PSNI arrest 46 people over sexual images of children online

The PSNI and new National Crime Agency have combined in an operation against people who access indecent images of children online in Northern Ireland. Since April 46 people have been arrested and 10 charged with such offences.

The officers leading the operation said there was no “safe haven” for offenders and that those who viewed such images leave a “digital footprint”.

During Operation Jarra they arrested 25 people and so far charged four of them with indecent viewing offences.

That operation has been running in recent months, said Dr Zoe Hilton, the NCA's head of child protection, and PSNI Det Chief Supt George Clarke.

Separately, since April the PSNI arrested 21 people and charged six of them with viewing sexual images of children. As a result of Operation Jarra 30 children have been “safeguarded”, said the officers.

Dr Hilton said none of these children appeared in the child abuse images but rather they had connections with those arrested for allegedly viewing the images. She said that the children in the images are “unfortunately children from all over the world”.

“There is no safe place on the internet for anyone who seeks to look at or share indecent images of children. It is a very serious crime. They leave a digital footprint and we will find them,” said Dr Hilton.

Det Chief Supt Clarke said offenders needed to know that the internet was not a “safe place” for them. “It is a place where law enforcement are looking for them, where law enforcement will find them, and they are going to face the rigours of a court,” he said.

He said such criminality presented big challenges for the PSNI but, by co-operating with the NCA, with its cross-jurisdictional powers within the UK and its international connections, it had been demonstrated that law enforcement had an “international reach”.