How undercover cops hunting child abusers made 1,600 arrests in a year | UK News

A national network of undercover police officers arrested more than 1,600 online child abusers last year.

Some 1,665 arrests were made between October 2022 and September 2023 by officers from the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) Undercover Online.

The hidden officers patrolled websites and other online spaces to capture sexual predators who were trying to talk to children or share indecent images.

The Lead for Undercover Online, Assistant Chief Constable Alastair Simpson, said predators were caught by the team every day.

‘I think it is important that the public are aware that that every day really skilled operatives are patrolling online spaces, capturing sexual predators every day and protecting children from harm every day,’ he said.

‘We work closely with partners, such as the National Crime Agency, we gather intelligence, we follow intelligence, and we pursue perpetrators of sexual offences online – and we seek to tackle the most dangerous offenders online.’

He said that the network had safeguarded ‘over 1,000’ children in the past year alone.

Mr Simpson said: ‘So, our message to anyone who does seek to sexually abuse or exploit children online is fairly simple.

‘Our undercover officers could be anywhere, at any time, and could be investigating you this very second.’

Wendy Hart, deputy director for child sexual abuse at the National Crime Agency, said the use of undercover officers has been ‘crucial’.

She added: ‘Education is also a key part of the law enforcement response.’

Minister for Security, Tom Tugendhat, said the scale of child abuse online is ‘appalling’.

‘We must be unrelenting in the pursuit of offenders,’ he said.

‘The Police’s Undercover Online Network is vital for delivering swift justice to predators and safeguarding vulnerable children.

‘We will continue to send a message to child sex offenders that they cannot act with impunity online. They will be found, and they will be punished for their crimes.’

It comes after half of child abuse offences reported to police in 2022 involved a child aged 10 to 17 as a suspect or perpetrator.

Police said access to violent pornography through smartphones is helping normalize this behaviour.

Ian Critchley, national policing lead for child abuse protection and investigation, said: ‘This is predominantly a gender-based crime of boys committing offences against girls.

‘I think that is being exacerbated by the accessibility to violent pornography and the ease in which violent pornography is accessible to boys and therefore, a perception that is normalised behaviour and therefore that person can carry out that behaviour that they are seeing online in the most violent way against other peers as well.’

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