Police need to 'understand' abusers, says Ceop

Police officers must learn more about the psychology of child abusers inorderto recognise potential risks and intervene earlier, according tothe Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop).

Speaking at a Westminster E-Forum debate on building a safer internet, Alex Nagle, head of policy at Ceop, which will be merged into a new National Crime Agency, spoke of worries that this would lead tothe organisation losing its focus. He said in order to protect children, it needed to move beyond traditional policing methods to understand abusers.

"We need to understand them so we can disrupt their intentions. We need to do something nifty," said Mr Nagie.

During his speech he showed a clip of Simon Thomas, who was jailed in 2006 for abusing children. The video showed Thomas, aminister with the United Reform Church, calmly talking about how he approached children in internet chat rooms with a sexual motive in mind.

Mr Nagle pointed out how normal Thomas appeared and how it is not easyto spot child abusers unless you could understand their motives.

This alone, however, would not be sufficient to forge a safer online environment, Mr Nagle warned. He said parents and children need to change their approach to the online world and recognise that laws and regulations alone cannot keep the public safe.

"It's about people's behaviour. We do need to explain to adults about parental controls and we need to protect children, but there is no silver bullet," he said.

He added that it was "unhelpful "to talk about"digital citizenship" and "e-safety". saying these were "unnecessary prefixes" to the traditional values people adhere to when communicating face to face.

 

Source: Computer Active

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