic representation and objective intellectual examination and speculation.

(See below for 'Guide to child porn on the Internet')

As with sex abuse, the expression ‘child porn’, as widely used in our society, is a label, which signals that its user is employing Stage 2 thinking (see Sex abuse for Stage 2). Here also, we are facing a doctrinaire mindset that is difficult to respond to. As with the sex abuse label, this one is used to cover a huge range of images from child nudity, through erotic posing and acting, to simulated and real sexual activity. The oversimplification of the labeling is particularly devastating by its lumping of certain images of all young women under18, including those sexually mature from 13 on, in with younger children.

As with sex abuse, the label trivializes and normalizes as it over-simplifies. If images of beautiful nude children are as much pornographic as those of children being raped, then while the beautiful are criminalized the pornographic are made less criminal.

In his The Art of Awareness (p98), J. Samuel Bois says, “A time comes when we see not what is actually there but what we believe is there, because our cultural unconsciousness causes us to believe that it is there. In such cases believing is tantamount to seeing (as distinct from ‘seeing is believing’). In 1964, New York barrister, James Marshall, wrote an article titled The Unreality of Accident Litigation: a plea for a new approach, in which he said, “What an individual perceives is the result of his personality, his environment, and his history, filtered through his experiences." (American Bar Association Journal– August 1964. p. 714.) His plea for a new approach appears not to have been heard.

There is a salutary example of the perils of labeling to be found in an attempt of an academic, who sees himself under the label of a ‘child porn watchdog’ to write a comprehensive article about child pornography. Professor Max Taylor, from the organization Copine, based at University College Cork, Ireland, did indeed succeed in writing a very comprehensive article, perhaps one of the best of its kind, using his considerable experience and huge collection of child pornography images, housed at the university. We have reviewed that article below (Guide to child porn), but suffice it to say that it was considered to be so comprehensive, and so sensitive to the wide range of images available, and so instructive in the ways one could access images and even avoid detection in doing so, that it was adopted and published by the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation group and is on their web site. (http://www.ipce.info/library_3/index.htm/)

The thinking process involved

Using the theories of Alfred Korzybski, made clearer and more practical by Bois, let us examine the process of abstraction used in identifying and judging what is called ‘child pornography’. The first kind is known as evaluative, using our sense of ‘feeling’, in the way we sense that mother and home are good. This form of abstraction comes not from the image of a child in a sexual or related situation, but from our previous experiences and our cultural assumptions. This emerges strongly in the ideas of the Internet censors who declare that what may be a legitimate image for one to view (picture of a baby in a bath viewed by its parents) may not be legitimate for another (a suspicious stranger without a ‘legitimate reason’ to view the image). This is actually a very interesting abstraction as it is two steps removed from the object viewed. It is an abstraction based on our judgement of another’s abstraction, and as such it has an extremely doubtful basis.

The evaluative statement says that something is beautiful or ugly, good or bad, threatening or attractive, but that judgement comes not from the image but from within ourselves. I may see an image of a naked twelve year old girl as beautiful, while my colleagues working on the Internet hotline may see it as an object fanning their hatred of pedophiles, capable of exciting abhorrent passions. Bois says that we make idols of our evaluative generalities.

The second level or kind of abstracting is classifying. This unfortunately is labeling, where we say that this is a rich man or a poor man, a bad man or ‘child porn’, with little regard for the potentially wide range of differences within it.

The third kind of abstracting is relational. Here we relate what we are seeing, or considering, to other things and to some overall or emerging idea. Here for example, we may examine the possibility that the availability of images of naked children at play or in naturist settings with their families may be good for all of society, and even reduce the likelihood of covert interest in them.

The fourth type of abstracting is self-reflexive. Here we are aware of our own role in our relationship with the image. We may find that, instead of it being in all cases the evidence of a crime, it could be natural, funny, a burlesque, or simply beautiful or erotic. Where it is an image of a real crime, we may decide that it could have a value in tracking down the criminal and reducing further crimes of this nature and thus see it through ‘forensic’ lens. If it is a record of incest, we may find it instructive in studying the causes and workings of this unusual expression of human sexuality. If we are poet or playwright, we may want to get a child to act out a part in the interests of a greater good, or if we are a novelist we may want to write about it to produce great comedy or tragedy.

Indeed, it is this very self-reflexiveness that may be contributing to our great difficulty with child sexuality, and the reaction of loathing to even the thought of it. At this level of abstraction, we are not a separate entity observing the image; we are participants also in that act of viewing the image. From this it is not hard to understand how what one may see as beautiful may be seen as loathsome by another. The beauty and the loathing are indeed in the eye of the beholder.

Something is rotten in the state

By Brian Rothery

So said Shakespeare in Scene 4, Act I of Hamlet, bequeathing to us the only English language expression we have that describes a mess, the exact cause of which we cannot quite put our finger on. But it's less a problem for the state of Denmark he spoke of than it is for many other countries, chief among them the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and now parts of mainland Europe as a social cancer spreads. There can be no sensible and fair-minded person living in these countries today that does not fear that our current obsession with, and handling of, so-called 'child porn' issues do not pose a huge threat to our civil liberties, and encourage and incite hatred against 'designated perverts'. Just look at what we have now - the police allowed to form moral judgments that can lead to convictions based on their opinion of material that academics, philosophers, book authors and journalists are not allowed to see. All forms of child nudity, including the most beautiful, at risk of being judged as 'indecent' and therefore criminal. Cameras banned from swimming pools and playgrounds, and no longer used freely in the privacy of bedroom or bathroom. Senior policemen and judges accused of privately indulging in child porn.

I hope that I can take the liberty to make two important points here. I have to declare both a public and private interest in my conviction that our child porn and sex abuse doctrines have created an absolutist society in which both false and exaggerated claims of sex abuse, resulting in compensation claims, are commonplace, and that they in turn have led to both great personal injustice and the virtual destruction of many kinds of good work. The second point is that although I am a very experienced journalist and a widely published book author with titles in many translations, I have met with barriers and closed doors in my attempts to investigate and write about this subject. This should be a cause of alarm, as these doors include those of newspapers, academia, monitoring organizations, and, ironically, at least one civil rights organization. The last seems to have hoisted itself with the petard of political correctness, so that it cannot balance its support for 'prohibition against incitement to hatred' with 'rightful hatred of the sex abuser'.

What may be even more alarming is that while I can accept that agents, editors and publishers may find certain subjects distasteful, and, while I have long learned that I must accept editorial criticism, including outright rejection, this is the first time that my attempts to examine and write about any subject put me at risk of criminal prosecution. Let me give a few examples. All my attempts to produce a book about child porn have been stalled, not simply because a publisher would not touch it, but because the production of any meaningful critique of either child porn or some of its sub components, such as the genre of child eroticism, would have risked criminal prosecution. I went to the extent of finding a woman author, in the hope that she, as a woman, would be allowed to express views not allowed from a man, but she became so afraid of the ever-growing repression that we had to halt the project.

Days before this was written, one of the many people assisting me was afraid to give me the title of a book, now banned in the UK, but available over Amazon, because its cover contained a high-resolution image of two naked boys. He was afraid that naming the title would involve him in one or both of the two criminal activities of soliciting me to look at the image, or advertising the image to me. Three of the writers on this web site feel safe only by using pseudonyms. Several others feel somewhat fearful. One has been the subject of a smear campaign that made false allegations against him.This is Inquisition 21st century.

Child porn The first thing that must be said about the current child porn obsession is that there has been a huge fraud carried out by absolutists with their own private agendas to create a mechanism for witch hunt and power. If one is interested in the origins of this and the extent of the fraud, no better way than to read our US author and New Zealand contact, Jim Peron, who has written a detailed account of how the child porn program began in the US and the many lies and deceits it has entailed. For example, activists in the US created the child porn obsession virtually overnight by criminalizing depictions above the age of 16 and under 18, thus creating a huge category of 'child porn' from images already published in European glamour and in all family nudist magazines.

Most of this over 16 'porn' consists of nudity and erotic posing, believed by many non-fundamentalists to be natural and beautiful. The really scary thing is how successful a few fundamentalists in the US have been in inciting a worldwide child porn witch-hunt, a success we might add on top of existing campaigns about sex abuse, victimization and recovered memory.

Jim Peron's article, in two parts, is The Claptrap Over Child Porn.

While the US once again has demonstrated its tendency towards McCarthyism and Salem type witch-hunts, it is to the US we must turn for the other side also. It appears to be the only country where at last published writers are denouncing the Inquisition, amongst them women writers.

Apart from the Peron article we draw from official European internet Hotlines data to come up with the conclusions in three other articles, the first 'The reality of the child porn situation' right below and 'The UK child porn catastrophe' and 'Child porn -a great Irish fraud' also below.

At the top of the Sex abuse page we mentioned Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, written by Judith Levine, which questions many of our misconceptions about child pornography. The outrage against the book in the US was such that there were calls to ban it and withdraw funding from the University of Minnesota, whose academic press had published it. This was in 2002, only a couple of years after a group of self-appointed censors had torn up the photographic books of Jock Sturges and David Hamilton in the Barnes and Noble bookstores, and caused indictments against Barnes and Noble in two states. While some people will wish that the attacks on all these books had succeeded, others will be happy to hear that sales of all increased dramatically as a result of the attacks, but the attacks almost succeeded, and, in the case of Judith Levine's book, frightened other university presses, whose administrations are fearful of public and political opinion.

At the heart of our new sexual absolutism is the dogma of pedophilia, especially in the campaign against 'child pornography'. The laws concerning the downloading of child pornography have introduced a new repressive element into censorship - the criminalization of artistic/dramatic representation and objective intellectual examination and speculation, and, in some countries such as Canada and Ireland, the criminalization of certain private thoughts if they are written down or recorded, even for private purposes. As an example of the infectious, virulent nature of censorship, most of what is being seen as 'child pornography' is not pornography at all, but either child nudity or a new genre, growing in popularity but now being forced underground, known as 'child eroticism'. There are indications that it may become illegal to acknowledge the very existence of this genre, let alone study or enjoy it, because you cannot differentiate it from pornography without risk of breaking the law. When we consider the words of the Irish Times journalist in the paragraphs under the Inquisition, as he gives his primary reason for the castration of certain sex offenders - 'firstly, to ensure that even their solitary sexual fantasies for children are removed for all time', we see how we have with us at all time those who would censor our thoughts, the unacceptable thoughts of the rapist father today, those of the romantic tomorrow, and imagination itself the day after.

It is remarkable how far and wide the absolutist doctrine of child porn has penetrated, carried on the currents of political correctness. One way to state this doctrine might be as follows: 'The loathsomeness of depicting the naked bodies of children, including those of under-age girls, as sexually beautiful or stimulating is so great that all making or creating of images of their naked bodies must be made to be criminal acts'. Thus, because of this fear and loathing, we ban all image-making of naked children and of girls under the ages of 18, or lower depending on the country, including photographs, drawings and oil paintings. We forbid the making, depiction or viewing of images of what may be the most beautiful substantiality in our civilization, perhaps what links us to the divine. In related legislation we forbid even the encouragement or incitement of a naked child to strike a pose, to act out a part, or to dance. Above all, we forbid certain creative acts, the making of certain images, whatever our reasons for making them might be, even meaningful drama or great art, and the recording of certain thoughts.

This repressive doctrine has infected all levels of Western society, newspaper editors, producers, publishers, journalists, prosecution services, judges and juries, while the police embrace it. One need no longer wonder at the public approval of the Nazi attacks on Jews, of McCarthyism, of the people of Salem, or the enthusiasm of the Red Guards. Absolutism infects nearly all, and like a wily virus it has now attached itself to sex abuse and child porn.

A careful reading of the contents of this web site will reveal the connection between the centralist doctrine of child porn, the sex abuse obsession and the compensation culture.

The reality of the child porn situation

Here now is the kind of information the media does not want to hear. The Hotlines have compiled a graph showing the relationship between sites seen to contain child porn and all sites on the Internet. The graph is a compilation of a number of peoples' research in this area and we have the sources on file. It shows three columns - Total sites, public sites and child porn (CP) sites. There are 5 million total sites, 3.5 million public sites and 8,700 CP sites. The 1.5 million difference between public and total is made up of private sites, mainly corporate where one requires a password (not CP sites requiring passwords). The difference in number between the CP and other sites is so great that on a normal graph page, the CP does not register. It is one fifth of one percent - .02%.

But now let us examine that figure more closely. First the 8,700 contains many duplications, as images are copied. Let us assume that 20% of them share images in differing mixes. This reduces the number of CP sites to 7,000. Many of the CP sites move. xyz.com hosted in Brazil one day can appear as abc.kg hosted in, say, Russia the next, and be counted as two within the analysis period. Say 10% move, reducing the number to 6,300.

Now the big numbers. There are more sites with child nudity and child erotica, which may be judged by the analysts as CP, than there are real CP sites. A good guess would be most of them. Let's say 4,000, leaving 2,300. Now for simulated and artificially created images, such as Japanese Hentai, where no real children are photographed, and which many defenders of free expression say should not be criminalized, but, that argument aside, do not involve porn with real children. A conservative guess would be around 6,000, maybe more. This leaves between one or two and 300 CP sites. Let's take the upper figure. We do not know what jurisdiction in the world would not arrest the hosters and makers of these 300 sites but what we do know is that some of our brave censors have worked hard to find the few that have existed. If there are 300, they make up .0007% of the total number of web sites on the Internet.

These figures were passed around the writers in the Inquisition21 group for opinions. The first remarks were revealing. Most child porn publishers will want to be paid by customers. If there are few customers daring to shop, let alone buy, these sites will shut down, if not first shut by local police. The police and their related censors must be looking very hard indeed to find any child porn.

Then came this observation. "Unless there is something more sinister going on, like when the American authorities continued to run the Landslide site after it was discovered." So are the authorities and some 'watchdogs' operating stings to catch downloaders? What an irony if the only readily available child porn on the Internet is being maintained by the police and the self-appointed monitors!

It will it be bad news for the police child porn units and for the research grants to 'forensic' child porn research if no further child porn hosting is uncovered.

As we were studying these figures, every week in the UK and Ireland there were more stories of men being convicted of downloading child porn. Copine of University College Cork (See the Irish child porn collection below) boasted of assisting the international police in more arrests. A new low was reached when, on November 30 2003 in the Sunday Times,they published a photograph of one of their Ph.D. students, Gemma Holland, claiming that her work had helped track down and convict a pedophile. It seemed that we now had celebrity pedophile trackers. The dwindling mirage of child porn images appeared to be balanced by claims of their increasing availability. We were reading of 'burn out' within the ranks of the unfortunate police forces and Internet censors, such as Copine and the Hotlines, who daily had to look at the shocking images.

From inside the Inhope organization in the UK, we finally managed to get access to one of the worst child porn images ever found on the Internet. It had been either seized by the police or leaked to them - we could not establish which, and, at first glance, Max Taylor of Copine's claims that the US was the worst country for child porn appeared to be correct, as the image had originated in the US.

It was an image of a man eating a live baby. The police had rushed it to the prosecution service, whereupon, to the consternation of all, the expert decision was that it was not pornographic - cannibalistic, yes, but it could not be deemed criminal under the child porn laws. If the photo had been taken while the child's genitalia were still visible (in other words if he had begun eating from the other end), graphic depiction of the genitals would have constituted child pornography. Later, it transpired that the image was a hoax, designed to entrap the Hotline and the police.

The trends and possible future

There are at least two major influences affecting what we might call the genre of child sexuality (including nudity, eroticism and pornography), the first social, the second technological. The social impact from censorship and criminalization has been huge, as it has not just fanned an existing interest in the genre but created an enormous new interest, making it more ‘normal’ for those who formerly feared it, and attractive to many by forbidding it. As with lesbianism in the UK of the 1920s, many learning about it for the first time through the Home Office’s desperate attempts to suppress Radyclyffe Hall’s book about it, thought they might like to see it or experience it. Now the criminalization of child sexuality increases its value by forcing it underground, requiring those still prepared to risk looking for it to pay more for it: this also makes the exploitation of children for purposes of pornography more profitable.

The technological influences are profound. Suddenly, as if overnight, picture phones have appeared, especially in the hands of teenagers and children. These by-pass the servers, making it impossible for hotlines or other censors, such as the police, to monitor and trace downloaders. Those interested in accessing overseas illegal sites can do so over their mobile phone to avoid detection, perhaps having located the sites in the first instance over their PCs, but not accessing them through them. A somewhat startling development is that, inspired perhaps by the older generation’s obsession with ‘child porn’, teenagers and children have begun to photograph themselves and each other surreptitiously in the first instance, and then, because the picture is on a mobile phone, one of them sends it to a friend who sends it on to another friend, and suddenly the authorities are shocked to find ‘child porn’ circulating amongst school children. (See Child porn - a great Irish fraud below)

This practice, however, while greatly facilitated by picture phones, is not completely new. Children and under age teenagers have been using webcams and digital cameras for ‘naughty’ purposes for some time, and Polaroids before them. The new Sexual Offences Act in the UK creates three new offences, all of which will affect children doing such things, and all three offences can be committed together in the same sequence of events, leading to the possibility of children engaged in what some could see as harmless consensual activity being sentenced to 42 years in jail.

For adults, a much needed development is an easy method of hard disk clearing, such as new hard disk software that clears all deleted files and not just as they now do clear the references to the space that files occupy and make that space available for other files as required. There is a substantial market amongst those who do not like being threatened by police censors, whether they want to look at child sexuality or not, and who will purchase this software, if only to put the censors out of business. Unfortunately, Microsoft controls all such software, and Microsoft is not on the side of freedom of choice and human liberty – indeed the opposite. http://www.rothery.com/article7.html?&MMN_position=9:9

The UK Child Porn Catastrophe

Updated January 2004

Brian Rothery

This is the beginning of a country by country analysis of the damage being done to human liberty by the sex abuse absolutism. We would like to hear from other countries, even though we already have plenty of information on the US. We are also aware that the position is very bad in Canada and Australia. We would like to hear from readers in any country and particularly seek correspondents.

This UK story is still being written - indeed, it could change by the day. For background to the UK legal situation there is no better source than a web site mainly devoted to the Protection of Children Act 1978, indeed, the only comprehensive web site on the subject, which critically examines the various UK laws relating to child pornography, and exposes contradictions, anomalies and threats to liberty. It tells us a lot about our society that this web site, set up by a private individual, is the only reliable source of information on legislation and policing activities that are affecting all of our lives and our liberty.

In July 2003, I began to put questions to the UK Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and the Metropolitan police about their shared activities in monitoring the Internet for child pornography. I had good responses from the IWF, but the Metropolitan police simply ignored my questions. The IWF's web site reveals that its chairman is an ex Trade Union chief and its CEO an ex police chief. The web site also boasts of the number of arrests it has contributed to.

Here are some of the questions to and answers from the IWF:

"How do you investigate alleged illegal material? Does it involve monitoring or studying (online or downloaded) illegal Internet images?"

The IWF replied, "Yes. Assessing the legality of images is the core function of the IWF Hotline."

"When you are monitoring the kind of activities you report to the police, does this also involve accessing sites with illegal images?"

"Yes. We need to do this in order to assess and trace the content."

" Is there special UK legislation, or exemptions from legislation, that allows the IWF to access and study illegal Internet material - that others, such as journalists and book authors, for example, cannot do without risk of breaking the law?"

"No, but we work with the full permission of the Home Office and police; there is no exemption for police currently either. There is a defence of legitimate possession that covers IWF/Police but there is no exemption for making indecent images of children i.e. downloading them over the internet to view them from a web site is making under UK law. If a journalist or other person views indecent images of children via the Internet they commit an offence the law is very clear on this. Clause 48 (Clause nn of the Sexual Offences Bill 2003) currently going through will allow for named individuals to carry out such work. IWF staff will receive written authority to carry out their work from an official of at least the rank of Chief Constable. As will police officers carrying out similar work."

"Do you employ assessment criteria to distinguish between what is currently being considered to be, and described as, child porn? For example, do you distinguish between child nudity, child eroticism, artistic representations of unclothed children? If you do not, that will end that question; if you agree, I would like to ask you about the criteria used."

"We assess images under the Protection of Children Act 1978. Taking into account all of the content of the web page/site we ask the question is that an indecent image of a child apparently under 16?"

"Do you give consideration to the possibility that certain depicted activities may be intended as satire, send up, or dramatic representations, as in fairy tale, folk story, ballet? If so, I would like to see such criteria."

" Not sure what you mean here, satire is not illegal, we don't make moral judgements only legal. If a satire website used indecent images of children the owner would be prosecuted in the same way as anyone else distributing illegal images of children."

"A variation of the last question - how would you respond to seeing a meaningful dramatic representation of child rape or exploitation, for example in a stage play, ballet or movie (online), where a real child actor is used?"

" Indecent images of children are illegal whether in a meaningful play or otherwise. We would have to assess each of your examples individually, I cannot speculate in such general terms. Such a theme could be dealt with without showing indecent images of a child."

After more questions and answers, the IWF admitted to the following: "Under UK law viewing an image over the internet constitutes making a new image as the original is still on the web server and you have made a copy located on your computer." In other words, both the IWF and the police were breaking the law by viewing and downloading the very images they were accusing others of viewing and downloading. Aware by now that Clause 48 was planned to solve this conundrum, I asked if they were not now and previously breaking the law.

IWF replied, "Pre clause 48, the IWF and police technically break the law, but there is no other way to investigate these crimes. However they do so with the full knowledge and support of the Government."

I asked my UK source if the IWF could break the law with the full knowledge and support of the government, and he replied, "Downloading child porn is child abuse (see various judgements) - the IWF is engaged in government sponsored child abuse."

This raises the first big question. It is not legal in the UK to use illegally obtained or illegal material in a prosecution, so what about all the previous prosecutions? Again I turned to my UK source who had already pointed out to me that the police are not allowed to commit another murder to expose a murderer. Here was his response, which may have great implications for all those previously convicted:

"By bringing in this 'authorisation' (Clause 48 allowing named people to make child porn), they are confirming that there was no defence prior to the authorisation. They are admitting that anyone prosecuted successfully between 1984 (year of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act) and the effective date of the amendments made by the (forthcoming) Sexual Offences Act had their right to a fair trial violated. In a (hypothetical) human rights violation hearing it would not be necessary to make the argument oneself anymore, as the government has made an admission."

I double-checked with my source, who replied, "If you look at a standard exposition of the English constitution, you will find that 'unlawfully obtained evidence should not be used in a prosecution' (and many other common law jurisdictions explicitly forbid illegally obtained evidence). See, for example, Britain Unwrapped: Government and Constitution Explained . Penguin 2002. Hilaire Barnett. However, English judges are notoriously unwilling to exclude evidence based on the unlawful nature of its origin."

The second big question concerns accidentally or involuntarily viewed illegal material, as in the case of stumbling onto a child porn web site or receiving an unwanted spam which has an online link to an image so that the image materializes as soon as you look at the message. To report an image viewed even accidentally, or received in a spam email, in the UK, risks criminal prosecution. And this means that no one in his or her right mind should report any child porn image, however received. As a test of how bad the situation is in the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada or Australia, try answering this question: how many people do you know who would trust the police not to use an innocent situation to try to create a prosecution?

I put another question to the IWF spokesman: "Would you know if the defence of legitimate possession that covers IWF/Police could extend to writers and journalists?"

"It would not extend to cover journalists and writers - it is intended to be used in the prevention and investigation of crime. It would not stretch to research."

My first thought was that the writer could be investigating police corruption, or miscarriages of justice, but I then put the question and answer to my UK source. He replied, "This is plain wrong. The legitimate reason defence is meant to apply to anyone who might have possession of indecent photographs for a legitimate purpose. This might apply to psychiatrists, probation and prison officers running sex offender treatment programmes, and so on. The legitimate reasons are to be assessed by on a case-by-case basis by a jury - if the jury is convinced that the person making the defence had a good cause to possess the images, then the defence applies. It is at least possible to imagine an investigative journalist having possession for legitimate reasons."

While the main questions about unlawful and unjust prosecutions may be the most immediately important for justice, the other question asked about criteria used has profound implications for human liberty, creativity and imagination. Note the certainty of the IWF spokesperson telling this writer that in a meaningful play 'such a theme could be dealt with without showing indecent images of a child'. Is he now also a arbiter of artistic expression, who knows what a play or a ballet or a movie should show? The very expression 'indecent' is defined in UK law in the broadest sense of offending people. It is for the jury (or bench of magistrates) to decide whether or not a photograph is 'indecent', and they do this by 'applying the recognised standards of propriety'. For millennia we have been confused about what is and is not indecent. Making love to a woman was vulgar in ancient Rome, unlike the holy love of boys. Depicting or viewing an image of a beautiful naked child today is criminal. What has happened to us?

The title of the Irish child porn article which follows is 'a great Irish fraud'. The exposure of the fraud began with the honest admission by the official Irish Hotline that it had found no child porn being hosted in, or distributed from, Ireland, in its recent survey of complaints received. That hotline is one of 18 European hotlines operating under Inhope. The UK one is the IWF. Neither the IWF nor Inhope have been able to tell me how many, if any, cases were found of child porn being hosted in, or distributed from, the UK or the rest of Europe, in their recent surveys of complaints made. I wanted to hear of real child porn, not images illegal in some European countries and legal in others, and not child nudity or Japanese cartoons. In the absence of a straight answer, I will for now assume that none were found. I and a few other writers will continue to pare away at the phenomenon which has been the diminishing reality of child porn on the Internet, which provides a basis for the operation of activist and monitoring groups.

Last year Martin Bright and Paul Harris of the UK's newspaper The Observer reported that as many as 90 police officers have so far been identified as child porn downloaders from an initial trawl of 200 of the British names found in the US, from where the images were being found from overseas via a portal. Many of the other suspects work in other sensitive professions, often linked to the criminal justice system. The most senior such figure investigated in Ireland has been a judge. The only known child porn collection in Ireland is that held by Copine at University College Cork. See the Irish child porn collection below.

If there is still doubt about the catastrophic consequences of this act, there is a clause saying that it is criminal to have data stored on a computer disc or by other electronic means which is capable of conversion into a photograph. It is mathematically provable that anyone who owns a PC has data stored on it that is capable of conversion into a photograph, including indecent images of children. I checked this out further with a computer specialist and was told that it is possible to draw any image onscreen using a computer art package and a mouse, to draw by hand using a graphics tablet, or to write or use a program that would draw the required lines on the screen. So in more than one way, all owners of PCs and certain software are 'criminals' according to this clause. But I was in for a bigger surprise.

I discovered the existence of a small program written in C code, of no more than 312 characters. Let us call it Pandora. If this program is left running on one's PC, let's say when it is not otherwise in use, it will eventually generate every possible image. In the event of one's PC being seized and images found, it would not be certain beyond reasonable doubt that any indecent photograph of a child found was not created by the program. It is likely that this little program, or one like it, will be released onto the Internet to make a further mockery of the child porn laws.

Making pseudo-photographs

One of the most convoluted sections of the UK child porn legislation is that where its authors try to deal with the subject of making pseudo-photographs. Our UK colleague, Arthur Blair, has been giving this part of the legislation much consideration and takes us through some interesting experimentation, which makes a further mockery of an already stupid piece of legislation.

UK ‘Pinhead’ legislation makes further inroads into individual liberties

Our UK correspondent, Arthur Blair, reports on the continuing expansions in the already draconian UK child porn measures, and on their ridiculousness. http://www.rothery.com/article~view~7~page_num~2.html

Child Porn - A Great Irish Fraud

(Updated end January 2004)

Brian Rothery

Such secrecy and lack of transparency and accountability surround the activities of the police, legal profession and judiciary in Ireland in what are known to be child pornography matters that there is no way of knowing how serious, if at all serious, are the images actually being downloaded. From my conversations with the few people in the industry that know anything about it, I have become convinced that both the legal profession and the judiciary are also largely ignorant about what actually constitutes child pornography. From time to time we get reports that certain images are at the ‘lower end’ of the scale of seriousness. These could be simply child nudity or simulated erotica – such as kids acting as glamour models, even spoofing. As one senior industry expert remarked to me “The legal people don’t care - they don’t even want to use expert witnesses. Their attitude is ‘We know what it is and it’s shameful’.” So because of this shame surrounding the subject, those caught downloading are pleading guilty in nearly all cases. But guilty of what? We are not allowed to ask.

In Ireland, the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998, criminalizes certain activities that in the opinion of its authors create or use child pornography. The act appears less draconian in its definitions of what constitutes the ‘making’ of an image than the UK legislation, but it has worrying references to ‘documents’, saying ‘"document" includes - (a) any book, periodical or pamphlet, and (b) where appropriate, any tape, computer disk or other thing on which data capable of conversion into any such document is stored’. This could have serious implications for writers. It also has serious implications for anyone who has kept a copy of Nabokov’s Lolita, which was considered to be a classic, but is now criminalized, or who has old copies of UK tabloids in the attic which might contain photographs of nude girl models under 17. The act specifies ‘representation of a person who is or is represented as being a child and who is engaged in or is represented as being engaged in explicit sexual activity’ and this could include a stage play, movie or a radio drama (as audio is included), and thus criminalizes all artistic or meaningful creative representations of sexual crimes against children, even say a ballet where it is acted out that a child is assaulted by a beast.

Excluded from the offenses are ‘any book or periodical publication which has been examined by the Censorship of Publications Board and in respect of which a prohibition order under the Censorship of Publications Acts, 1929 to 1967, is not for the time being in force’. This appears to mean any book not banned in Ireland. So it is now an offence to write/publish a book, including a literary novel or a serious non-fiction work, which examines child porn or child eroticism, which is subsequently banned in Ireland. Or not yet banned. A writer living in Ireland, and writing such a book for overseas publishers, or one not yet accepted by a publisher, could be prosecuted, should the police read the offending text.

Perhaps the most repressive paragraph is ‘ (d) encourages or knowingly causes or facilitates any activity mentioned in paragraph (a), (b) or (c)’. Which could mean encourages or knowingly causes or facilitates any activity mentioned in these three paragraphs which would be considered by prosecutors and courts to be child pornography, whether or not the facilitator, who may be a writer, is arguing that the particular depictions should not be seen to be child pornography. Therefore, one cannot criticize this law by advocating that certain genres considered to be child porn may be simply erotic or artistic or simply beautiful and that no such depictions should be deemed illegal, without risking prosecution for encouraging or knowingly causing or facilitating the activities listed.

Differing from the UK legislation where even innocent receiving of an image can be constituted as ‘making’, Section 6 on Possession of child pornography, states: ‘(1) Without prejudice to section 5(1)(e) and subject to subsections (2) and (3), any person who knowingly possesses any child pornography shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable etc.’ Knowingly is an important word that could protect innocent viewers or receivers.

One can possess child pornography ‘in the exercise of functions under the Censorship of Films Acts, 1923 to 1992, the Censorship of Publications Acts, 1929 to 1967, or the Video Recordings Acts, 1989 and 1992, or (b) for the purpose of the prevention, investigation or prosecution of offences under this Act. On the surface, it would appear that in the absence of legislation naming those exempted from prosecution, any individual or organization should be able to claim that he or it was investigating child pornography ‘for the purpose of the prevention, investigation or prosecution of offences under this Act’. What the court would believe is another matter.

A second exemption is ‘(3) Without prejudice to subsection (2), it shall be a defense in a prosecution for an offence under section 5(1) or subsection (1) for the accused to prove that he or she possessed the child pornography concerned for the purposes of bona fide research’. No one interviewed by me felt certain that bona fide research covered books, web sites dedicated to serious investigation and analyses of the issues and investigative journalism. This probably criminalizes writers trying to argue a case for distinguishing between pornography and eroticism or artistic depictions or simple nudity.

The Child Trafficking and Pornography Act defines child pornography in the following manner: "child" means a person under the age of 17 years - - -. This gives rise to anomalies. Sixteen-year-olds can engage, and be photographed for the Net, in pornographic acts in Holland and several other countries. The age of consent in some countries is fourteen, and, while all pornography is banned in most Muslim countries, the age for sexual activity in some is twelve. If you look at the legal-in-Holland sixteen-year-old engaged in pornography, over a PC in Ireland, you commit a criminal offense. If an Irish seventeen-year-old poses for a pornographic image, viewers in the US can be prosecuted, because there the legal age is eighteen. Surfers in Ireland finding images such as those on Dutch web sites might report them to the police or the Irish Hotline, but neither of them can do anything to remove them.

I contacted the Irish Hotline set up by the servers in Ireland to assist in the maintenance of the requirements of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998. Paul Durrant of the Hotline was very helpful and a thoughtful discussion resulted. My first question was that if I reported that I had found a web site containing child porn and sent its URL to the Hotline would I not be committing an offence under some clauses of the 1978 act, seeing that in the UK the very ‘making’ of an image by viewing it could be construed as a criminal act. He replied, “I would agree that the UK situation on what constitutes ‘making’ is bordering on the absurd, given the reality of the Internet (if the rumours are correct that such an interpretation is actually being applied by UK courts). I do not believe that it is interpreted like that in this country. So the current practice is that residents in this country are reporting a suspicion that a URL carries illegal material, and that therefore simply seeing it in this accidental situation is not knowingly acquiring child porn. Many reports we get are references, such as from results of an innocent search using a search engine where ‘decidedly dodgy’ descriptions result. The people don't follow the link but report it as suspect. So they haven't actually seen anything. However, I am giving you my opinion and assumptions as there is very little case precedent. That is why I said you really need to talk to a legal professional dealing with this area. Not to fob you off, but because we are operating in the realms of opinion of what a court might interpret the law to mean, should such an argument present itself in a case. I am an ICT professional and would defer to the opinion of legal professionals who should know better how courts may ‘think’ and be able to give a better, or at least more educated guess, than I can.” He went on to say that they urge people not to send indecent images to them.

Paul continued: “The understanding, supported by the overseeing government Internet Advisory Board, which includes Justice, Gardai, etc. is that the Hotline is exempted to view material, for the purpose of its function, by the two clauses re investigation for enforcement and bone-fide research. I would welcome a revision of the law that would spell this out more clearly, maybe having an exemption certification process of some kind enshrined in the law.”

He agreed that there were ‘issues around spam containing illegal images or links and malicious viruses that can download content to a computer in the background without the user's knowledge’. He added: “I think (and would like to believe) that a reasonable line is being taken and that as you say ‘knowingly’ applies.” He said, “File sharing software like Kazaa, WinMX, and so on is also another can of worms.”

He went on: “It is also possible for a person surfing the Net in Ireland to stumble across material that is illegal in this jurisdiction given the strict definitions of the 1998 Act. (such as Japanese sexual cartoons, US adult porn sites where adults are dressed up as school children, etc.) These are simply not illegal in other jurisdictions. It is VERY RARE - but certainly not impossible - to accidentally encounter true hardcore CP images on the web – that is, the stuff one might expect dangerous paedophiles to collect.

“A recent phenomenon is the spamming of child porn advertisements. These are often disguised with innocent sender names and subject lines. Due to the default settings of the newer mail packages, spam contents, including images, can automatically display before you know what it is. Hyperlinks built into the spam can have you unwittingly going to a child porn site. There is no precedent to say how this might be treated.

“Maybe the real issue is more about the naming of defendants before conviction. We have seen a number of high profile cases in the UK in this regard. Where people have lost jobs, and family relationship ruined, only to have cases dropped before trial or the person acquitted.” Then after re-stating that there has to be child protection, he added: “However, in a just society, no innocent person should ever be subjected to the former situation as a by product of the effort to protect children.”

Like most good, law-abiding citizens, Paul Durrant is comforted by his sense of ‘what a court might interpret the law to mean’. But why should any innocent person have to go to court and await the opinion of lawyers, juries and judges because they have been spammed with a child porn image? I can assure readers that if any Irish male citizen takes an image of even a nude child to the Irish police, no matter how received, he is virtually certain to be at least investigated and at risk of being prosecuted. And if he is a high profile person, the tabloids could have his name the next day.

At the time that Paul advised me to contact a legal expert, I had a call in to the Bar Council. A senior official returned my call. First I should say that he was most helpful and encouraging, saying that more people like I should be looking at the issue. But as he, in his own words, had ‘never opened the act’ (Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998), he advised me to contact a lawyer handling one of the current high profile child porn downloading cases. I rang the solicitors for what is certainly the highest profile case, stressing in the message I left that I was not writing about the sub judice case itself. It did cross my mind that a journalist studying the act and its implications might be of some interest to them, but they have not returned my call.

Another closed door was that of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, who, while prepared to champion the repressive prohibition of incitement to hatred legislation, do not want to be seen to be taking a non-politically correct stance against the absolutism of child pornography. My UK contacts informed me that the same situation existed with libertarian groups over there. Hoisted with their own petards?

On further investigation, another problem raised by Paul Durrant turned out to be a major stumbling block to the application of the legislation. This is file-sharing software. It seems that there are sites providing ‘peer to peer’ file sharing facilities. Quoting Paul: “Users can share files on their PCs, without placing them on a server (like normal web sites). Like a chat room, aliases are used, except for the purpose of sharing files. People are now sharing child porn and other dubious material. You can search within a search facility of the file sharing software. Often the results of an innocent search are far from what you expected. The peer to peer facility provider is not responsible because they are not hosting the material and strongly discourage illegal content or copyright protected material being shared - however people still misuse their service. Problem is that tracking the perpetrators down is extremely difficult. This is because the IP address is dynamically allocated from dial up pool - not easy to find for the ordinary user and files are only there while the sharer is logged on and making particular folders available. Hotline comes along to investigate a report, maybe sent in overnight (we work 9am to 5pm) and just a few hours later - there's nothing there, not even the alias, nor do you get the same results for a given search and you rarely find the particular filenames the person reported.”

I have a UK correspondent who was reading all this and he now commented: “I’m always amazed how people can say things like ‘content can be hosted abroad and be completely legal there, even though the 1998 act makes it illegal here, so people surfing in Ireland can encounter it, report it and there's nothing we can do about it’ as though there OUGHT to be something they can do about it – they never seem to stop and wonder WHY it is not illegal in other places and whether that says more about their own jurisdiction than the foreign one. ”

The UK correspondent continued: “And the issue of so-called ‘file sharing software’ is very interesting, but Paul Durrant does not do it full justice. It would be entirely possible to create such a peer-to-peer network that actively hides the identity of those participating in it, thus making tracking down the location of a specific file (and thus arresting someone) utterly impossible.”

So what’s the verdict? The Irish law is not so repressive as that in the UK, as it contains out clauses such as ‘knowingly’ and a possible (but untested) exemption for bona fide research. A huge weakness is that one would have to wait for the courts to define innocence, as the police would be sure to want to prosecute all possessors of illegal, and even doubtful, images, no matter how obtained. This motivation of achieving prosecutions, allied to both tipping of the press and other practices discussed in the article on police corruption (see under ‘Sex abuse’ in main menu to left) creates a repressive environment where innocent people’s lives can be destroyed long before a case gets to court. Both sex abuse and child porn legislation have empowered the police away beyond their capacities to use such powers wisely, and, together with compensation related issues, have greatly increased the opportunities for corruption.

Paul Durrant did make this important point: “I would like to add that the Hotline draws a very definite distinction between ‘child pornography’, which is illegal and ‘child erotica’ and ‘nude children’, both of which are NOT illegal, under the 1998 law on which the Hotline works.

“- - -. It is certainly not my intention, nor that of the Hotline, to suppress freedom of expression, artistic images, pictures of children, and so on. The problem is very much one of where do you draw the line, and no matter what line you draw, it's going to be a fuzzy one, where different people will have different opinions. I see it as an important part of the Hotline to keep a sense of perspective here and not become part of an ‘Inquisition’.”

Unfortunately this apparently good news that the Hotline assumes that the 1998 law under which it operates does not treat either child erotica or nude children as criminal child pornography, was not supported by another senior industry person who works closely with Paul, and I know it to be far from the case with the Irish police, who in a repressive and hysterical regime, have acquired dangerous powers. Motivated by the prospects of easy convictions, especially in an environment of moral outrage, they may see all images of naked children as ‘indecent’. If the name of a high profile person is released, that person is ruined long before his case gets to court, and equally ruined if there is little or no case.

It is of paramount importance that academics, writers and, indeed, all concerned persons, but, above all, journalists use the clause under the Act that says that ‘it shall be a defense in a prosecution for an offence - - - for the accused to prove that he or she possessed the child pornography concerned for the purposes of bona fide research’. And to go further and demand that the clause be changed from a defense to a right, thus restoring to our democracy the important safeguard of good citizens monitoring the activities of the police, the censors and the judiciary. Especially arrogant censors who see themselves above the law. We should look back over recent history to see how easily the jackbooted bullies emerge. The press in Ireland have been gravely negligent in allowing moral police to exclude them from scrutinizing their actions. Political correctness may be at the heart of this particular failure.

For writers and artists, the most serious consequence is that literary and artistic examination and expression are suppressed and criminalized, questions cannot be asked, and police and the censors, including the self-appointed ones, can look at material that scholars and journalists are not allowed to see.

As pointed out at the end of the UK article above, child porn is impossible to control and suppress, in any of its forms from innocent nudity and eroticism to debasement, not just because of the various emerging technologies that Paul Durrant mentions, such as file sharing, but because of programs like ‘Pandora’ (See the UK article above and Child porn in the menu on left), which can generate every image possible.

But now to the great Irish fraud.

Paul Durrant told me that in a study carried out by the Irish Hotline of child porn reports from the public between 1 July 2001 and 30 June 2003, the results showed that the Hotline found not one single case of child porn hosted in, or distributed from, Ireland. While Paul could not yet offer formal data on the results of analysis since, I have reason to believe that as of today, not a single case has emerged. Can I please repeat what has just been written above?

The Hotline found not one single case of child porn hosted in, or distributed from, Ireland.

Of the 18 Hotlines in Europe, not one found child porn being originated in or coming out of Ireland.

Over the period in question, the Irish Hotline received many invalid reports of child porn. None materialized as actual child porn. I am now proceeding to ask as many as I can of the 18 European Hotlines, how many real cases of child porn they found in their countries.

Now for the real Irish fraud. The Irish Hotline passed this information to all of the national media in Ireland.

Not one single journalist reported it.

Irish school children in shocking porn scandal

In late January 2004, as if overnight, picture phones are everywhere in the hands of teenagers and children in Ireland. A fourteen year old Irish schoolgirl, removes her knickers, but leaving on her school jumper with school logo, poses for an ‘erotic’ (explicit) photograph taken by a picture phone. Someone, boyfriend of girlfriend who took the picture perhaps, sends it to a friend, and that friend sends it to one or more other friends. Suddenly it is appearing on picture phones in schools all over Ireland. The police see it, and media frenzy ensues. The police threaten up to fifteen years in jail for anyone sending it on: it is probably already being transmitted all over the Internet.

The talk shows that followed were risible. The child activists called for regulation and legislation. An earnest woman executive from the company which manufactured the phones announced a research project with the ISPCC, Ireland’s leading child rights group, to educate young people in the ‘moral and responsible use’ of picture phones. She also announced a project with a software company to develop filtering programs which would look for ‘skin tone’ amongst other pornography indicators in an attempt to filter out pornographic images, adding that if they succeeded grandmother and grandfather might no longer receive pictures of new babies born into the family. Not to mention the infant Jesus, and much of great art.

The police asked Copine in Cork University to help (See the Guide to child porn article). They enhanced the image, making it more explicit, so that amongst other attributes, the school crest on the girl’s jumper became clearer. They sent it to police stations all over Ireland, to help identify the girl. The police asked Copine in Cork University to help (See the Guide to child porn article). They enhanced the image, making it more explicit, so that amongst other attributes, the school crest on the girl’s jumper became clearer. They sent it to police stations all over Ireland, to help identify the girl. This was a disgraceful expanding of the exposure of the young girl, its public shaming of her resonating with the criminalization of ‘young sex offenders’ in the US where the child protection activists have run out of adult abusers to name and shame. This is a turning against the very children the adults are supposed to be protecting. Just think of policemen and women all over Ireland looking at this ‘enhanced photograph’.

Few in the talk shows or media commentary saw the greater implications. A girl can now privately photograph herself in the bathroom mirror and send the picture to a friend. A secret lover not allowed to meet with her because she is too young can request such an intimate picture. With an interest fanned by the older generation’s obsession with ‘child porn’, teenagers and children will use their new toys to engage in exciting illicit games. As we have seen from the sex abuse pages, the process of criminalizing children as young sex offenders is already well underway in the US.

Unless even newer technology can be found to counter and suppress the freedom of this new technology, most hotlines and censors will be out of business http://www.rothery.com/article~view~7~page_num~3.html

Guide to Child Porn on The Internet Brian Rothery

This is a review of one of the most comprehensive articles describing the nature and extent of what has become known as ‘child pornography’ on the Internet, and providing information on the ways one can reduce the risks of being detected while accessing it. Its value to readers can be judged by the fact that it is published by the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation group (Ipce), which has an extensive library of articles supporting its beliefs that we need better understanding and emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents and adults.

The article is The nature and dimensions of child pornography on the Internet and it is a fairly thorough explanation and guide to what kinds of 'child porn' are available over the Internet, and the common ways of accessing it. The author is highly qualified as, according to his article and other press releases issued by him since, he and his organization have over 50,000 images on file. He is Professor Max Taylor, and his organization is Copine based at University College Cork, Ireland.

An early statement in the article reveals Max Taylor’s mind-set. “The nature of sexual and sexualized images on the Internet can be seen from two rather different perspectives: a legal perspective, and that of the adult with a sexual interest in children.”

This is risible, and not just because several judges and a huge number of policemen have been accused of accessing child porn to indulge their private fantasies, but because such labeling of a human sexual activity into the two classes of ‘a legal perspective’ (enjoyed by the designated elite, above temptation) and ‘the adult with a sexual interest in children’ (the pervert who does not have a legal perspective) suggests a staggering level of arrogance and self delusion. Or sheer hypocrisy.

This is a common doctrine found within the absolutism of the Internet police and censors. It is basically that the goodness or loathsomeness, the legality or criminality, of an image are decided not by the nature or content of the image, but by the mind-set of the person looking at it. What is good for Max Taylor and his team to look at may be sick and illegal for you and me, because we may not be considered capable of adopting the ‘legal perspective’, or not allowed to do so.

But lest the reader think that this review is simply an attack on Taylor’s way of thinking, let us move on to what may be the real value of his comprehensive guide. Straightaway he recognizes a problem that he must deal with. How can he and his team study the problem and arrive at conclusions and possible remedies from a legal viewpoint only? Surely they will have to see some of the images from the ‘pedophile’s’ viewpoint, if only to offer remedies? We can be grateful that the author had the broadmindedness to assume this generous viewpoint, as the real value of his research now comes into view. After all, as he puts it, ‘legal definitions do not tell us about its nature’, or why ‘child pornography is produced or collected’.

Now he becomes really interesting. “What makes a picture attractive to such an individual is in part its content, but also the extent to which that picture can be sexualized and fantasized. To understand the nature of child pornography, therefore, we need to understand it from the collector’s perspective. It is the qualities of sexualisation and fantasy, expressed in terms of sexual arousal and perhaps masturbation, that make images of children of value to the pedophile.” One can see the editor in the editorial office of the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation group nodding in agreement, and saying to his assistant, “Yes, it looks like we’ve got another good article here.”

If that editor was still in any doubt about the value of the Taylor article at this early stage, all such doubts would have vanished as Taylor began to describe ‘a wide variety of different kinds of pictures’ which ‘may tell us something about the sexual and fantasy base to collecting’.

“We can identify a number of different kinds of picture types which are attractive to pedophiles, not all of which - - - readily fall into legal categories of child pornography. - - - Pictures that adults with sexual interest in children collect can be categorized as falling somewhere on a continuum, from less explicitly sexual, through nudity to explicitly sexual.”

It is here that his great interest in, and knowledge of, his subject become apparent, especially in the extent of the detail given, which as all connoisseurs are aware is essential to the value of the perceived beauty of the object under study. Because of the importance of his function, and the gravity of the child pornography situation, he maintains as much objectivity as both decorum and his legal perspective demand, but at times one can see his humanity, even his great passion for his work, showing through and we get glimpses of what it is that he is always trying to tell us – that what may be legal for some (and can we whisper it? that they might find beautiful even) will not be legal for others, that the very nature of an image may change depending upon who is looking at it.

The rest of us might have chosen nudity as the first category but he chooses Erotica as the first, which may be understandable given his understanding of it, and because what he says about it is that even children fully dressed can be depicted as erotic. It is understandable if the reader is confused here. Is there a legal perspective from which we can view erotic depictions of fully dressed children as distinct from a pedophile perspective? And hang on, if the one blessed with a legal perspective does not have the dirty mind of the pervert, how does he know it’s erotic? How is the eroticism perceived?

We thought eroticism was felt. We do get a familiar by now Taylor explanation: “Inappropriate possession of these kinds of photographs is probably indicative of adult sexual interest in children, but in all probability, neither their production nor possession will be illegal.”

So we can do legal but inappropriate things. Why is University College Cork in Ireland concerned with the concept of inappropriate adult behavouir? Is it inappropriate according to some codification system that we do not yet know about – some new development of non-Aristotelian thinking perhaps?

His second broad category, which might be our chosen first, involves Nudity in some form. Here is the familiar Taylorism again: “Pictures from nudist publications, for example, fall into this category. Nudism is a legitimate activity of course, and, within that context, it could be argued that such pictures might be appropriate. Their presence outside of that context, however, is again indicative of adult sexual interest in children, although possession may not necessarily be illegal.”

He begins to come into his own as he supplies information which must be new to most of us about a category of image known as covert photographs. He says that there are ‘many thousands’ of such pictures of children accessible on the Internet, often from Japanese sources, ‘playing naked or partially clothed at paddling pools, swimming pools or on the beach’. He tells us that it is possible for such pictures to be taken surreptitiously, using a camera with a high powered lens, even from distances from fifty to one hundred meters away, ‘and of course (if) both parent and child are not aware of being photographed. These pictures ‘sexualize innocent and appropriate play’.

In the next sub category Taylor is perhaps at his best. He calls it posed pictures involving nudity, and he subtitles it, rather appropriately, ‘the child pornography equivalent of adult soft porn’. I quote him: “Such photographs are generally well produced and of high quality, suggesting the involvement of a professional photographer. They are often taken out of doors, sometimes in what appear to be hotel rooms, and sometimes in expensive looking opulent settings. These latter again suggest a professional involvement. These kinds of photographs are generally implicitly sexual, and make great use of stylized provocative posing, rather than showing explicit sexual behaviour. The children involved are generally very pretty, and appear well fed and clean. Not all of these pictures would necessarily be classed as illegal, and in some cases have been justified in terms of their artistic merit. However, they are undoubtedly highly attractive to adults with sexual interests in children.”

It is clear from the above that if they are ‘undoubtedly highly attractive’ to adults with sexual interests in children, they are at least attractive and probably equally highly attractive to many looking at them from ‘a legal perspective’. Indeed these children are so attractive, and often not just pretty and well fed but happy to be photographed, that one would have to be warped to think them unattractive, extremely so to deem them loathsome, as some do. It is abundantly clear from Taylor’s language that he finds them attractive, even if he is using only his ‘legal perspective’. Later in the article, in a more general context, he adds: “Typically pictures show smiling, compliant, even participating children, who appear to be willing and enjoying the experience.” While he immediately adds a qualification that this is not always the case, it is clear from his words, and supported by other striking evidence from elsewhere, that the vast majority of such images are attractive by our normal standards.

He moves then to the final category of photographs he sees as explicitly sexual, describing these as ranging from ‘pictures focusing on genital or anal areas, through a child or children posing in a sexually explicit way, to pictures of real or simulated sexual assaults conducted either by other children or adults’. He makes no allowance for children acting, clowning, or doing burlesque.

He then moves to the contentious issue of pseudo images,but is at his weakest here as he says little about what is a very interesting subject with many implications for human liberty and creativity, and a number which could question the legality of the laws criminalizing such images. Perhaps if he had dealt honestly with a subject such as Japanese Hentai images, and included Japanese attitudes towards what is seen and tolerated as ‘perverse’ (as long as practiced in the imagination), he might have reached an even more open minded attitude about the subject of child eroticism and sexuality. While there is much in the article that appears to have pleased the readership of the international pedophilia web site, some of the best information for them may have come from his informative comments about using the Internet to access the images in question. First, he acknowledges the popularity of the genre. “Recent experience suggests that there is a very large demand for images of children that are either explicitly sexual, or enable sexual fantasy. The Internet is undoubtedly the principal contemporary medium for the distribution of these images.”

He reminds us that the Internet can confer a degree of anonymity. We are allowed a ‘self- determined involvement without necessary compromise of identity’. We can access and participate in newsgroups, both posting our images and downloading new ones ‘without revealing identity’, and we can access web sites anonymously. Before reading the article, I was not aware that one could use services such as Hushmail and other email facilities to enable secure and perhaps encrypted transmission of messages without revealing originating addresses. As he puts it, ‘the individual has a sense of control over the medium, and involvement can be passive or active with relatively secure access from the privacy of the home. The anonymous qualities of the Internet also enable the construction of false or fantasy identities. The 50-year-old can present himself as a teenager, and ‘the weak as strong’. Many will be relieved to know that such safe and anonymous methods of accessing images still exist, and as Taylor well knows new ways emerge all the time.

He tells us about some of these. “A further related feature that makes the Internet so attractive to adults with sexual interest in children is its multi-layered qualities. An individual may passively, and with relative security, download images from newsgroups and web sites, or they may engage more actively in the exchange of pictures through IRC and ICQ, and video conferencing protocols such as CU- Seeme. These same protocols allow both real-time interactive engagement, and secure storage of information.” He does add some warnings however, so anyone interested in trying out any of the above should read his whole article carefully.

He goes on: “A further very important reason for the significance of the Internet in maintaining pedophile activity is the sense of virtual community that can emerge for participants. That is to say, by prolonged interaction with both people and processes on the Internet, a sense of involvement, intimacy and belonging can emerge that mirrors more normal face to face social interaction. Friendships and a sense of constructed personality of the person you are interacting with can emerge. It is of course different from normal social interaction in that the individual never knows in any normal sense who he or she is interacting with, or how accurate the construction is.”

This shows that he really understands the excitement of this kind of sharing of deep values, made all the more worthwhile by its illegality and the intrigue it entails – even if isolated one can ‘engage with others who share sexual interests in children in a non-threatening and secure way. This virtual community is an important source of support, justification, information, and self-help, as well as facilitating the exchange and distribution of sexually attractive images’ - - -.

And on to what is Taylor’s own forte – “Where sexual fantasy focuses on illegal pornographic pictures of children, all of these factors can come together and we see the emergence of the collector syndrome, the compulsive acquisition of pictures for their own sake, rather than a discriminating selection. I believe some of the recent seizures of child pornography collections involving many thousands of pictures illustrate this.” Well, he above all, should know as, by his own admissions, he and his team have what may be one of the world’s greatest ‘child porn’ collections, which some time ago he boasted had already reached 50,000 images.

He comes to the political bit. “In my view, to effectively address the child protection priority, there needs to be a pro-active centralized facility to monitor pictures both from police seizures and the Internet, to establish new from old and to collect and collate intelligence. I believe a substantive research presence also needs to be associated with this facility, because knowledge of the issues involved is very limited; and it is from knowledge that progress in managing this problem will come.”

It is obvious from the above that the staff of the ‘pro-active centralized facility’ will view the images from their legal perspective only, although how they will do that with the beautiful images described by Taylor in the erotic and nude categories above we cannot know. They must take care to use this legal dimension only because Taylor warns us thus: “The reason why adults with a sexual interest in children collect child pornography is to facilitate fantasy generation and sexual arousal. However, the capacity of a picture or series of pictures to induce sexual arousal diminishes with continued exposure. We can refer to this as habituation: I believe this is an important factor in driving the quest for newness that characterizes confirmed child pornography collectors.” I wanted to ask Professor Taylor if this was one of the reasons his collection in Cork was so large, but as will be noted below he refused to reply to me. As we near the end of the article we have a wonderful understatement. “The relationship between adult sexual interest in children and child pornography is complex and poorly understood. Not all convicted child-sex offenders express an interest in child pornography; on the other hand, very many people who have no criminal record, and who seemingly have no known sexual interest in children, demonstrate an interest in child pornography by accessing and downloading images.”

Can you run that by us again, Professor Taylor?

Max Taylor is Professor of Applied Psychology at University College, Cork, Ireland. He manages a project called Copine, which claims to carry out the forensic analyses of Internet child porn producers and users and to help police track down child porn downloaders. He uses the media to advertise any cases where he claims successful cooperation in the arrest of pedophiles. Both Professor Taylor and the university press office refused to answer my questions about the ‘legal dimension’ of their research into child porn, the legality of the operation, and the particular arrangements of their cooperation with police forces.

Perhaps it is appropriate that his article, The nature and dimensions of child pornography on the Internet, can be read in full on the web site of the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation group (Ipce), at http://www.ipce.info/library_3/index.htm/ or http://www.ipce.info/library_3/content.htm.

Professor Maxwell Taylor is also mentioned in the UK's Sunday Herald on 19 January 2003. In a reference that appears to follow his assertion that the US is 'the world's biggest child-porn market', he is quoted thus: "It's been said if you nuked America out of existence, you'd nuke abusive images of children out of existence."

After reading the full article, or the above review, you may feel that questions should be put to University College Cork, Ireland, including perhaps asking the reason why both Professor Taylor and the university press office refused to answer my questions as a book author and journalist. If so, please send a comment either below or through the Contact in the main menu. http://www.rothery.com/article~view~7~page_num~4.html

Child Porn Stories

The latest love that dare not tell its name

Admiring the beauty of our children - somewhat tongue in cheek perhaps, but - - -?

Geoff Harper

It's probably not illegal to write this, although, as I finger the keyboard, the laws could be amended and back-dated so that what I am thinking now could become illegal for me to write, and illegal for you to read, so keep checking the law. Even though legal, we still might have to whisper it - yes, it's still not illegal to admire the beauty of our children's bodies, even when they are naked - just about. But do not under any circumstances photograph them, as all such photographs could be deemed criminally indecent. Do not paint or draw them either, as the legislation in some countries applies to all forms of visual representation, and that in the UK even to 'pseudo-photographs'.

Now, if you are with friends and their children and are camping, or picnicking, or by the seaside, you may want to let your kids run naked. You could even be a naturist. Here we may really have to drop our voices to a whisper. Can we admire the beauty of the bodies of our friends' children? Can we say, come here Nora, show us how tall you are, or, okay Sean, show your muscles. Why, you may say, is this being raised?

Because asking yours or any child to strike a pose may be an act of criminal indecency. And who would decide this? The police - did you not know? And now you say but surely the prosecution service would shoot it down. Do you mean after the police have grilled you, and have exposed you in their 'leaks for money' to the media as a sex pervert. And do you not know that some prosecution services, and even certain magistrates, now let the police be the judges of what is 'indecency'?

But surely there has to be a law that would allow the police to accuse us thus - we are not taking photographs, just admiring our beautiful children.

Listen carefully. Simply through getting your naked children to pose, or strike a set of poses, you could be guilty of 'presenting an indecent exhibition'. You could even be prosecuted under the Theatres Act, because for the purposes of the Act, a 'play' is a dramatic piece where what is done by one or more persons actually present and performing involves the playing of a role. It even includes any ballet. So role plays and dancing could be dangerous, and it is you, the director 'of an obscene performance' who is at risk

But what you say if you do it all in the privacy of your own home or that of a friend, where the children can dress up, undress, and romp at will, with no indecent photographs taken? You could be prosecuted for the offence of 'keeping a disorderly house', which is defined as (UK - R. v. Quinn and Bloom [1962] 2 QB 245) 'a house conducted contrary to law and good order in that matters are performed or exhibited of such a character that their performance or exhibition in a place of common resort (a) amounts to an outrage of public decency or (b) tends to corrupt or deprave or (c) is otherwise calculated to injure the public interest so as to call for condemnation and punishment'.

Okay, if we avoid anything like this, are we safe? Maybe not. If your parents are alive, check that there are no old photographs in the attic or the family album of you and your brothers and sisters romping naked. But I hear you say, your parents are in their Seventies. And that's exactly the age of many of today's jailed 'perpetuators'. And while we are on that subject, if your parents were sexually active in the Sixties, be particularly careful to warn them never to talk about certain Sixties sexual adventures, which we cannot write about here as it may be illegal.

What have you just said? Your father met your mother when he was 16 and she 15? Oh my God! Did they- - -? I see, they did not because there was no available contraception. Well, thank God for that! But what are you now saying? They what? In the woods? And in that secluded spot beside the river where they cuddled? Dear God, never tell anybody! I know they're married 60 years, I know they're grandparents, but these crimes have no closing dates. He carnally touched an underage girl, and that makes him a sex abuser for all times. Don't think his age will save him - the police will be all the more eager to prosecute him.

Pandora's Box

Peter Palmer

I was sent this program – now what do I do?

Someone sent us a program we have called ‘Pandora’. It’s written in C code, no more than 312 characters, and, if it is compiled and left running on one’s PC, let’s say when the PC is not otherwise in use, it will eventually generate every possible image. This means buildings, land and seascapes, ships, flowers, angels, cathedrals, food and wine, people, and naked people, dogs and cats and lions and tigers - - - and children. Children? What kinds of pictures of children? Every kind. I told you that Pandora draws every kind of picture that is possible to draw at electronic speeds.

I wish we had not been sent this program, and now we are looking for help and advice. If we bring it to the police, they will probably arrest us. We have not compiled it, but will they understand that? We had no control over its being sent to us, but we have not yet put it in the trash bin, as we are hoping there is a way to tell people about it and warn them not to use it as it stands. But we are really hoping that one of our clever censoring and monitoring organizations may have a way to limit its powers. What we need is an extra piece of code to filter out and destroy any little willies that might be created, and any little girlie equivalents, and any tiny breasts, or little bottoms. The code does not have to eliminate the whole image, so, if it can put clothes on the image whenever those offending little parts appear, that would be great. Hold on – there’s an email coming through.

Blast it! The message says that Pandora also draws couples screwing, so, if it can draw adults screwing it can portray children trying to imitate them. Now I can see that the code we need has to be able to eliminate certain images, and with increasing legislation about suggestiveness, maybe we had better cut out children altogether from the program.

But can we really take children out of this program that draws many wonderful things just in case it draws a child in a suggestive pose? And if we filter out children, might we not also filter out angels, cupids, and many artistic, spiritual and medical images, not to mention characters from fairytales? We need a lot of help here as we are really struggling with this.

Let me try again. The designer of this Pandora program has a lot to answer for. He or she (but a woman would not engineer such a piece of perversity, so it must be a ‘he’) - he may have initially believed that if he created a program that could draw every kind of image that it would be a benefit to humankind, but at some stage he will have recognized that it could also draw naked children, or children acting out adult sex acts. At that point he was under a moral imperative not to proceed with his perceived act of creativity, which was bound, as it has, to bring the censors down upon his creation, and all those using it. Gutenberg should have anticipated the printing of pornography, and the inventors of the camera should have known that the prying lens would one-day point at naked and cavorting children. They are equally, if not more, at fault.

Computers and the Internet now present even greater dangers to our morality than either printing or the camera, and while our present morally-orientated generation is determined that technology will not continue to defy the demands of decency, the dangers seems very great indeed. Programs such as Pandora and encryption techniques threaten to undermine the most ardent activities of our custodians. We must be protected from the loathsomeness of child nudity and attempts by perverts to suggest that young people can be either erotic or sexual. (We apologize to sensitive readers for having to use such horrible expressions, but, like our hard-pressed censors, we cannot fight this perversity without naming it to some extent)

I think that we can be satisfied that much has been achieved. Not all the perpetuators of the past generation have been rounded up and jailed, but those who have escaped the net will be thoroughly frightened and will no longer be a threat. Our children have been warned not to speak to or be touched by strangers and to carefully examine the intent of any touching in their homes, especially by fathers and male relatives. All newsstands and even web sites are now purged of the loathsomeness of the naked bodies of children, but the Pandora’s Box has been opened, and the evils of ingenuity and creativity perservere.

So what happens if Pandora escapes onto the Internet?

Suggestions please.

First response

This story was scarcely online when we got our first response from a concerned reader, together with some code. When we added the code to Pandora it filtered out and trashed any images of naked children. Even though it also trashed innocent images of naked children, this suited us as the police are now seeing all naked images of children as indecent, or at least with the potential to arouse perverted men. We were about to release Pandora, but first checked with our lawyer who urged us to have the new code examined by an expert. We were appalled by what we then learned. The code used a series of images of children complete with little willies and other shocking bits, such as little tits and bums (and worse), and even some awful images of kids trying to imitate their parents. It was using these as the filters to check emerging images from Pandora, in the same way as our unfortunate censors have to have a mental file of awful things against which to check what we might create or download.

We would have preferred to have brought the new amending code to the police to punish the sender, but, as it is an offense to be in possession of such code, we could not so we trashed it.

However, it gave us further food for thought. There is always a deep underlying cause for perversions such as that now available with Pandora. There had been hints of it but it took the latest scare with the new code for us to see it. Like computers, and the camera and printing, the real culprit here is mathematics.

It is mathematics that makes it possible for Pandora to create loathsome images of children engaged in naked and sexual frolics. We know that the world now depends upon mathematics, but like other discoveries that the Church tried, but failed, to suppress, it has brought perversities together with its scientific benefits.

We will not however make any headway against this latest threat to our morality if we do not accept that mathematics allied with the power of computers is far more potent than either the camera or printing. Just think – Pandora can produce forbidden images at electronic speeds.

Banning Pandora is one possibility and under UK law any such program (indeed even all drawing software and PCs) is already banned because it is ‘capable’ of producing an indecent image. But the rest of the world is not yet blessed with the wisdom of UK legislation, and, even if we ban Pandora, other versions will appear.

There is one hope and it is in bioengineering. As mathematics and computers and programs such as Pandora are here to stay, perhaps we can bio-engineer humans never to use programs such as Pandora, in other words, re-engineer the human mind so that certain creative acts with loathsome consequences are impossible.

Meanwhile, we have still not trashed Pandora but have decided to move this web site to a German server. We await further suggestions from readers. http://www.rothery.com/article~view~7~page_num~5.html

The Power of Sexual Fantasy

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius (c. 551-478 BC)

The Power of Sexual Fantasy

Sexual fantasy is a provocative subject. Some people claim it enriches their sex life while others think it's only resorted to by the lonely and desperate.

Some couples say that using fantasy builds intimacy and trust - yet for others, it's a subject that creates jealousy and hostility. Understanding more about it however, can only be a good thing.

What are sexual fantasies?

Fantasies are day dreams. Imaginary visions. Whimsical speculations. Wishful thinking. Everybody has fantasies at some level or other. If you've ever imagined what you'd do if you won the lottery - you're using fantasy.

Fantasy is a fundamental part of human nature. Watch any young child playing and you'll see them lost in a world of their own. Can you remember the games you played? Cowboys and Indians, building dens, kings and queens, schools etc? We praise children for having a healthy, active imagination.

Yet somewhere along the line, as become adults we often lose this ability. It's easy to see imagination as childish - something we're meant to grow out of. But truth is, most people don't.

Even if we manage to suppress our imaginations during the day - at night, while we're sleeping - out come all those unconscious passions!

BBCi Health, http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/sex/enjsex_fantasy.shtml

Is there such a thing as a rape fetish, where a woman wants to scream say no, and go through the motions as if she was being raped and pretend to resist?

Rape fantasies are extremely common among both women and men. Rape fantasies are essentially fantasies of sexual submission -- the desire to cede control to another person, or to have someone else take the dominant role. As far as I know, fantasies of being raped are far more common among women.

This may be because it is still socially unacceptable for women to assert their own sexuality -- they may find it more comfortable to have someone else take responsibility for sexual urges. In rare cases, people who wish to act out rape fantasies have suffered real sexual assault or abuse in the past, and playacting within safe boundaries and guidelines is their way of healing themselves, or gaining a sense of control of the situtation.

There is a WORLD of difference between having a rape fantasy and acting it out in reality. A person with a fantasy of being raped does not really want to be raped. They may want to playact in the submissive role, but they must always know that they are actually safe and that if they want it to stop it will stop.

Experienced practitioners of BDSM (bondage & discipline, sadism & masochism) are extremely careful to negotiate all of the details of a fantasy like this beforehand. What types of language may be used? Does the woman want to be called names, and if so which ones are acceptable? Does the woman want to be slapped or spanked? What are her limits physicaully, emotionally and psychologically? Keep in mind that the fantasy probably goes significantly farther than what she wants in reality.

The most important aspect of any dominance and submission roleplaying is the establishment of a safeword. The person playing the submissive role must be able to use this word AT ANY TIME and stop play immediately without fear of recrimination. She might use other words like "Stop! Please!" to create the impression of struggling or resisting, but the only word that really means stop might be "Mercy" or "END GAME." It is her ultimate veto power, and her ability to use this word is the distinction between real and fantasy rape.

In some cases, the person in the submissive role might use the safeword as a temporary "time out" so that he/she can explain to the dominant what is wrong. Was the language too personal? Did the play get too rough?

It is the responsibility of the person playing the dominant role to listen for this word and obey it by stopping immediately. Anyone who ignores the safeword is a true rapist and is committing a crime.

Deviant Desires.Com http://www.deviantdesires.com/askme/rape.html

Fantasy is Not Reality

The Darker Side of Fantasies.

Scared because your sexual fantasies sometimes get violent? Don't worry. Most people's erotic daydreams aren't always pleasant, a new study shows--and that's normal.

Most studies about our wildest sexual whims have assumed that racy thoughts are always welcome turn-ons, never intrusive turn-offs. But Cheryl Renaud, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, says that our erotic fantasies "are not as simple as we may have thought."

Renaud gave students a list of 56 sexual actions, from "Kissing an authority figure" to "Spanking someone," asking how often they thought about each and whether it was in a positive or negative light. While subjects reported having more pleasant fantasies than unpleasant, they had also thought about many scenarios on the list in positive and negative ways, "even items reflecting romance--the most commonly reported positive sexual thoughts--and those reflecting sexual embarrassment--the most commonly reported negative thoughts," says Renaud. A fantasy can connote different things, depending on when you have it, and may incorporate both positive and negative elements, she notes; for example, you might imagine having sex outdoors, which is a turn-on, but with your math professor, a turn-off.

Past research has suggested that frequent intrusive sexual thoughts are associated with obsessive behavior, and that violent fantasies may lead to coercive sexual acts. Still, says Renaud, her study shows that disturbing sexual thoughts are regular occurrences for most people. So while bondage may be painful, thinking about it never hurt anyone.

Psychology Today, Jan, 2000, http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1175/1_33/58616820/p1/article.jhtml

Fantasy vs. Reality

Fantasies and reality. It's rare they merge.

But most people have fantasies, especially sexual ones. Some get to act them out, others don't get the opportunity or prefer to keep them hidden in their head.

The problem with acting out fantasies is that the reality can often be a disappointment and can sometimes cause relationship problems.

Yet, for some, it can become an obsession to fulfil them, even though it can be a very damaging path to take.

Lifewise, V. Gibson, 2000 http://lifewise.canoe.ca/LifewiseHeartVal00/1101_val_sun.html and, once again:

Men who are otherwise conventional in their sexual interests and behaviour can be sexually aroused by pedophilic stimuli. In a study using both self-support and penile plethymographic measures, one-quarter of people drawn from a community sample showed or reported pedophilic arousal.

The investigators found that this abnormal arousal was correlated with conventional arousal, that is: the more aroused the people were to adult heterosexual pictures, the more aroused they were to the pedophilic pictures.

Although this finding may be disturbing to us, it highlights the importance of the distinction made by the DSM and health professionals in general between fantasy and behaviour.

Hall et al http://home.tiscali.nl/~ti137156/helping/articles/normal_men.html in Abnormal Psychology, C. Davison and J. Neal, 1998

What would the world be like if all women had size DD breasts, bleached-blonde hair, and shaved pubic hair? What if all men had rippling abs, huge penises, and always got the girl? If this sounds just like a fantasyland, then it is. Welcome to the world of pornography, where in movies, books, pictures, and magazines, people look amazingly alike and do amazingly similar things.

Pornography (also known as "porn" or "porno") is sexually arousing imagery. There are those who prefer to call it "erotica" because they believe that the word "pornography" describes material that they consider offensive and obscene.

Now, if you're a law-abiding teenager, we can safely say you've never even taken a peek at pornographic material — it's illegal in the U.S. for anyone under the age of 18. However, not everyone follows the rules, and you may run across some porn before you turn 18. There are a few things you should know about the images you might see. Tune in, and we'll tell you the facts!

First of all — many people enjoy pornography alone or with a partner as part of sex play. But keep in mind that what they choose to watch or read isn't everyone's fantasy. That's why there are all kinds of porn to satisfy all kinds of fantasies.

"Part of the fantasy in most heterosexual porn is for the average-looking guy to get the beautiful girl."

But for the most part, the models or actors used in porn fulfill certain physical stereotypes. The fantasies they satisfy are different from the expectations real people have about themselves and their real-life partners. The stereotypes are designed to let the viewer fantasize about the activity, not about the people doing it. So most people who have real sex don't look anything like people who have sex in porn, especially the women. According to Claire Cavanah, co- owner of New York- and Seattle-based sex-toy shops, Toys In Babeland, people who stop by her store to pick up porn movies "look just like you, me, or anyone you've ever met." However, most women who are porn stars have unlikely bodies — breasts enlarged with implants, shaved pubic hair, and super-thin figures are just some of the differences between porn stars and many women in real life.

And what about the porn guys? "A lot of the time, they're not as stereotypically hot as the women," said Claire. "Because part of the fantasy in most heterosexual porn is for the average-looking guy to get the beautiful girl." And most porn is designed with the guy in mind.

As for the sex, don't count on sex in porn having much in common with real life sex. "Porn shows sex, and sex happens in real life. That's really the only thing they have in common," said Claire.

Intercourse doesn't always happen every time a real-life couple gets together, but intercourse is the central event for most porn. Many of the types of sex play, such as anal and oral sex, which are often seen in porn, don't happen as often in real life. And although many newer porn videos show the stars using birth control or condoms to protect each other from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, the vast majority of older videos show couples having sex with no protection.

Condoms aren't the only things most porn characters forget to mention — in fact, they hardly talk at all! While communication is part of a healthy sex life, porn couples usually don't say much before, during, or after they have sex. Intimacy is important for many real couples, but it is rare in porn.

So don't worry! If you don't look anything like a porn star, and your life looks nothing like a porn video, congratulations — we bet that you've got more in common with 99.9 percent of us real people.

Teenwire - in focus, C. Brownlie http://www.teenwire.com/index.asp?taStrona=http://www.teenwire.com/infocus/2002/if_20020917p179_porn.asp

The expression 'it's all a figment of your imagination' has taken on a new reality with research that shows that imagination occurs in a different part of the brain to the recognition of real objects.

Undertaken by researchers at Vanderbilt University and collaborators, the study mapped the brains of 15 subjects whilst they undertook the cognitive tasks of mental rotation of objects ('fantasy') and object recognition ('reality'). The results are published in today's issue of the journal Neuron.

"This is the first indication we have that the brain doesn?t rely on the same processes to accomplish these two tasks, despite the fact that they appear to be so similar," commented psychologist Associate Professor Isabel Gauthier, the lead author on the paper.

Subjects were given two tasks and the researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to find out what part of the brain was used.

The objects used in the two tasks were three geometric shapes that were similar to each other, but unfamiliar to the subjects.

The first task, mental rotation ('fantasy') involved mentally rotating a complex object into a different position to compare it with a second similar shape. The researchers tested this by showing two objects on a screen and asking the subjects if they were identical or mirror images.

The second task, object recognition ('reality') was tested by determining whether two complex objects are the same or different. Again the researchers used pairs of shapes on the screen, but this time the objects were shown at different angles from each other on the horizontal, vertical and out-of-plane axes.

The researchers measured the time it took the participants to answer.

The brain scans showed the areas activated during the two tasks tended to lie on two different pathways in the visual system - ventral and dorsal.

The ventral pathway - which includes the temporal lobe ? was activated when the subjects were answering questions relating to the recognition of the object ('reality'). But questions about the rotation of an object ('fantasy') activated the dorsal pathway, which lies in the parietal lobe.

The activation in the parietal lobe confirmed previous studies that involved mental rotation tasks and found that the amount of activity reflected the size of the mental task. Gauthier's team found that when the difference in orientation in the mental rotation tasks was large, the amount of parietal lobe activity was greater than when the difference was small.

As well as the ventral pathway activity, there was also some activity in the parietal region during the object recognition tasks. As the orientation differences in the tasks increased, the activity in the ventral pathway also increased, but interestingly, the activity in the parietal lobe decreased.

Other collaborators on the study were Professor William Hayward of Chinese University of Hong Kong, an fMRI team from the Yale School of Medicine headed by Professor John Gore, and Professor Michael Tarr, from cognitive and linguistic sciences at Brown University.

ABC Science Online, 2002 http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_515045.htm

Out of the mouths of babes?:

Fantasy versus Reality

Do you believe Fantasy is better than reality or Reality is better than Fantasy? Fantasy is better than reality because: fantasy is better because you can be 18 again with tons of fit girlfriends or a rich guy with teenage sex slaves, in reality you're just a computer geek who plays final fantsay and runs several million geocities websites!!! ------Fantasy is better than reality because: Fantasy. Why the fuck should reality be better? There is nothing preferable about it. ------Fantasy is better than reality because: fantasy is awesome because anybody can be there in any setting. ------Fantasy is better than reality because: I think fantasy's the only thing that get's me to sleep at night. ------Fantasy is better than reality because: WEREWOLFS AND VAMPIRES! ------Fantasy is better than reality because: The world would be a better place w/unicorns,wizards,and such. ------Fantasy is better than reality because: Well it would make life more intresting. If I fantasize about reallife though (I don't mean that in a dirty way before you start) it normally comes true anyway. ------Fantasy is better than reality because: The places I dream up when I'm dreaming or writing stories always seems so much better. ------Fantasy is better than reality because: Reality is *way* overrated! I prefer to live in a fantasy world. ------Reality is better than Fantasy Because: There is nothing wrong with fantasy, but you have to have a strong opinion about whats in your face not whats in your head. ------Reality is better than Fantasy Because: Fantasy is for the weak.

Dot vs dot http://www.dotvsdot.co.uk/vs/0/1958.html

Correlation and Causality - When a Pseudo-Science is Confused

Almost all babies drink milk, All adults (who were babies) will die, Milk is a killer. Anonymous

Logic is one thing and commonsense another. Elbert Hubbard, 1927

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insiduous encroachment by men of zeal, Well-meaning but without understanding. Louis Brandeis, The People's Attorney

Correlation

In psychology, when two variables (e.g., self-esteem and popularity) are tested and determined to have a relationship, they are said to be "correlated". They can either be positively correlated, that is, the two variables increase and decrease at the same time. For example, when self-esteem increases, popularity increases at the same time. On the other hand, the relationship between two variables may also be identified as a negative correlation, which can be just as important as a positive correlation. Two variables are negatively correlated when one goes up while the other goes down, and vise versa. For example, when self-esteem increases the rate of teenage pregnancy decreases. Correlation coefficient, which can range from -1.00 to +1.00, is a measure of the direction and the strength of a correlation. Correlation between variables is established through correlational studies in social psychology. (See "Types of Psychology Research".)

Causality

Correlation simply means that the two factors occur at the same time. It does not say anything about their causal relationship (AKA cause-effect relationship) - which variable is the cause; which variable is the result. Using the self-esteem and popularity example, as far as causality is concerned, there are three possibilities:

(1) high self-esteem leads to popularity, (2) popularity leads to increased self-esteem, and (3) there is no causal relationship between self-esteem and popularity.

Instead, both are the result of another factor or a group of other factors such as academic achievement and athleticism.

Again, an established correlation between two factors does not necessarily indicate the direction of the cause-effect relationships or that a cause-effect relationship definitely exists. However, if a strong relationship is found between two variables, causality can be tested by using experimental studies. (See "Types of Psychology Research".)

Psychology.about.com, Psychology Research Methods (I), Correlation and Causality http://psychology.about.com/library/weekly/aa051502a.htm

I need to say, without prejudice, that I support, totally, the use of activities such as counselling and the appropriate assessment of offenders. A body of work, based on many case studies, must be useful in coming to terms with the nature of such offences and of the people (and for the people) who commit them; treatment - well, that is a much bigger issue - how can something which is not an illness, by definition, be cured?

There is a major problem, however, within this issue; that of bad science.

In the abuse section, I refer the reader to the excellent book of advice to practitioners, in the field of assessing male sexual abusers. By default, the, clearly, experienced and talented writers deal, only, with offenders and never with 'potential offenders'. Thus, experts have observed a correlation between abusers and the possession of pornography including minors, hence, we have analyses, such as:

Donald Findlater was manager of the Wolvercote Clinic in Surrey - the only residential treatment centre in England for paedophiles, until its closure last year.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Operation Ore has presented enormous challenges which are currently being faced by the police in terms of properly investigating and accumulating evidence.

"The next challenge will be faced by the courts and probation service and maybe the prisons.

"We are going to see this large bulge of this group of individuals going through the system.

"And frankly I doubt the system will be able to deal competently, and in a way that protects children, as these people go through the system."

Mr Findlater said it was important to assume that people who viewed images of children were potential abusers.

In the US, he said, one-third of those found to have possession of indecent images were actively abusing children.

He added that treatment could reduce offending, although it offered no cure.

BBC News, 14/1/03 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2652465.stm

The idea that there is one group of people who are lookers and another who are doers and producers of these images is simply a naive attempt to fashion an artificial debate about an individual's freedom of choice out of an enterprise so sordid and exploitative that it cannot be justified on any level. And it is disproved by the evidence. A survey by the US postal service of more than 1,000 people caught in possession of child pornography found that one in three was concurrently abusing a child. Polygraph tests on a number of US prisoners convicted of internet offences showed that three out of four were abusing.

Donald Findlater, who has treated hundreds of paedophiles over the years during his work with a child protection agency called the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, says this link is only to be expected. "Sex offending is about pushing back the boundaries of what is acceptable. The internet gives a paedophile a tantalising glimpse of what's next, what form of deviant behaviour he can move on to. In this way it can accelerate someone's offending potential and every day he goes online he becomes a little more dangerous."

Jon Silverman, Independent.co.uk, 19/1/03 Author (with Professor David Wilson) of 'Innocence Betrayed – Paedophilia, the Media and Society' (Polity Press)

Description: Innocence Betrayed is the first sustained attempt to address the issue of how we can best protect children from the threat posed by predatory paedophiles. It asks all the difficult questions: Can paedophiles be treated? Do they change their behaviour? Does naming and shaming help protect our children or make matters worse? Combining the skills of journalistic research and academic scholarship, this engaging and accessible book carefully untangles the News of the World’s ‘Sarah’s Law’ and presents, for the first time, the behind-the-scenes reaction to the newspaper. It contains an enlightening series of interviews with paedophiles, both in a penal setting and after release, in England, Wales and North America, as well as interviews with the victims of sexual abuse.

This important and timely book will be of interest to anyone who wishes to understand the complexity of the problem posed by paedophiles and how we can make our communities safer places for children.

As for 'disproved by the evidence':

Firstly, in such a sweeping series of emotive statements by Silverman, I am loathe to comment on his latter "Polygraph tests on a number of US prisoners convicted of internet offences showed that three out of four were abusing." Firstly, because it is statement made without reference to a source (although I do not doubt the work exists) and, secondly, the UK does not recognise that validity of polygraph evidence. (Please supply the source of your statement, so it may be put in context).

Secondly, let us explore, that he (and many others, at present) states, in the USA, "one-third of those found to have possession of indecent images were actively abusing children." Let me reiterate from the FBI section of my site:

US Attorney General John Ashcroft whinged during a press conference that prosecuting KP perverts will become "immeasurably more difficult" now that it will be necessary to prove that an objectionable image or performance is the real thing. Apparently, the DoJ has been prosecuting people for materials it isn't quite sure are actual child porn. This will have to stop. But the Lord Protector said he would do his best to tack on other recognized offenses to keep current prosecutions from evaporating.

Thomas C. Greene, The Register, (USA), 17/4/02

Imagine you were part of the law enforcement agencies in the USA, knowing the above. In your work, You have seen, almost, every example of pornography involving minors on the Internet.

A new series of images emerges. You know that only real child abuse is worth pursuing (as in the case of UK, Operation Ore's, Chief Supt Kelleher, above). You, essentially, ignore all the users who have historical images, and you focus on pursuing the new image sources.

When you, finally, trace the perpetrator, perhaps by the abuser's/child's face/body or a distinguishing logo or other peripheral aspects of the images, you find that 'only' one-third of those possessing these new images are actively abusing children; see any distortion of the number of users, compared to the number of abusers?

Update (23/11/03): Well, well ...

During the fiscal year 1997, the USPIS began compiling statistical information on the number of child pornography suspects that were also child molesters. Of the 1,207 individuals arrested by Postal Inspectors since 1997 for using the mail and the Internet sexually to exploit children, actual child molesters were identified in 36% of cases. Since the USPIS frequently target those with prior convictions for sex offences, it may be that this figure somewhat overstates the proportion of users of child pornography as a whole who are likely to engage in actual abuse, but it is still a worrying statistic. http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/sexonnet.html#WHAT%20IS%20THE%20LAW%20IN%20THE%20UK?

It is just as worrying how the figure has been used to distort present circumstances.

Dismay as International Paedophile Probe Fails

THE massive internet child pornography investigation Operation Ore has ended in Scotland without anybody being charged with sex abuse, senior police officers have revealed.

Police chiefs are dismayed that no one found to have accessed child pornography on the web is being prosecuted for abuse despite officers having "grave doubts" about the safety of children living with them.

According to the senior officers, the 16-month operation, costing millions of pounds and involving all eight Scottish police forces, failed to gather the necessary evidence.

The Scottish arm of Operation Ore was wound up three weeks ago after investigating some 350 people north of the Border, about 200 of whom were in Strathclyde and 70 in Lothian and Borders.

One member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland (ACPOS) who was involved in planning and pursuing the investigation north of the Border and asked not to be named said: "On many occasions I heard that officers had experienced grave doubts about the safety of certain children, but nobody reported anything to us so we could not press charges. This means that after expending a massive chunk of our resources on this inquiry, not a single person will be convicted of ‘hands-on’ abuse.

"That would not trouble us if we thought that all the men who were looking at child porn on their computer were just sad creeps who did not pose a risk to the children in their lives, but that is not the conclusion that was drawn from every raid."

The National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) was given a list of more than 7,200 UK suspects by the FBI after American investigators took over a website in 1998 used by 75,000 subscribers worldwide accessing hundreds of illegal pay-to-view sites by credit card.

It is understood that NCIS decided some 2,000 UK subscribers out of more than 7,200 suspects should be pursued.

Computer equipment and other items have been removed and examined for evidence linking the owners to paid- for child porn sites. The operation has been a massive drain on resources, partly due to the rigorous standards of evidence-gathering. Each computer seized can take experts many months to examine at an estimated average cost of £2,000.

Celebrities, lawyers, police officers, teachers and clergymen have been among those arrested under Operation Ore

Last week, Detective Constable Brian Stevens, a family liaison officer in the Soham double-murder inquiry, was cleared of charges of having illegal images on his computer and of sexually assaulting two girls. He is just one of some 50 police officers in the UK who have become entangled in Operation Ore’s web.

However, British forces were overwhelmed by the scale of the operation and, as the months passed, tough decisions had to be made to dispose of some cases with a warning. Some of those who have been caught, including the rock star Pete Townshend - who said he accessed the sites for research purposes - have been cautioned and added to the sex offenders’ register.

The Scottish courts are now experiencing a steady trickle of cases linked to the inquiry and experts estimate it will be another two years before every case is concluded.

Under current legislation, people convicted of possessing child pornography face a maximum sentence of five years, distribution carries a maximum penalty of 10 years. The maximum sentence for child abuse is life.

Expressing his disappointment that no sex abuse charges have been brought, the senior member of ACPOS said: "When we received our lists from the FBI, there were so many names that we had to prioritise. We had to go first of all to those who had access to children, either through their jobs or in the home."

Last night, Anne Houston, director of the helpline Childline Scotland, said: "We hear from hundreds of children every year who tell us they have been sexually abused. Every image of child abuse on the internet is a crime scene.

"If Operation Ore is to be wound down, we very much hope police take child abuse on the internet seriously and continue to put resources into catching the perpetrators."

SNP MSP Nicola Sturgeon, the shadow justice minister, said she understood the senior officers’ frustration: "It’s worrying if the police have suspicions that people are involved in child abuse and nobody is going to be convicted."

Marcello Mega, 24/8/03, http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=684&id=932562003

Actually, this is rather poor (understatement) evidence (and certainly nothing to do with proof of the majority), for Silverman's and Findlater's arguments.

My suggestion is based on a number of discussions which I have had on the Internet and snippets of news, from the USA, which are not reported in the UK.

Of course, it is not yet fact, but it is based on, at least, relevant circumstantial evidence, unlike that of Silverman.

Update: On BBC's News at Ten (4/2/03), it was stated that of the 1600 Ore men arrested, at this time, 46 seemed to have been actively involved in abusing children, and they will have completed processing the total in two year's time. Well, of course, I must accept that figure, for now, but that amounts to under 3%, so we are already an order of magnitude away from earlier suggestions. I also find it incredible, that 46 UK men, involved in such an obvious entrapment site, would allow themselves to be identified in such compromising positions, perhaps a small number, yes, but 46? Time will distinguish hyperbole from fact, as it is already doing.

4 Men have committed suicide.

Mr Operation Ore (I missed his name), wants all folk like me to be continually monitored, on-line; let us see what hornet's nest that opens, if any. It should do, but, in these days, it would not be a surprise if it went through with little opposition.

Then the real fun and damage will start.

OK, the item surfaced, on-line, the following day:

More than 1,600 men have so far been arrested in Operation Ore, the huge UK police investigation into child porn on the internet.

Of those, 46 were suspected of being directly involved in child abuse, the officer in charge of the inquiry has told BBC News.

Another four have committed suicide, Assistant Chief Constable Jim Gamble (sorry about that, Mr Gamble) of the National Crime Squad said.

And direct action has been taken to protect 40 children.

Operation Ore

Began when details of credit cards used on a US-based site were passed to UK police

6,500 names being investigated

1,600 arrested so far

46 thought to have been actively abusing children

Four committed suicide

Full inquiry may take two years

Direct action taken to protect 40 children Operation Ore is the UK wing of an American inquiry into websites that supplied child porn in exchange for payment via credit card, through which the users were tracked down.

Police have previously complained they lack the resources to investigate all the names passed to them by the Unites States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), a federal agency that investigates online paedophile activity.

As Mr Gamble issued the latest update, he took the opportunity to urge the authorities to consider ways of banning some paedophiles from using the internet - and of monitoring others online.

"I think there are opportunities to further tighten legislation in respect of how we intrusively maintain surveillance of the online activity of known paedophile offenders," he said.

Townshend arrest

Police said nearly all those judged to be a priority - those working with children or in the criminal justice system - had been arrested.

Those held include several high-profile figures, including police officers involved in the Soham murder investigation and rock star Pete Townshend.

He says as an anti-paedophile campaigner he was accessing the sites purely for research.

On Tuesday, a consultant surgeon arrested as part of the probe escaped a jail sentence after admitting downloading indecent pictures of children.

Vascular surgeon Christopher Lattimer, 39, of Acol in Kent, was put on the sex offenders register and given a community rehabilitation order for up to three years.

Long investigation

The UK investigation began after the US Postal Inspection Service collected the credit card details of users of an internet portal which carried the message "child porn click here".

The details of 6,500 British cards were passed on to UK police, who have been tracing the users.

Police have warned they could be overwhelmed with the numbers of suspects involved.

Mr Gamble said it would take two years before everyone on the list was fully investigated.

BBC News, 5/2/03

There is no doubt, whatsoever, about the proposition of the experts; and it is:

"We have regular contact with the sexual abusers of children. A number of them possess pornography including minors, thus, those who view pornography including minors, are potentially the sexual abusers of children."

'Potential abusers' potential? - just what exactly do you mean Mr Findlater? I should have thought that history has taught us that human beings are the 'potential abusers' of anyone or anything.

Well, we probably agree on one thing. If one is truly a paedophile, one's pornographic preference may be children, but as we have found, elsewhere, on this site, these people, with a legal sexual preference, can use, essentially, any medium to stimulate themselves. You may also find that football fans have football magazines, 'Guns and Ammo' for weapons aficionados and any other speciality magazines for those who have a preference for such things. You may even find that heterosexual or homosexual pornography lovers may find their own delightful gratification; but please show me the proof, or even evidence, of the correlation and causality of this and adult rape - please do.

Note 1: Lookers becoming abusers The United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) is the federal law enforcement arm of the US Postal Service with responsibility for investigating crimes involving the US mail including all child pornography and child sexual exploitation offences. More and more, it has been found that child pornographers and molesters are using the Internet. In fiscal year 2001, the USPIS found that 78% of the child exploitation cases investigated by Postal Inspectors involved computers.

During the fiscal year 1997, the USPIS began compiling statistical information on the number of child pornography suspects that were also child molesters. Of the 1,207 individuals arrested by Postal Inspectors since 1997 for using the mail and the Internet sexually to exploit children, actual child molesters were identified in 36% of cases. Since the USPIS frequently target those with prior convictions for sex offences, it may be that this figure somewhat overstates the proportion of users of child pornography as a whole who are likely to engage in actual abuse, but it is still a worrying statistic.

Here in the UK, David Findlater - director of the Wolvercote Clinic, which provided sex offender treatment before it had to close - told the "Observer" of 20 October 2002: "I am sure the Internet could lead to a substantial rise in offences. It delivers material into the home, putting ideas into peope's heads. At Wolvercote, we learnt how quickly, using the Internet, men moved from fantasising about abusing adolescents through to baby abuse and bondage. The fact that what they are watching is an abuse actually taking place can make them think about doing it themselves". (Note that Wolvercote only contained actual child abusers.)

In the 2003 book "Policing Paedophiles On The Internet", there is a chapter by Joe Sullivan and Anthony Beech entitled ""Are Collectors Of Child Abuse Images A Risk To Children?" Sullivan is principal therapist for the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and works extensively with sex offenders, and Beech is a Reader in Criminological Psychology at the University of Birmingham and a lead researcher with the Sex Offender Treatment Evaluation Project. Having examined three contemporary models of sexual abuse, they conclude the charpter (sic) with the following assessment: "We do not believe that everyone who masturbates to indecent images of children has or will inevitably engage in contact sexual abuse of children, but, in our opinion, this process will have the effect of reducing the collectors' inhibitors to contact sexual offending, and therefore make it increasingly more likely they will seek to act out their fantasies". http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/sexonnet.html#WHAT%20IS%20THE%20LAW%20IN%20THE%20UK?

VI. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CHILD PORNOGRAPHY AND CHILD SEX ABUSE CRIME

Considerable controversy exists within the social and behavioural science community about the negative effects, if any, of child pornography upon the behaviour of potential or actual offenders. The main reason for the debate is that it is virtually impossible to conduct research in the laboratory using standard scientific methods which yield statistically reliable results. The constraints of ethical research, false reporting, interviewer distortion and a whole host of other problems contribute to the difficulty of acquiring scientific results. Many researchers have come to the conclusion that there is no sound scientific basis for concluding that exposure to child pornography increases the likelihood of sexual abuse of children. Others have suggested that there is a consistent correlation between the use of pornography and sexual aggression. Some social scientists interpret the research to indicate that the use of child pornography is a precursor to other sex crimes and that child pornography is fuel to feed the obsession of paedophilia; Child Pornography and Sexual Exploitation: European Forum for Child Welfare Position Statement, 3 (Nov. 1993) [hereafter EFCW Position Statement] (citing studies that support this thesis). others conclude that it is a safety valve that prevents such crimes. Kutchinsky, B., The Effect of Easy Availability of Pornography on the Incidence of Sex Crimes: The Danish Experience, Journal of Social Sciences, 29:3, 163-81 (1973); see Daniel Lee Carter, et al., The Use of Pornography in the Criminal and Developmental Histories of Sexual Offenders, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 207 (June 1987).

Law enforcement agencies also have differing opinions. In 1995, several Australian law enforcement agencies testified in hearings on organised paedophile activity that "there was a significant likelihood that a person in possession of child pornography was also involved in sexually abusing children." Organised Criminal Paedophile Activity: A Report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia 36 (Nov. 1995) [hereinafter Australian Parliament Report]. This view is not universally accepted, even in Australia. Id. It is well documented that paedophiles may possess extensive collections of child pornography. However, not all paedophiles who collect or view pornography sexually molest children and not all of those who collect child pornography can be characterised as paedophiles.

What is clear, however, is that law enforcement agents have found that a significant number of arrested child molesters are in possession of child pornography. One detective in the Los Angeles Police Department estimated that of 700 child molesters arrested over 10 years for extra-familial child sex crimes, more than half had child pornography in their possession and about 80% owned either child or adult pornography. From 1986 to 1988, an organisation called Childwatch in England found that of the 27 child molesters convicted, 23% were using their child victims to make pornography and nearly all of the child molesters had child pornography in their possession (no surprise there then).

When discussing the relevance of child pornography to the sexual abuse of children, most experts note that it is important not to confuse the question of statistical line (i.e., whether some or many child sex offenders possess child pornography) with the separate issue of causality (i.e., whether possession of child pornography causes people to commit child-sex offenses). While taking pains to acknowledge that there was no evidence of causality, however, a U.S. Senate Subcommittee investigating child pornography came to the conclusion that "[child pornography plays a central role in child molestations by paedophiles, serving to justify their conduct, assist them in seducing their victims and provide a means to blackmail the children they have molested in order to prevent exposure." U.S. Senate Report, supra note 7, at 44.

United States Embassy Stockholm, World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, August 27-31, 1996, http://www.usis.usemb.se/children/csec/child_pornography.html

Research to date has not determined whether child sex offenders (N.B. - offenders) are more, or less, likely to offend if they view and/or collect child pornography (Queensland Crime Commission and Queensland Police Services 2000; Smallbone and Wortley 2000). Although a Queensland study found that non-familial offenders reported using adult pornography (72 per cent) and child pornography (9 per cent) (Smallbone and Wortley 2000), these findings need to be treated with caution. The study sample was almost exclusively comprised of male incarcerated offenders who had low Internet literacy (88 per cent had not used the Internet). Thus, the characteristics of incarcerated offenders may differ from the wider population of offenders and it would also appear that the Smallbone and Wortley sample may potentially represent a different group to those offenders who target children via the Internet.

Child Abuse Prevention Issues Number 15 Summer 2001, Child abuse and the Internet, Janet Stanley, http://www.aifs.org.au/nch/issues/issues15.html

Let us recall, once more:

It is sometimes alleged that child pornography is a critical ingredient in motivating child molestation in some people, but a recent clinical study of eleven male pedophiles indicated that such material may not even be necessary. These men were arousable by media materials widely available, such as television ads and clothing catalogues picturing young children in underwear. In other words, rather than using explicitly pornographic materials, these men appear to construct there own sexually stimulating materials from sources generally viewed as innocuous.

Howett in Abnormal Psychology, C. Davison and J. Neal, 1998 or, even more so:

For example, "the vast majority of individuals who commit sexual offenses against children are not sexually aroused by stimulus material involving children; 'their primary sexual orientation is to adults and they molest children by fantasizing that they are engaging in relationships with appropriate sex partners.'"

[Quoting prosecution expert from trial record in State v.Spencer, 459 S.E.2d 812, 815 (N.C.App. 1995).] http://www.forensic-evidence.com/site/Behv_Evid/BeE00005_2.html

Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.

Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530)

The major issue here, is that their supposition is bad science (even if they are scientists). They have made a correlation (although hardly having a CC=1) between some abusers of minors, and the fact that they possess pornography including minors (no surprise there, as stated above, whether the abusers are paedophiles or not).

They have not proven, or even evidenced, any causality between using pornography including minors and the sexual abuse of minors (other than the well known and historical use of pornography in seduction). These experts are, then, advising all authorities, in a relatively new area of sexuality analysis, and their word is taken as gospel. Subsequently, poor law (and justice) is made on this basis, and we now find ourselves in the present perplexing and confused situation - why is this the case? is the rhetorical question, at this time. Although, with, perhaps, 250 000 more UK users emerging, perhaps it needs to be more than rhetorical.

None of us can say much more, at this time, because, of course, the taboo aspect means we 'potential abusers' will never be available for analysis, in a truly scientific manner; well not for some time, anyway. However, let me offer an alternative rationale, which is applicable to all users of pornography, whatever their tastes may be.

My proposal (shown below) is based on as just a secure analysis of the research as that of the experts (please feel free to correct me), for all Findlater's 'potential abusers' of anyone or anything. Masturbatory satiation (an established treatment for paraphiles, and recommended to me by the Samaritans, at one time) does, in fact, reduce the possibility of abuse. If this were not the case, our schools, places of work, streets and homes would be bloodbaths and /or dens of regular sexual frenzy, both legal and illegal. So, should pseudophotographs/stories/media of all paraphilic subjects be legally and freely available? - ah, there's the rub.

The Masturbatory Cycle of Nearly Every Man.

Bearing in mind, that, the present widespread sexual abuse of children, certainly preceded the availability of Internet child pornography (or, statistically, any source for that matter), let us consider, just what, Mr Findlater's and his supporters (for all the good reasons, I am sure) may actually be creating:

You would expect me to say that there is no danger of these men graduating to serious crimes against children. That may be so, but there are things about this activity and the way our society handles paedophilia which you are entitled to worry about. My experience suggests that men become dangerous when they become obsessional: when they live alone, and their minds are filled with little else but thoughts of what they want but cannot have.

No, I do not believe that these 7,000 men are like that now. I do not even believe that the teachers and policemen among them pose any risk to the children with whom they deal every day. It is the lack of a normal, healthy relationship with children that makes men dangerous.

They are not dangerous now, but they may be in the future. I wonder what will happen to these men who will go to prison for looking at pictures of children on the internet. I know that none of them thought of themselves as paedophiles. None of us use that word or even admit to ourselves the thought. But they are now perverts, "beasts", "animals". Their prisons will have to protect them from other prisoners who will try to assault them. Their social workers and psychologists will explain to them just how sick their minds are. They will be put on the sex offender register for 10 years. They are likely to lose their jobs, their marriages, their homes. Society does not distinguish between one paedophile and another.

Their professional lives will be over, and they will spend the rest of their days afraid that someone will find out what they are. But they will be given minimal, or no treatment, for what is wrong with them. Only serious sex offenders are offered a course of treatment, and only a small number of them actually take the course.

The justice system normally tries to dissuade first-time offenders; to give support, a stern warning and a second chance. But for the crime of "internet paedophilia", moral repugnance - uninformed at that - means these men can expect at least a one-year sentence in prison, and a life sentence in society.

So, yes, I fear that some of these men may ultimately pose a risk to society. Not now, but once they have been through the justice system, been labelled as perverts and deviants, and introduced to much more dangerous men in specialist sex-offender units; then, some of them may become obsessional paedophiles, justifying the label that society has already given them.

Operation Ore will succeed in frightening people away from the credit card sites which offered the milder forms of child pornography. It will not affect the undercurrent of hardcore child porn, nor child prostitution, nor the appalling, frightening ways in which adults hurt children. It will replace informed understanding with mass hysteria, will claim some victims, and do little good. That is always the way with witch hunts.

· Jim Bell was sentenced to two years in prison in March 2002 for downloading and storing child pornography, and using a video camera to film two small girls. He has just been released on licence. The fee for this article is being paid to the Prison Reform Trust.

Jim Bell, The Guardian, 23/1/03, http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,880251,00.html

Tricky one, eh? - and, remember, we are the very 'potential abusers', with our 'distorted thinking', that Mr Findlater never meets (or, more correctly, does not realise that he is meeting); we reap what we sow.

Homo Perversio:

A species that thrives in captivity.

Marquis de Sade to Dr Royer-Collard, Quills, Screenplay by Doug Wright, 2000.

Never did I believe that 'thinking' or 'fantasy' would be subjected to the moderation or control of 'experts', depending on guilt and fear to assist them; welcome the minions of the thought police.

Fetishising Images

When does a picture of a naked child become 'child pornography'? Would the description of a sexual encounter between an adult and a child constitute child-porn, or does the definition only extend to pictures? Does pornography lead to sex crimes?

Ageing rock star Pete Townshend was recently released on bail after he admitted accessing child pornography websites. Townshend had issued an emotional statement the previous weekend. He admitted visiting such sites, but said that he had done so for legitimate reasons. Meanwhile, the police operation code-named 'Ore' is said to involve around 7000 UK suspects, and to include policemen, former Labour ministers, magistrates and even a judge (1). Common sense would suggest that committing rape is much more serious than looking at a picture. But it seems that the law is beginning to equate criminal responsibility for the two. The logical consequence of this situation is 'thought crime', where a person is penalised for what he may have been thinking when viewing an image, regardless of whether he has caused actual harm to a child.

Furthermore, it is admitted that the evidence as to child pornography, and its prevalence on the internet, is patchy. Much of the hard core child pornography to be found on the internet was not produced recently, but dates back several decades. To hold viewers of such pornography as somehow complicit in the abuse of children is a legal absurdity.

The law on child pornography

The UK law on child pornography is becoming increasingly punitive. Under section 1(1) of the 1978 Protection of Children Act, it is an offence for a person to:

'(a) take, or permit to be taken, or to make any indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child; or

(b) distribute or show such indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs; or

(c) have in his possession such indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs, with a view to their being distributed or shown by himself or others; or

(d) publish or cause to be published any advertisement likely to be understood as conveying that the advertiser distributes or shows such indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs, or intends to do so.'

The term 'pseudo-photograph' is used in the Protection of Children Act 1978, as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, and in section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, to include images made or manipulated by computer which are not technically photographs. It is possible, for example, to produce a 'pseudo- photograph' by 'morphing' a picture of adults to make them look like children.

The offence of possessing an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child is a criminal offence under section 160(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The maximum penalty was six months' imprisonment from a magistrates' court. Section 41(3) of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 has now made the offence triable either before a magistrate or before a jury in a Crown Court, with a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment (on indictment). This applies to offences committed on or after 11 January 2001, when section 41 came into force.

The maximum penalty for all the offences under section 1 of the 1978 Act was originally three years on indictment. But this was increased to 10 years by section 41(1) of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. Again, the increased penalty applies to offences committed on or after 11 January 2001.

The Home Office's Sentencing Advisory Panel recently undertook a consultation exercise on sentencing guidelines for judges in child pornography cases. The panel favours a 'get tough' approach. Its approach, however, suggests that the panel is influenced by political correctness and individual opinion rather than by a more scientific, evidence- based approach.

The lack of evidence

The Home Office's Sentencing Advisory Panel admits that it is impossible to assess the prevalence of child pornography offences with any degree of accuracy. It immediately goes on to opine that the cases coming to court are 'the tip of the iceberg'. This is speculation: even those who specialise in researching child pornography confess that they know little about it.

The panel referred to the COPINE project (Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe) at the University of Cork. This has a reference database of more than 80,000 still pictures and a large number of video sequences, including examples of most of the material publicly available on the internet (2).

Max Taylor, professor of applied psychology and director of the COPINE Project, presented a paper to the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in December 2001, entitled Challenges and Gaps. He acknowledged that: 'we have little understanding of the individual and collective processes that give rise to the production and distribution of child pornography in general, and on the internet in particular. Indeed, given the amount of legislative attention these issues have attracted, it is difficult to find another area of substantial policy development that has been based on such little empirical evidence.' (3)

Even those who specialise in researching child pornography confess that they know little about it

Taylor pointed out that the work done by COPINE suggested that, while collecting child pornography on the internet may be primarily related to sexual fantasy, it may also draw on other factors related to collecting, social facilitation and risk-taking. Among other factors, he notes that relatively few child victims have been identified. Child pornography covers a wide range of images and ages. Some is clearly repulsive. But given the lack of 'empirical evidence' about it to which Taylor refers, we should surely question the assumptions upon which the highly punitive character of UK law regarding child pornography is now based: namely, that it is a prevalent problem, that its users are necessarily paedophiles, and that children are harmed in its production, or as a result of its production.

Back in 1999, Max Taylor presented a paper entitled 'The nature and dimensions of child pornography on the internet' to an international conference on combating child pornography on the internet in Vienna. He made the following points:

-- Much of the core of the sexually explicit child pornography currently available on the internet is 30 or 40 years old, and even older;

-- Of the internet material to which his project had access, an estimated 85 to 90 percent was older than 10 to 15 years, with a large amount of that dating from the 1960s and 70s;

-- 'The relationship between adult sexual interest in children and child pornography is complex and poorly understood. Not all convicted child-sex offenders express an interest in child pornography. On the other hand, very many people who have no criminal record, and who seemingly have no known sexual interest in children, demonstrate an interest in child pornography by accessing and downloading images.'

-- 'The relationship between collecting child pornography and sexual assaults on children is also not clear.' (4).

The Sentencing Advisory Panel did not quote Taylor's carefully balanced observations. Instead it stated in its consultation exercise: 'It is said that paedophiles use pornography in order to reinforce and justify their will to abuse. In some cases, pornography is shown to children to encourage them to think of sexual activity as normal.' (5) But it produced no evidence to back up this assertion which implicates pornography in general.

Controversial sources

The only source offered for its argument was an interview with one Ray Wyre in 1990, conducted by Catherine Itzin, who was editor and co-author of a book entitled Pornography: Women, Violence and Civil Liberties (6), an attack on the pornography industry. Wyre worked in the navy and studied at a Baptist bible college to become a minister before choosing probation work instead. Later, he ran a clinic for sex offenders. He is a qualified social worker. In 1988, he provided social workers in Nottingham, who approached him for advice about witchcraft, with a list of 'indicators' of satanic abuse. Social workers used these indicators to identify a local family as satanic abusers.

In what became a national scandal, it was subsequently revealed that satanic abuse was non-existent in this case or any other case where it was suspected, and the list was rapidly debunked (7).

Wyre's interview was about his own beliefs. He asserted that 'men's fantasies are fuelled by pornography. It gives them ideas, and they act those ideas out'. He claimed that all pornography was 'incredibly dangerous', that it maintained 'a climate of misogyny', was a causative factor in violence against women, and 'influenced the attitude of all men'. He regarded all men as 'on a continuum of sexism in the same way all white people are on a continuum of racism'. He regarded emotional abuse as sexual abuse. And he mentioned a boy who, he says, was abused 'within a satanic cult'. The pornography which Wyre mentioned being used as seduction aids by people seeking sex with minors was 'ordinary "soft" pornography', '"ordinary" heterosexual pornography', and 'gay literature' (8).

As Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, says, the idea that porn leads to sex crime presupposes a particularly degraded view of humanity and the capacity to make choices, which appeals to anti- pornography feminists (9). Among Itzin's other contributors were journalist Tim Tate, author of a controversial book called Children for the Devil: Ritual Abuse and Satanic Crime (10), and Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, for whom pornography is hate speech, sex discrimination and sexual abuse.

MacKinnon argues that women cannot consent to sex anyway, because of male domination. She and Dworkin see heterosexual sex as degrading. Both campaigned unsuccessfully for civil laws to allow victims of sexual assaults to sue producers of porn, even Playboy. Itzin mechanically repeats their dystopian argument that until porn is eliminated, women never can be free (11). As a source used by the Home Office's Sentencing Advisory Panel, then, Itzin's book seems an embarrassing choice.

Camille Paglia has excoriated the MacKinnon-Dworkin view of pornography as preposterous, not least because rape and violence against women predate modern Western pornography by millennia. Paglia scorns the deficiencies in MacKinnon-Dworkin's approach.

'MacKinnon begins every argument from big, flawed premises such as "male supremacy" and "misogyny" while Dworkin spouts glib Auschwitz metaphors at the drop of a bra. Here's one of their typical maxims: "The pornographers rank with Nazis and Klansmen in promoting hatred and violence." Anyone who could write such a sentence knows nothing about pornography or Nazism.' (12)

It is misconceived to argue that the record ‘is’ the abuse

Paglia's concerns are shared by Judge Richard Posner of the US Court of Appeals (seventh circuit), who says that Mackinnon is obsessed by pornography (13). Despite Paglia's protests, the confused assumption that porn equals rape has become increasingly mainstream.

No law-abiding person condones children being raped or abused, on camera or off it. Clearly, in situations where children are sexually assaulted and the assaults are recorded, the photo or film is a record of criminal acts.

But it is misconceived to argue that the record 'is' the abuse. It is neutral.

It is bizarre to argue that someone who downloads and views a picture of an assault later on - perhaps 40 years later - is somehow complicit in the original assault. This makes no sense. We do not say that someone watching the destruction of the World Trade Center on TV is complicit in the hijackers' acts. Even if that person believed that the Americans got what they deserved and cheered, he could not incur criminal liability for the crimes perpetrated on 9/11.

It is also absurd to argue, as some now do, that sexual victimisation of children is involved, regardless of what the picture actually shows (say, a toddler in a paddling pool or the bath, with no clothes on), or the context in which it was taken, or whether it even shows a real child (14).

Yet these fallacies have filtered into official policy. Of course, actual sexual abuse of children inspires particular revulsion. But it looks as though people who possess images of such abuse - or computer-generated scenarios, which do not display anything 'real' - must now carry the can for those who commit actual offences against children.

This scapegoating also involves the notion of 'thought crime'. People are penalised for what they might be thinking when they view an image, regardless of whether they played any role at all in the actual abuse of children.

Equating images with abuse

The Sentencing Advisory Panel has given the Court of Appeal the following advice on sentencing: 'Every indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child is, with limited exceptions, an image of a child being abused or exploited.' It says that adults 'can' suffer shame and distress knowing that indecent images of them as children are still in circulation (15).

And it goes on: 'An offender sentenced for possession of child pornography should be treated as being in some degree complicit in the original abuse which was involved in the making of the images. Sentences for possession should also reflect the continuing damage which is done to the victim or victims, through copying and dissemination of the pornographic images.' (16) (Note how the possibility of ongoing damage has become a certainty.)

COPINE developed a typology of images of children, with categories ranging from the relatively least problematic (for example: 2, Nudist (naked or semi-naked in legitimate settings/sources), and 3, Erotica (surreptitious photographs showing underwear/nakedness), to 9, Gross assault (penetrative assault involving adult) to 10, Sadistic/bestiality (sexual images involving pain or animal).

People are penalised for what they might be thinking when they view an image

The Sentencing Panel rejected this typology, and has created its own for sentencing purposes 'according to the degree of harm to the victims' (17). But it may be unclear just who the 'victims' are, and the harm involved will frequently be a matter of speculation.

Furthermore, the panel states: 'Images in COPINE categories 2 to 3 might be the subject of a dispute as to whether or not they were indecent. We have included them at level 1 of our scheme because there may be cases where an offender has been convicted, or pleaded guilty, solely on the basis of images of this nature.' Level 1 of the panel's scheme relates to 'Images depicting nudity or erotic posing, with no sexual activity'. The panel's assumption that 'Images depicting nudity or erotic posing, with no sexual activity' and 'Nudist [pictures] (naked or semi-naked in legitimate settings/sources)' can be criminal was considered by the Court of Appeal in November 2002. The court disagreed that nudity in a legitimate setting, or surreptitious photos of underwear, were pornographic. But it agreed that 'erotic posing' was. What is an erotic pose?

Donatello's 'David' would probably fall foul of the new sentencing criteria while Bronzino's 'Allegory of Venus with Cupid' certainly would. People like Lewis Carroll and Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden took nude photographs of girl- children, and boy-teens, in the nineteenth century. If downloaded from the internet, it seems that they too could still be suspect.

It seems illogical that possession of such images downloaded from a computer should constitute a crime, while possession of a coffee-table artbook is not.

The current scare over child pornography, then, has two perverse consequences: ultimately, its chilling effect requires the censorship of just about everything; and its repressive measures fuel interest in the very thing that it seeks to suppress.

(1) 'A "paedophile" witch-hunt?' Independent, 17January 2002; 'Paedophiles: The Police Hunt' Independent on Sunday, 19 January 2002

(2) Sentencing Advisory Panel, "Sentencing of Offences Involving Child Pornography: Consultation Paper" January 2002, paras. 31, 37. See also paras. 32, 36, 41

(3) See the COPINE Project website

(4) See the COPINE Project website, 'Published Material'

(5) Sentencing Advisory Panel, Consultation Paper, para. 29, n.3. Wyre is on the statutory list of consultees whom the Panel must consult, by the Lord Chancellor's direction under section 81(4)(a) Crime and Disorder Act 1998. On Wyre's work, see All Wyred up Achilles Heel, Issue 13 Summer 1992. See also Ray Wyre Associates

(6) Pornography: Women, Violence and Civil Liberties Catherine Itzin (ed.) (OUP, 1992; reprinted 2001). Wyre's interview is Chapter 14, 'Pornography and Sexual Violence: Working with Sex Offenders'

(7) See Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Britain, Philip Jenkins, (Aldine de Gruyter, 1992) pp. 85, 97, 158-61, 169-71, 179, 191-2; 'The Making of a Satanic Myth' Rosie Waterhouse, Independent on Sunday 12 August 1990. The Report by a Joint Enquiry Team into the Nottingham débacle is here. And see Child Protection Questions by Jennie Bristow

(8) Pornography: Women, Violence and Civil Liberties Catherine Itzin (ed.) (OUP, 1992; reprinted 2001) p243-4, 236, 241, 244, 246

(9) Nadine Strossen, Defending Pornography (NYU, 2000), p146-7

(10) Children for the Devil: Ritual Abuse and Satanic Crime, London: Methuen, 1991. It was the subject of a successful libel action by a policeman who investigated the Nottingham case: see The Media and the Myth

(11) "The Child Pornography Industry: International Trade in Child Sexual Abuse" Tim Tate, "Pornography, Civil Rights and Speech" Catharine A MacKinnon, and "Against the Male Flood: Censorship, Porngraphy and Equality" Andrea Dworkin, in Pornography: Women, Violence and Civil Liberties Catherine Itzin (ed.) (OUP, 1992; reprinted 2001) chs11, 23-4; Feminism Unmodified Catharine A MacKinnon (Harvard, 1987) chs6-8, 11-16; Towards a Feminist Theory of the State Catharine A MacKinnon (Harvard, 1989) chs7-12; Only Words Catharine A MacKinnon (Harper Collins, 1994), chapter 1, 3

(12) "The Return of Carry Nation: Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin" Camille Paglia, in Vamps & Tramps (Penguin, 1995) p110-1. And see Pornography in a Free Society Gordon Hawkins & Franklin E. Zimring, (Cambridge, 1988) ch 6

(13) Quoted by Defending Pornography Nadine Strossen, (NYU, 2000), p141. And see Sex and Reason Richard A Posner, (Harvard, 1992) p131-2

(14) 'Typology of Paedophile Picture Collections', Taylor M., Holland G. and Quayle E., The Police Journal 2001 74(2) 97-107. See p 7-8 of this paper on the COPINE site

(15) "Advice to the Court of Appeal - 10 Offences Involving Child Pornography", Sentencing Advisory Panel, August 2002, paras 10, 12. The Court of Appeal issued guidelines based on the Panel's advice in R v Oliver and others on 21 November 2002

(16) "Advice to the Court of Appeal - 10 Offences Involving Child Pornography", Sentencing Advisory Panel, August 2002, para 13

(17) "Advice to the Court of Appeal - 10 Offences Involving Child Pornography", Sentencing Advisory Panel, August 2002, para 20, Table on page 5

Barbara Hewson is a barrister at Littman Chambers, Gray's Inn, London, http://www.spiked- online.com/articles/00000006DC06.htm

IS Providers and Their Role in the Distribution of Illegal Materials

The issue of ISPs banning access to newgsroups from Usenet is a red herring. It is not the ISP which is used as the Usenet access software by experts, other software is used (e.g. P2P), in conjunction. It is possible to access anything, using the ISP, simply, as a Dial Up Connection. Anyway, there are plenty of international ISPs who are happy to provide open (and legal, to them) access, so that is not a way forward.

There is an argument that credit card companies could 'restrict' access, if policed, but, as we know, 'money talks', so time will tell.

I do recommend a visit to Roger Darlington's website (http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk), for, although he may be viewed as my adversary, I am wise enough to know that he is clearly a polymath, of some note, and has created a very effective knowledge base (and not only in this area of study) - a worthy opponent.

WHAT IS THE LIABILITY OF INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS?

Sooner or later, in any discussion of Internet regulation, understandably the issue arises of the liability of Internet service providers (ISPs). To what extent should ISPs be liable for hosting child pornography or racist content or material which is libellous or material which is in breach of copyright?

One view is that ISPs should have no liability. According to this view, ISPs are simply common carriers like the postal or telecommunications service and therefore should have no liability for the material which they carry. This view is nonsense. A letter or a telephone call is a private communication, whereas a web site or a newsgroup is accessible to some 500 million Internet users world-wide.

Another view is that ISPs should have strict liability. According to this view, ISPs are publishers like newspapers or magazines or broadcasters and should be held fully responsible for any material which they host or, in effect, publish. This is equal nonsense. Currently there are around two billion web pages and over 40,000 newsgroups world-wide and there is no way that ISPs can know the nature of all the material and services which they are hosting.

A position in between these two views holds that, while it is unrealistic and impractical to make ISPs liable in advance for all the material they host, once an ISP has been given notice of material of doubtful legality, then there is a liability on that ISP. If the ISP removes the offending material within a reasonable period of time of the notice being received, then generally one would not expect a court to convict, even if the material in question was subsequently found to be illegal.

In effect, this is a 'notice and take down' procedure. In the UK, since late 1996 a procedure of this kind has worked effectively in the case of child pornography through the institutional arrangements of the Internet Watch Foundation [for further details of the IWF click 'here']. However, not all countries operate such a procedure in relation to child pornography. In the UK, efforts are now being made to operate this kind of procedure for criminally racist content [for further details click 'here'], but there is no publicly agreed process for handling allegations of defamatory libel or copyright infringements.

Of course, concern about liability can be used to scare individuals or companies into removing material which is perfectly legal but objectionable to someone who perhaps is being criticised or challenged via the Internet. In the USA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and certain law schools have joined together to run a web site warning against the "chilling effects" of unreasonable recourse to 'cease and desist' letters. http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/regulation.html#Liability

AOL's immunity from child porn to set UK precedent

Attempts to crack down on Net paedophiles become embroiled in liability arguments

A Supreme Court's decision to shield America Online from responsibility for the sale of child pornography in its chatrooms, could soon be imitated by European legislation that is expected to exempt Internet Service Providers (ISP's) from liability for the content that they host.

The Florida state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Communications and Decency Act (CDA) gives ISP's immunity from prosecution for illegal information disseminated by users. An EU directive, called the Horizontal Selling Directive, due to be finalised shortly, is likely to follow the same path, doing little more than reinforcing the current "notice and take down" policy adopted by most British ISP's.

"In principle, America has gone much further than the UK in exempting ISP's from liability for offending material carried on their servers," said Robin Bynoe, partner at city law firm Charles Russel.

In a four to three decision by a panel of judges, the lawsuit filed by a Florida woman whose 11-year-old son appeared in a lewd videotape sold by one AOL user to another, was thrown out. The mother had alleged that AOL was violating Florida criminal law by distributing pornography, and was negligent for not knowing one of its subscribers was a seller of child pornography.

Richard Lee Russel, a schoolteacher from West Palm Beach suburb, admitted to using AOL for meeting other paedophiles, and pleaded guilty to federal charges for the trading of child pornography in 1995. He is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence.

The American CDA contains a provision setting out "common carriage", whereby an ISP is deemed a provider of content and therefore not liable for material posted by its users. Within the UK, there is currently no specific legislation to deal with an ISPs responsibility for pornography appearing on its servers.

"In Europe, you can notify a service provider if they are hosting illegal content and request them to take it down, but they are not liable to damages," said Bynoe. Under an Amendment to the 1996 Defamation Act intended to protect online publishers, section two protects content providers from liability for carrying offending material that they are unaware of. The high-profile Demon Internet versus Laurence Godfrey case last March set a precedent for the problem of ISPs hosting defamatory content. "In the Demon analogy, the ISP only became libellous once it knew about the content -- as it happened they didn't have time to sort things out", Bynoe said.

In the Florida case, AOL was accused of not blocking Russel from its service once complaints had been made. Matt Peacock, director of corporate communications for AOL Europe said, "a great deal happens, but it usually goes off into a sphere where we cannot communicate what is happening to a member. How does a complainant know that the police aren't on the case gathering material."

British telco Thus, owner of Demon Internet, announced last month its decision to remove known child pornography newsgroups from its servers, amid growing concerns that the Internet is teeming with paedophiles. One week into its moral crusade, it was found to have failed in its pledge, with two known paedophile groups still available on its servers.

Wendy McAuliffe, ZDNet UK News, March 2001 http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2084927,00.html http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/specials/1999/03/porn/

The Hunt for Britain's Paedophiles: BBC2 TV PROTECTION OF CHILDREN ACT STILL A BUTRESS AGAINST ABUSE.

Much has already been written about the truly disturbing series shown in June 2002 on BBC2 TV 'The Hunt for Britain's Paedophiles'. From the first and second programmes in the three-part series, it is evident that the police officers in New Scotland Yard's Paedophile Unit are doing a very difficult task with limited resources. The officers concerned show a heartfelt dedication in doing their utmost to stop the sexual abuse of children by pathetic and perverted paedophiles and they are plainly let down by a lenient sentencing policy in the courts.

Some of the imagery and behaviour they have to deal with is shocking in the extreme and the lengths to which paedophiles go to hide what they do is astonishing. After the first programme, shown on 6 June, BBC2 'Newsnight' followed with a discussion on the issues raised. mediawatch-uk director, John Beyer, said "We acknowledge that the series has not been sensationally presented but the repetition of some of the images has not been entirely necessary. We understand that it has brought relief to some of the victims of sexual abuse by treating the subject seriously and by removing the veil of secrecy surrounding the activity. We have known about the growth of child pornography for many years and it is thanks to the massive public petition we organised in the 1970's that the Protection of Children Act became law in 1978. It is very gratifying to know that without our campaign, and the foresight of Mary Whitehouse, this law, which is the main instrument police use today, would not have been enacted. What we could not have foreseen in the 1970s, however, is the extent to which horrific images of children being sexually abused are accessed and traded on the Internet.

"So far the series has not focused on those who actually publish the images on web sites in the first place, nor has attention been paid to service providers who enable access to them. Nor has the series talked to the telecommunications companies whose telephone lines are used to send and receive the images around the world. We are thankful that there have been a number of successful initiatives in recent years involving law enforcement agencies around the world to break up international paedophile rings that use the Internet to conduct their wicked activities.

It is our belief that the series, in showing only the work of the small, and plainly under-resourced, Paedophile Unit which can deal only with a few paedophiles, focuses attention away from the powerful people who run industries that enable the widespread distribution of images of cruelty and abuse. Imprisoning organised paedophiles is important and more resources should be expended on their proper rehabilitation. But they are using a sophisticated system of communication that is owned and run by large corporations, service providers and executives who surely share in the guilt by apparently doing nothing to stop the images being published and distributed. mediawatch-uk believes that only when the police can prosecute these people, with threats of imprisonment, will the trade be substantially and permanently curtailed. http://www.mediawatchuk.org/mainsite.htm

School net firm's link to child porn access

Call for ministers to investigate access to images of paedophilia through Easynet service

A company providing internet access for thousands of British school pupils is also peddling child porn involving incest and bestiality.

An Observer investigation uncovered the illegal trade in images of child abuse after anti-paedophile investigators contacted the newspaper about the activities of Easynet, one of the largest internet providers in the country.

Last October, Easynet launched Broadband for Schools, a nationwide initiative backed by E-commerce Minister Stephen Timms. Each school pays over £1,000 a year for access and nearly £300 for installation.

Two government departments, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for Education and Skills, gave the go-ahead to the project, despite the company's record. Easynet also makes money from child porn which is advertised on 'newsgroups' - electronic noticeboards where subscribers can download thousands of illegal images of child abuse.

Easynet customers have access to newsgroups with names such as 'alt.sex.babies', 'alt.sex.young', 'alt.sex. stories.incest' and 'alt.sex. pedophilia.boys'. The images, including sex acts between pre-pubescent children and animals, can be downloaded with the click of a mouse. Campaigners have successfully lobbied other internet companies to pull the plug on paedophile porn and most, including Freeserve, Demon and BTInternet, now refuse customers access to child sex and incest newsgroups.

Investigators have identified two independent providers, FreeUK and Force9, which offer unrestricted access to paedophile newsgroups. Neither is a member of the industry watchdog, the Internet Watch Foundation.

The newsgroups accessed by the investigators who contacted The Observer were available via Pavilion Internet, an Easynet company. Industry experts believe companies such as Pavilion have profited from tapping into the increasing paedophile market as other providers refuse them access.

Easynet, partly owned by electronics giant Marconi, also makes money from child protection software to schools. The software filters out pornographic and violent websites. This has been recommended to schools by at least one local authority.

It is an offence under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 to advertise material likely 'to deprave and corrupt persons'. Directors of Easynet could face a three-year prison sentence if investigators can show they publicised child porn on the internet.

Images advertised to Easynet subscribers include: 'Pig sex - hard pig lovin - big pig on a little teen' and 'Real forbidden girls - 14-year-olds from Japan and Germany'.

'The great majority of responsible ISPs do not allow access to these groups. Surely Easynet does not believe it is acceptable to carry this stuff,' said John Carr, internet adviser to the Children's Charities Coalition for Internet Safety.

Shadow Education Secretary Damian Green said: 'If Easynet is aware that child pornography is available via their service and have failed to act to stop it, then it is clearly an unsuitable company to act as a contractor in schools.'

E-commerce Minister Stephen Timms said last night: 'The Department for Trade and Industry strongly urges internet service providers involved in the Broadband for Schools initiative to act responsibly and protect children from the activities of paedophiles in the internet.'

Campaigners called on the Internet Watch Foundation to crack down on companies carrying paedophile newsgroups. The IWF has drawn up a list of banned groups advertising child porn http://www.iwf.org.uk/.

Easynet did not deny carrying the paedophile groups, but told The Observer: 'Easynet abhors this type of activity and takes the utmost responsibility in this area by following the guidelines issued by the IWF to the letter.

'The IWF reports undesirable content to the National High-Tech Crime Unit. Once content has been deemed illegal or undesirable, it is added to a system that removes it from being available through Easynet's ISP service.

'If the organisation in this situation approaches us with their concern we will immediately notify the IWF and we will instigate any recommendation of the IWF.'

IWF chief executive Peter Robbins confirmed Easynet had not broken the industry code, but said groups carried by the company were being monitored. Robbins said: 'It is up to individual companies to decide their policy on this kind of newsgroup. But anyone who has serious concerns about material carried by any internet service provider should alert us.'

· This week the Government will publish its Sex Offences Bill to tighten the law on child sex abuse, particularly on the internet, writes Kamal Ahmed. A new offence of adult sexual activity with a child will carry a maximum sentence of 14 years and there will be an offence of sexual grooming of a child with a maximum penalty of five years.

Martin Bright, The Observer, 26/1/03

Tracking The Credit Card Trail

Credit card companies are turning detective in order to help police track down the large number of people entering child pornography websites. When rock star Pete Townshend gave his credit card details to view indecent images of children, for what he claims was research, he left a trail found by the police months later.

The card number - which had been scrambled but was decoded by the FBI along with thousands of others - inevitably led back to him.

Now card companies are using the same method to track down those providing the pornography.

Visa has an internet monitoring programme costing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

It's a constant battle and we continue trying to stop the use of Visa cards for this type of abuse - Jon Prideaux, Visa

It seeks out millions of websites to trace those which charge users from their credit cards to access illegal material.

Visa spokesman Jon Prideaux told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Visa does not agree with Visa cards being used for child pornography and we do a lot to prevent it."

"We have a programme which is scanning a programme of about one million websites a day in order to find those sites which may be involved in child pornography."

Mr Prideaux said about 30,000 suspicious websites were initially identified, then that number was reduced to a few hundred after further examination.

He said: "Most of them have been closed down and the rest are in the process of being closed down."

"But it's a constant battle and we continue trying to stop the use of Visa cards for this type of abuse."

Visa submits the website names to the police, but said it does not have the names of individual users.

"The programme we've got is very much looking at the people who are selling this, from a merchant perspective.".

"We're not really looking from the cardholders' side of the equation, it's much more difficult to pick that up."

"We can obviously go away and look, and say: 'Well, here's a site that's accepting it', but we can't necessarily go in and raid it."

The police need to get a move on and the government needs to finance it as a matter of urgency.

He said although Visa did not know who the clients were, the police could track them down via the websites.

Mr Prideaux said banks were sometimes fooled into collaborating with a porn website, when the content of the site can initially appear to be quite innocent.

But it is only one point of control, he conceded, because many pornographic websites did not use credit cards.

Labour MP Deborah Shipley, who campaigns on child protection, told the same programme: "I welcome what Visa is doing, but I'd like to know are all credit card companies doing that.

"Those that aren't doing it I would like to see blacklisted by all major companies in this country, and refuse them their credit."

But the problem for police would appear to be prosecution, rather than detection.

They have only arrested 1,300 people from a list of 6,000 suspected offenders.

Deputy assistant commissioner Carole Howlett, spokeswoman on internet child pornography for the Association of Chief Police Officers, last year asked for more police resources to help.

Ms Shipley said £500,000 had been given, but the police needed about £2m to tackle the huge scale of the problem. "The police need to get a move on and the government needs to finance it as a matter of urgency," she said.

Although users could throw away their computers to try and escape detection, the credit card evidence may be enough to nail them, she added. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2656135.stm

Paedophiles: Tightening the net

Every website you visit, every payment you make, every e-mail you send is open to surveillance. Fears over child pornography and terrorism have ended the ideal of a free and secure internet.

There was a time, not so long ago, when police could get away with claiming that the internet was a dangerous and lawless environment filled with untraceable villains. If they made that claim today, they would be lying.

My many colleagues in the field of internet security are now unanimous in the view that privacy in cyberspace is dead. Well, virtually dead. No one should believe for a second longer that the internet is a secure place – it leaks like a colander. Over the past five years surveillance capability has been designed into the core of the system to the extent that it is now absolutely hostile to privacy.

Traces of the sites you visit, the computers and phone lines you use, and the emails you send are available to any organisation with the mandate, the motivation and the resources to access them. There is little you can do to prevent this default surveillance.

The breathtaking number of internet-related arrests in the past two years demonstrates this, and also that the global financial environment and the international integration of law enforcement agencies have evolved beyond recognition. Operation Ore is a case in point. Many of the thousands of suspected paedophiles targeted by detectives believed they were safe from scrutiny. Maybe they figured that by using a "secure encrypted" payment link, that they were somehow invisible. Or perhaps they foolishly thought that visiting an overseas website afforded immunity from action by UK police. This is an idea as erroneous as the myth that deleting something from your computer actually gets rid of it. Any electronic payment you make will be stored in at least a half a dozen major databases, each ultimately accessible to any law enforcement agency.

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), responsible for tackling money laundering and the black market, has brokered dozens of international standards and laws that ensure the transparency of most financial transactions. Unless you happen to purchase from a Chinese website using a Nigerian-issued credit card (neither of which is likely to co-operate willingly with Western police), you are likely to be tripped up somewhere along the way.

The old claim by police that the internet puts crime out of the reach of law enforcement is largely untrue these days. Gus Hosein, an expert in police co-operation at the London School of Economics observes "concerns over child pornography, terrorism and trans-national crime have created legal regimes that are being harmonised across borders". The newly formed Council of Europe Cybercrime convention significantly increases the power and scope of investigating authorities. There is still a long way to go, but the creation of hundreds of international "mutual assistance" agreements have brought the world to the primary stage of globally integrated policing.

In the fight against internet crime these two developments – financial transparency and international police co- operation – rely heavily on two further pillars of support: communications surveillance and computer forensics. Combined, these four aspects of law enforcement create an almost seamless dragnet across cyberspace.

Unless extraordinary and complex measures are taken by the user, investigators are able to retrace every move. Information about all our internet activities is stored by e-commerce websites, employers, and internet service providers (ISPs). "The Government hopes to force ISPs to store this information for several years so that it can be accessed in later investigations," says Dr Ian Brown, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. "It can already require that ISPs insert surveillance devices in their networks."

The passage of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is one of half-a-dozen recent pieces of UK legislation that create the potential for almost limitless surveillance. Under the new laws a range of public authorities will be able to obtain a list of email activity and websites browsed for a very broad spectrum of purposes. A secrecy clause already prevents ISPs from notifying their users of interception warrants issued against them. And the Government's planned monitoring centre located in MI5 could keep watch on any number of people, without any ministerial or judicial warrant. Any expert in the communications field knows what steps can be taken to resist surveillance, but in the climate of fear over terrorism and child pornography few of us will publicly discuss those measures. Even if the formula for secrecy were made public, the requirements for following it are so onerous that barely a fraction of users would ever do so. (It involves using a complex combination of public computers, encryption systems, anonymous re-mailers and temporary email addresses.)

If the current porn environment remains constant, law enforcement authorities will ultimately hold the trump cards. The proliferation of child porn depends on the collection of credit card details or lists of email addresses for the swapping of images. As the internet becomes more surveillance friendly, "porn clubs" are increasingly exposed to investigation. And as financial institutions are bound by more transparency co-operation agreements, the use of a credit card on the internet brings the customer a substantial risk of discovery.

Having said that, the porn business is a lucrative one, and there is always a risk that while throwing away the privacy of all internet users, we merely create a new market for surveillance-resistant technologies. What if, for example, porn sites start to offer customers a "plausible deniability" defence by setting up a respectable "front operation"? A website dealing with antiquities might have a hidden link to child porn. Or what if porn entrepreneurs start to use steganography, in which illegal images are hidden inside legitimate images? A thousand pictures of Julie Andrews might each contain, in the grains of her skirt, pornographic images. Police would never know.

We face a dilemma of complex proportions. The internet was designed for free and secure communication. It was meant to be a balancing force against tyrannical government. If we destroy this in the quest to crack down on pernicious activities, we deal our democracy and our children an incalculable injury. We could end up with total loss of privacy – and a porn industry immune to infiltration.

Simon Davies, Independent.co.uk, 19/1/03

250,000 BRITS FACE CHILD PORN PROBE

A QUARTER of a million British men may have used their credit cards to access internet child porn, it was claimed last night.

Credit card giant Visa have launched a probe to see how many of their customers have signed up to web sites featuring child abuse.

Now Mastercard and American Express have told police they want to join a special investigation to see how many of their card-holders have been buying child porn.

HUNTED: Net perverts

But detectives fear the huge numbers involved could overwhelm the criminal justice system.

A priority list of people who will be prosecuted has been drawn up. Thousands of others may merely be cautioned or even let off. Operation Ore was launched after American investigators passed a list of 7,000 British men who had used their credit cards to access a child porn site based in Texas.

Who guitarist Pete Townshend was questioned last week by police as part of that probe.

A senior source within Scotland Yard told the Dail Mirror: "The forecast is that the Visa list may top 100,000 alone. Together with Mastercard and American Express customers, plus the other major credit card providers, the projection is the total number of British men who have been accessing these sites will exceed 250,000."

Police are on standby to receive another 10,000 names from the US.

A senior source at Visa said: "We are committed to co-operate with law enforcement in stemming this trade.

"We realise a large number of our account holders have been using credits cards to buy into internet child porn sites."

A Barclaycard spokes-man said: "We are clearly concerned to stop child abuse and other serious crimes being facilitated by people using our cards." Research has already revealed that Britons top the world in using internet porn sites.

Visa have used information it has uncovered to shut down several internet service providers, but the gangs simply set up new sites elsewhere.

DOSSIER OF SHAME

A LIST of 7,272 suspected paedophiles, forwarded to the police from America, is thought to include names from the world of music and television.

Several university lecturers have also been identified in the operation. The names of 50 police officers are also said to have been uncovered.

The largest number of suspects is 1,150 in London.

Police say that there are 30 more in the West Midlands, 32 in Glasgow, followed by Reading (30), Edinburgh (34), Leeds (23), Bristol (22), Cambridge (20), Manchester (17), Colchester (17), Southampton (15), Milton Keynes (14), Swindon (13), Brighton (12), Slough (12), Cardiff (11), Northampton (11), Nottingham (11), Gilford (10), Peterborough (10), Coventry (9), Newport (9), Swansea (9), Telford (7), Liverpool (6), Worcester (6), Hay-ling Island (5) Hull (5), Romford (5) and Blackpool (4).

Jeff Edwards, The Mirror, 27/1/03

State Law Blocks Out Kiddie Porn

A law that blocks Pennsylvania Internet users from logging on to child-pornography sites has sparked a debate over whether the strategy is a viable method for dealing with the Internet's darkest side.

Proponents of the law believe that shutting off access will eliminate the demand for such material, thereby putting website operators out of business.

However, some legal experts and anti-child-pornography activists fear the law could inadvertently help traffickers in such material by allowing legislators to believe they've done something useful while the trading in kiddie porn continues -- out of sight and out of most people's minds.

"If police and federal agents can no longer access these sites, how will they be able to locate and prosecute the owners and users of them?" said John Morris, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, which last week filed a request under Pennsylvania's right-to-know law seeking information on which sites have been blocked.

Pennsylvania state law 7330, which passed late last year, puts the onus on Internet service providers to block Pennsylvania customers' access to websites containing child porn.

Such blocks would probably affect all users of national ISPs, as it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for ISPs to block only Pennsylvania subscribers' access to such sites.

Mike Fisher, Pennsylvania's attorney general, has sent letters to an unknown number of ISPs over the past few months demanding that the ISPs block Pennsylvania subscribers' access to at least 423 websites or face a $5,000 fine, according to news reports.

Morris said the CDT wants Fisher to provide details on exactly what sites have been blocked so that it can determine if any of the blocked sites are accessible outside of Pennsylvania, and if access to non-porn sites is prohibited by the blocks. Depending on what the organization discovers, its staff lawyers may decide to challenge the Pennsylvania law in court.

"While no civilized human being could defend child pornography, it's important to look at the big picture here," Morris said. "What happens if each state passes a law blocking access to materials they consider offensive and those blocks affect most or all of North America?

How the blocks will affect law enforcement across North America would depend on which ISP their departments are using, among other factors. But Morris pointed out that WorldCom was ordered by a judge to comply with the Pennsylvania law last September. WorldCom owns UUNet, and the U.S. government is one of UUNet's biggest customers.

Gary Kremen, a member of ASACP (Adult Sites Against Child Porn), doesn't believe the blocks would hinder either law enforcement officials or those who choose to view child porn.

He said both police and pedophiles would still be able to access kiddie porn easily, even if sites are blocked, by using anonymous Web surfing services such as Anonymizer.

Kremen also doesn't think the Pennsylvania law will help put child-porn sites out of business.

"The real issues here are that most sites containing such material are housed in Russia where law enforcement is lacking," Kremen said. "(Credit card) billing companies also facilitate child-porn sites sometimes, as do certain search engines."

Edward Hayes, a New York criminal attorney, agreed that the kiddie porn blocks would probably neither help nor hinder law enforcement, but he sees another problem.

"I think enforcement of this will be a mess," he said. "The definition of kiddie porn may vary from place to place -- there are different ages of consent around the world."

Fisher's office did not respond to requests for comment. But Fisher spokesman Sean Connolly told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the law has "been very successful in Pennsylvania." Connolly also claimed "the Attorney General's office made 25 arrests in Internet child-pornography cases last year as a result of tips and online sting operations that stemmed from the law."

Another problem, Morris said, is that blocking kiddie-porn sites could also make some sites that do not house child porn inaccessible if the sites are hosted by the same ISP as one used by a porn site.

More than two-thirds of all dot-com, dot-net and dot-org websites share their IP addresses with at least 50 other websites, according to a report released last week by Benjamin Edelman of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School. As a result, any blocking order aimed at one of those websites under the Pennsylvania law would block all 50 (or more) sites, even if those sites are wholly unrelated to the targeted website.

Posts on discussion sites frequented by technology aficionados were divided about the issue.

Some believed the blocks would be an effective way of forcing child porn off the Web; others worried that the law would set a precedent allowing widespread censorship.

Several posters noted that blocking ISPs known to provide service to spammers is a highly accepted method of fighting back against electronic junk mail, and wondered why other posters were so upset about using the same tactics to fight child porn.

Chinese politicians and business owners have criticized filtering of Asian Internet service providers, saying that the filters unfairly punish many for the actions of a few.

Michelle Delio, Feb. 26, 2003, http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,57804,00.html

Child Porn Law Debated in Court

Blocking access to websites doesn't interfere with free speech because Internet addresses aren't real, according to the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.

State attorneys opposing a challenge to the Pennsylvania law that requires ISPs to block access to websites containing child pornography argued to a Philadelphia federal court this week that "a URL is neither a person, nor a real forum, nor a limited commodity."

"It is a little string of letters and numbers that acts as a superficial label," they argued in a brief. "Disablement of an ISP's customers' access to a particular URL for even an indefinite time does not implicate First Amendment rights."

Opponents of the law are asking the judge to strike down the law because it is "well-intentioned but technologically misguided." During three days of sometimes heated arguments in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Democracy and Technology, the attorney general's procedure for identifying and blocking offending sites was attacked.

The attorney general's staff searched the Internet for child pornography and also set up a Web page that allowed Pennsylvania residents to report instances of child pornography.

The office then "sent about 500 informal notices to the ISPs through whose services the offending material had been accessed, asking the ISPs to disable their subscribers' access to the sites. The ISPs generally wrote in response that they had complied with the notice," the attorney general's office said in a brief.

After receiving notice, an ISP has five days to block users' access to the website. Failure to comply carries fines of up to $30,000 and jail terms of up to seven years.

But attorneys for the CDT argued that over 1 million websites that do not contain child pornography have also been blocked since the attorney general's office started sending out notices to ISPs in April 2002.

"It's not as simple as telling an ISP to stop people from accessing www.zzz.com. Each domain name can have several IP addresses attached to it and each upper level domain name can have hundreds of subdomains below it," said networking consultant Mike Sweeney. "It would equivalent of nuking a city block when all you needed was the flyswatter to kill the fly.

"The idea of Pennsylvania blocking sites was a misguided attempt of censorship by clueless public service officials," Sweeney added. "If they had taken the time to talk to knowledgeable technical people, all of this would have been explained at some level and the state of Pennsylvania would have been spared the embarrassment of looking like a bunch luddites who are technically inept. Trying to block sites this way is doomed to failure."

Sean Connolly, spokesman for acting state Attorney General Jerry Pappert, said that that the technology exists to allow ISPs to block only the specific site housing the pornography. There is also technology to block the site only from Pennsylvania state residents, although Connolly admitted that such solutions are complex and costly to implement.

Some ISPs, including America Online, Verizon and Worldcom, claimed in depositions that, given technical issues and the time frame they were given to comply with the attorney general's request, they had no choice but to block the access to sites that did not contain child pornography. In some cases, these blocks denied access to the sites for all North American subscribers.

"The attorney general cannot disavow responsibility for the blocking of more than 1 million entirely innocent websites by pointing fingers at the ISPs," argued John B. Morris, an attorney for the Center for Democracy & Technology.

"He seeks to blame the ISPs' decisions to use IP and DNS filtering as the cause of the massive overblocking of websites, not any action of the state. But the blocking of those sites is a direct result of ISPs' attempts to comply with the statutory scheme enacted by the Pennsylvania legislature and the informal notice scheme developed by the attorney general."

The law in question reads in part: "An Internet service provider shall remove or disable access to child pornography items residing on or accessible through its service in a manner accessible to persons located within this Commonwealth within five business days of when the Internet service provider is notified by the Attorney General pursuant to § 7628 (relating to notification procedure) that child pornography items reside on or are accessible through its service."

"From reading that law, It appears that the Pennsylvania district attorney has been anointed prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner," said attorney Harvey Jacobs, who specializes in Internet law.

"I didn't see any provision for judicial determination of whether certain website content is kiddie porn. I did not see any due process procedures for website owners to challenge the determinations," Jacobs said.

Arguments in the case are expected to conclude on Friday. U.S. District Judge Jan E. Dubois, who is hearing the case, is then expected to rule within a week or two. Some legal experts worry that if the Pennsylvania law is allowed to stand it could pave the way for other states to pass similar laws, blocking access to sites that the states deem illegal or immoral.

"While no civilized human being could defend child pornography, it's important to look at the big picture here," Morris said.

"There are better ways to stop child pornographers than blocking access to their sites and pretending they aren't there ... ways that solve the problem without creating an avalanche of censorship and technology issues."

Michelle Delio, Jan. 8, 2004, http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61840,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Issues

U.S. finds child porn exploding on P2P websites

Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other file-swapping websites are becoming havens for child porn pirates. Two leaked U.S. government reports acknowledge that file-swapping networks are being used to exchange pornography instead of music.

U.S. government investigators found indecent images of children by conducting searches on popular file-sharing networks using the names of singers, actors and cartoon characters.

CTV's David Akin reports that investigators are worried about this new trend, since innocent searches for images of a cartoon character or an MP3 file of a new top 40 hit could yield some nasty pornography.

Authorities are once again warning parents to pay special attention to their child's online activities.

CNET News.com reports that a U.S. General Accounting Office investigation netted a slew of images that qualify as child pornography when searching for words such as "preteen" and "underage" on the Kazaa network.

CNET said a second report prepared by the U.S. House Government Reform Committee found that current blocking technology has "no, or limited, ability to block access to pornography via file-sharing programs."

Peer-to-peer networks are not new to controversy. In the past, the music industry fought to clamp down on the millions of surfers that used such networks at Napster to download songs for free.

Recent estimates peg the number of commercial pornography websites at 400,000. Police said that the use of peer-to- peer networks makes their work especially difficult.

"With these services -- known as P2P or peer-to-peer users connect directly with each other to trade files. There is no central point where they congregate. And that makes it harder for the police to find the bad guys," Toronto Police Detective Sergeant Ian Lamond told CTV.

Services that use peer-to-peer networks to share music, movies and software also said it's difficult for them to clamp down on pornography.

"We have no more knowledge of what people do on our network than Microsoft has with people who use Internet Explorer or AOL does when people get together in a chat room," Kazaa spokesman Philip Corwin told CTV.

CTV.ca News Staff, http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1047594393234_289///?hub=SciTech

Race To Save New Victims of Child Porn

Computer file sharing has sent paedophile demand for real-time images soaring. But, as Audrey Gillan reports, police can often only watch as children grow older and continue to be abused

Paedophiles are swapping thousands of hardcore images of child sex abuse in a new form of computer child pornography that police believe is feeding a demand for more real-time victims of abuse.

The Guardian has established that the demand for child porn through the use of file-sharing technology - normally associated with swapping music and movies - has grown so rapidly that law enforcement agencies are now employed in a global race to track down the children who are being abused. Some of the children, police believe, are being abused on a daily basis to provide a constant supply of new computerised material. Senior officers have revealed that the scale of peer-to-peer traffic in illegal images of children now dwarfs almost any other paedophile network they have encountered. The images are generally more extreme and at least 20% of the users are what police class as Category One, meaning that the suspect is "of significant risk to children".

But resources available to police to tackle peer-to-peer child porn are limited and though they are catching some offenders, it may take months or even years to track down the location of some victims. In such cases, officers monitoring the images can only watch as the children grow older and continue to be abused.

Many of those addicted to child porn have flocked to peer-to-peer file sharing software such as KaZaA, Morpheus and Grokster because they are free so, crucially, users do not have to leave any credit card details, leading them to believe that they cannot be traced. The explosion in file sharing, driven by the demand for music files, has also made the technology readily accessible, quick and easy to use.

It also has the attraction of not requiring the users to be part of a traditional organised paedophile ring using password-protected, covert means to distribute images; rather peer-to-peer technology allows them direct access into the hard drives of other paedophiles' computers with no third party authority monitoring content as is the case with chat rooms and news groups.

Scotland Yard officers have told the Guardian that they stumbled across this phenomenon by accident during another inquiry and say they have been stunned by its exponential growth. They believe the phenomenon is more alarming than previous internet-related cases, such as the high-profile Operation Ore.

The Met's child protection hi-tech crime unit has already built a list of 800 suspects involved in file swapping illegal images in the UK alone. While most are involved only in sharing or downloading the images, a significant proportion are active abusers producing the material themselves, often using their own children, their neighbour's children or - in rarer cases - by luring strangers. At least 30 peer-to-peer cases in the UK so far involved hands-on abuse in which the children in the images were real-time victims.

Police found one man who had wired webcams into his daughter's bedroom so that he could share video images of his abuse with other peer-to-peer file sharers.

Detective Superintendent Peter Spindler, who heads Scotland Yard's paedophile unit, said: "We are finding real-time live abusers. These people are able to get brand new images straight up on the net." His officers have found that when new images appear, the children involved are often related to or live nearby the person distributing the material.

But the sheer volume of new material, combined with the fact that it could have been produced anywhere in the world, has meant that police have often been unable to pinpoint the child's location.

Detectives rely on two methods of tracing location: electronic footprints left by the user while online and forensic analysis of the images to find clues pointing to the country of origin, such as telephone books in the background or the style of furnishings. In some cases, often where the child is being held prisoner and abused in a completely blank room, there are not enough leads for police to chase.

One case being investigated involves a prepubescent girl who is being held prisoner in a room and repeatedly abused. International law enforcement agencies know only that she is in the United States and the FBI is trying to pinpoint her exactlocation. New images of the child are shared through KaZaA and other services but police have been unable to find her.

Gemma Holland, victim identification project manager at the University of Cork's Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe (Copine) which has a database of more than 600,000 child porn images, said: "This is a global problem. The abuse could be in the next village or somewhere near you but the problem is the images are being shown globally. Identifying the kids in these images should be our prime concern and of the greatest importance."

The decentralised nature of the internet and peer-to-peer specifically make it difficult to define numbers of images in circulation or children involved but experts says it is growing daily. Washington's national centre for missing and exploited children, which acts as a clearing house for child porn tip-offs, said that reports of such images in shared files had increased by 400% this year.

David Wilson, professor of criminology at the University of Central England in Birmingham, said: "Peer-to-peer facilitates the most extreme, aggressive and reprehensible types of behaviour that the internet will allow." The Guardian understands that the National Crime Squad is considering coordinating all of this work, rather than leaving it to small groups working within the country's various forces; so far the leading forces have been the Met, West Midlands and Greater Manchester.

Peer-to-peer has become more attractive for paedophiles in the wake of Operation Ore, the high-profile British police operation which was launched after US authorities handed over the names of 7,200 people suspected of subscribing to websites offering paedophilic images. While Ore has grabbed headlines, many senior officers and child abuse experts believe that targeting people at the lower end of the paedophile spectrum has been a distraction in terms of child protection.

Prof Wilson believes Ore showed how the criminal justice system concentrated on the wrong type of offender, the people who downloaded the material rather than produced them. It needed to refocus on activities such as peer-to- peer file sharing and the producers of child pornography.

He said: "Police operations have not been getting to the type of paedophile that we need to get to. It's in their interests to keep the debate moving towards the kind of people they should be spending time and resources on.

"The achilles heel of peer-to-peer is that it makes something that is secret and furtive into something that is public and when it is public that offers the police a window of opportunity to police it."

In a room on the fifth floor at Scotland Yard, officers in the hi-tech crime unit are trying to do exactly that, sitting at com puters, monitoring activity on the peer-to-peer boards. They are part of a team working on Operation Pilsey which started as a small-time inquiry in March 2001 by the Met's clubs and vice unit and burgeoned with the number of people posting images via file sharing. The detectives working here are now inundated.

They explain that they can use technology to detect the location of those who download the images and sometimes that of the abusers. If there is a child immediately in danger, officers will conduct a raid as soon as they have a location.

Paedophiles believe it is harder for them to be detected through peer-to-peer software but investigators are able to access their shared folders and quickly discover if they contain illegal images of child abuse. They are then able to establish the location of the owner of the shared folder.

Extreme

Detective Constable Sean Robbie scans through a list of images held in one shared folder to illustrate the point. A scroll through shows the thousands of illicit files that are on offer. Some of the milder titles are "nine-year-old rape", "eight-year dance" and "dad does daughter". All of it is accessible to anyone who requests it, including children. Key in the word Britney or Barbie and the number of images available is astonishing.

We view one of the files involving the American girl - of which there are thousands - and see her dancing provocatively for the camera. This is one of the least extreme of the images available, some of them replications, others new.

Over the last 18 months, Pilsey officers have found a surprising number of magistrates, city workers and police officers and even children with paedophile images on their computer. Two weeks ago, William Legros, now 18 but 16 when he downloaded child sex images, was given a 12-month community rehabilitation or der after being tracked down by Pilsey.

James Taylor, 43, was convicted in Scotland last month after he posted digital camera shots of himself raping a 13- month-old baby. He was detected when Scotland Yard officers passed his details on to local police. Forensic analysis of the images helped establish the baby's location in a house nearby.

Taylor, from Grangemouth, who is married with children aged 15, 13 and 11, also took indecent pictures of a six- year-old child as she slept and had 2,880 hardcore child porn images on his hard drive. He was sentenced to just five years.

In June, Gordon Sheppard, 35, of Stirling, was convicted of posting more than 900 pictures of himself abusing an eight-year-old. He is now serving seven years.

"No matter how many we nick, there doesn't seem to be any marked disruption of them," one detective told the Guardian.

Detective Inspector Brian Ward, the officer in charge of Pilsey, said: "So many computers are being examined and so many suspects are being thrown up. We are in danger of being inundated. We have a department of 22 and it's not enough. We have got to start thinking more about the disruption of this."

By exposing themselves to public gaze via file swapping services, paedophiles whose abuse may never have come to light are now more likely to be caught. But with communications technology developing so rapidly, detectives know that their success in bringing down peer-to-peer child porn networks will quickly drive the users to find new and more sophisticated distribution means.

John Carr, internet adviser to the children's charity NCH Action for Children, has warned that encoding of their material may be the paedophiles' next bolthole.

For Det Insp Ward, the challenge will be to ensure that by the time the child pornographers get that far, his officers are already there waiting for them.

The Guardian, Tuesday November 4, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,1077260,00.html

Music Lobby Frightens Congress With P2P Kiddie-porn Nightmares

The RIAA's vendetta against file sharing is entering a new phase, applying the taint of child pornography to foul the waters. Not content to sue twelve-year-old children, the music industry is now marshaling its flacks on Capitol Hill to stigmatize P2P technology as a vehicle of kiddie porn.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings earlier this week to expose the problem. Our children are encountering the most appalling images of child rape when they search for music files, a number of witnesses claimed.

General Accounting Office (GAO) Information Management Issues Director Linda Koontz had done some hands-on research.

"In one search, using 12 keywords known to be associated with child pornography on the Internet, GAO identified 1,286 titles and file names, determining that 543 (about 42 per cent) were associated with child pornography images. Of the remaining, 34 per cent were classified as adult pornography and 24 per cent as nonpornographic," she said.

Of course it's unlikely that children would accidentally search for music using keywords known to be associated with KP, but Koontz was prepared for that objection and brought along some research using more innocent keyword searches. Here the torrent of KP by which our children are being swept away seemed to slow to a trickle.

"Searches on innocuous keywords likely to be used by juveniles (such as names of cartoon characters or celebrities) produced a high proportion of pornographic images: in our searches, the retrieved images included adult pornography (34 per cent), cartoon pornography (14 per cent), child erotica (seven per cent), and child pornography (one per cent), Koontz admitted.

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota has had some experience prosecuting pedos who've used P2P services. He implied that the KP available on KaZaA and other services is actually worse than that found elsewhere.

"The images of child pornography available on peer-to-peer networks are some of the worst seen by law enforcement to date. Included in the images seized by police in the cases being prosecuted by my office, are still photographs of very young children engaged in sexual acts with other children and adults and video clips lasting several minutes of children being subjected to unspeakable acts of sexual violence," Spota claimed.

How this is worse than the same vile material found elsewhere on the Internet in vastly greater quantities was not explained.

Later, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Chairman Robbie Calloway asserted that there is a direct connection between the availability of KP images and the likelihood that children will be assaulted in the real world.

A pedo "can convince himself that his behavior is normal, and eventually he will need more and increasingly explicit child pornography to satisfy his cravings. When mere visual stimulation no longer satisfies him, he will often progress to sexually molesting live children," he explained. Next, Sharman Networks Executive Veep Alan Morris did his best to counter the demonization of KaZaA as a tool for dangerous perverts by pointing out that there are far safer ways to trade KP.

"Pedophiles quickly realized, when P2P first appeared, that it was a foolhardy way to pursue their warped ends. To make their collections publicly available on P2P is counter to their cloak of secrecy. Law enforcement agencies quickly picked them off and so they retreated back to their sordid encrypted sites, newsgroups and the like," Morris said.

When it came time for Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) President Cary Sherman to speak, he spent the bulk of his time whining about a "drastic decline in record sales" brought about by "the astronomical rate of music piracy on the Internet."

After mentioning kiddie porn briefly in passing, he then launched an attack against telecomms behemoth Verizon, which has not been quite as cooperative with the RIAA as Sherman would wish, having moved to protect the privacy of its subscribers from the music-lobby's 'John Doe' subpoenas.

He then recapitulated the RIAA's excellent arguments and Verizon's spurious arguments in this dispute at considerable length, and detailed exhaustively the various provisions of the DMCA that Verizon is supposedly violating, as if giving court testimony in that particular dispute.

Sherman concluded that "the DMCA information subpoena represents a fair and balanced process that includes important and meaningful safeguards to protect the privacy of individuals" and protect the music cartel's revenues, as if this had been the hearing's topic.

And of course it always was the topic. It's clear from Sherman's tirade that the day's exercise was purely an attack against P2P technology for its presumed negative effects on the music cartel's profits, not on children. The specter of child rape may have hung over the proceedings like a revolting stench, but it was nothing more than an atmospheric effect. If Sherman has the slightest concern for the welfare of children, he certainly knows how to hide it.

Thomas C Greene, 10/09/2003, http://theregister.co.uk/content/6/32762.html