Child protection centre calls for funding

The Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre (CEOP) lacks the resources to find children who have been sexually abused.

According to Terry Jones, a member of CEOP's victim ID team and a former Metropolitan police officer, despite initial success, CEOP has only scratched the surface of the child abuse problem.

Speaking at a Westminster Eforum on Web 2.0 , he said CEOP, which was set up in 2006 to eradicate the sexual abuse of children, had so far been able to help 31 victims.

This was possible after videos recovered from sites hosting images of child abuse were examined. But he explained this was just five per cent of the children CEOP suspected to be victims of abuse. He said more help is needed to find the rest.

“There is the age-old question of resources,” said Mr Jones, who is funded by the NSPCC to work with CEOP.

“We need more resources and manpower to prioritise things. We’ve had a good initial success but we have done less than we would have liked. We need more funding and support.”

CEOP is a division of the Metropolitan Police and receives an annual budget from the Government. Staff are made up of police officers, charity workers and civil servants from the Department of Children and Families.

It was set up in 2006, ten years after an initial proposal for a centre to deal with child abuse was put forward. According to the Home Office, CEOP had an annual budget of £5.11m in 2006-07 and £5.66m for 2007 to 2008; staff members number 115 this year, up from 80 in 2007.