The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has announced the number of children safeguarded from abuse through their work has doubled in the past year, bringing the total number since the organisation was launched in 2006 to 624.
Between April 2009 and March 2010 CEOP was directly involved in instigating and supporting investigations that safeguarded hundreds of children. These children were identified, located and rescued after investigations by CEOP's ground breaking Image Analysis and Victim Identification Team.
Publishing its annual review CEOP has produced a summary of its performance figures for the past 12 months which are as follows:
- 278 children have been safeguarded or protected from sexual abuse either directly or indirectly as the result of CEOP activity, 47 of whom have been identified through the victim identification process.
- 417 suspected child sexual offenders have been arrested – for offences ranging from possession of indecent images to rape – as a result of intelligence reports from CEOP and/or through the deployment of CEOP resources.
- 96 high risk child sexual offender networks have been disrupted or dismantled as a result of CEOP activity.
- 6,291 intelligence reports have been received by the CEOP Centre – a combination of reports through the public’s ‘ClickCEOP’ reporting mechanism, from the online and mobile industries and law enforcement partners in the UK and overseas.
Further information:
CEOP press release - 01 July 2010
CEOP Annual Review 2009-2010 (PDF)