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Jackie and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and other celebrities visit the Child Online and Protection Centre.
Report given by Jackie and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen on their visit to Child Online and Protection Centre:
"It’s hard to be a child these days and it can be hard to be a parent too. Almost daily, we read or hear about dreadful harm being inflicted on a young person, often by a much older person. Our children readily surf a worldwide wave that didn’t exist when we were young, bringing with it infinite information but also unimaginable dangers. You might think your child is safe at home, but wherever they are, if they are on-line, they may be at risk from bullies and paedophiles.
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Jim Gamble (far right, CEO of CEOP), Laurence and Jackie Llewelyn-Bowen |
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Tracy Edwards (far left), Tim Campbell, Jackie and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen |
"So when the NSPCC asked Laurence and me if we would visit the the CEOP Centre and become aware of the work they do, we accepted with great interest. The CEOP Centre stands for the Child Exploitation and On-line Protection Centre and that is exactly what they have been set up to do. The protection of children in every way is the concern of the NSPCC and they are represented in the the CEOP Centre at board level to help ensure that the welfare of children is at all times paramount in decision making.
"We can’t blame the internet for the existence of paedophiles, but by seeking out and finding each other through the web, these sick individuals are able to create global networks of their own evil and this represents a new kind of threat to our children. They falsify their identities to become close to a child through chat rooms and via webcams, gain their confidence and groom them to behave in a way that is unsuitable and dangerous. Now, at the touch of a few buttons, they can share disgusting and degrading images of children and this revolting trade is lucrative. A fact that should appall every decent human being is that in the United Kingdom it is not currently an offence to look at images of child sex abuse, only to download them. We can only fight paedophiles if we stand on a platform of zero tolerance. This is legislation we can and must all call for. Another fact is that the majority of children who are abused are abused by members of their own families. The reality of this is almost too terrible for us to comprehend. That an adult should subject a child to a sex attack is bad enough, but that they should circulate photographic evidence of this goes beyond the pail. Some things we heard during our time at the CEOP Centre are actually too awful to write.
"The CEOP Centre is not in any way an ordinary policing agency, but rather like something straight out of ‘Spooks’. Under the inspiring leadership of top policeman Jim Gamble, the CEOP Centre combines traditional policing with the kind of surveillance and intelligence work usually reserved for serious crime and terrorism. In this way, the the CEOP Centre is able to not only identify, but track and pursue paedophiles across the UK and with cooperation with foreign policing agencies, across the whole world. Since its inception in April of this year, the CEOP Centre has been directly responsible for some of the biggest anti-paedophile operations and successes across the globe, including participation in the successful prosecution and imprisonment of a number of UK high profile individuals. Suspecting that somebody is guilty of preying on children is one thing. Getting enough evidence to make a conviction stick is far harder. Against an increasingly informed and ever more dangerous and sophisticated enemy, the CEOP Centre must stay forever one step ahead.
"But the work doesn’t stop here. Since it was launched, the CEOP Centre has already taken its message (which is difficult enough to communicate sensitively to adults, let alone children), into schools across the UK with an educational programme designed specifically around children identified as the target age groups for paedophiles. Their target is that by the end of March 2007 1million children will have learned what to do if they suspect somebody of inappropriate on-line behaviour and what this means. If you ask a child who loves them the most, they’ll probably say their mum or their dad. If you ask the same child who they’d most NOT want to see what they say to their friends in chat rooms, they’ll probably still say their mum or their dad. Therein lies a truly difficult problem. It is the act of growing up, of maturing, of distancing themselves from their parents in a natural way that leaves our children exposed. It is vital that they understand how to recognise a threat themselves and know how to act accordingly.
"The CEOP Centre runs from an extraordinary facility on Vauxhall Bridge Road, which from the outside looks ordinary enough but inside is anything but. With an IT infrastructure built specially by Microsoft, the CEOP Centre has similar file storage capacity to that of a UK Bank . The vast size of this storage capacity underlines in horrible stark terms just how enormous the problem facing the CEOP Centre is. It is hardly surprising that staff who work at the CEOP Centre are given routine regular counselling to help them cope with the information and images they are confronted with daily. And as intelligence is gathered and paedophiles are identified, the global scale of the problem is becoming increasingly understood. Just last week the CEOP Centre made the front pages of many national newspapers with the launch of a website showing photographs of the most wanted paedophiles in the UK. This sort of initiative is essential if we, as a society, are going to protect our children.
"Visiting the CEOP Centre was a humbling experience. When you consider the real nature of what we are up against as a human race, where the monsters are not from outer space but from our own communities, the existence of an organisation such as the CEOP Centre can perhaps help us to sleep a little better at night".
To find out more about the work of CEOP visit
www.ceop.gov.uk Read more about Laurence and Jackie's support of the NSPCC
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