Labour Wants Review of Child Protection
By Rowena Mason
Labour has called for a review of child protection amid concerns that the police, law enforcement agencies and the criminal record checking authority do not have enough resources to deal with "serious, hidden" sexual crimes on the internet. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, urged the government to draw up an urgent action plan to tackle the problem after there was a 65% increase in reported child abuse images but a 9% drop in prosecutions for child sex offences. She also questioned whether police forces had enough resources to deal with online paedophile activity after the Times claimed the National Crime Agency had identified more than 10,000 suspects that it does not have the capacity to investigate. It comes after almost 660 suspected paedophiles were arrested in connection with child abuse images on the internet in a new operation, with the majority having no previous contact with police. In an urgent question in the Commons, Cooper also raised worries about "chaos" at the new Disclosure and Barring Service, where the number of criminals banned from working with children has dropped by about 75% since new policy changes brought in by the Home Office. Cooper said: "Car crime may be falling, but these serious, hidden crimes are going up. People will be deeply shocked by the scale of this new crime that is growing with the internet." "Can you confirm that the National Crime Agency has identified over 10,000 suspects as part of their investigation? What is happening to those 10,000 suspects now? Is it true that the police have decided they don't have the capacity to pursue them? How many of them do you think pose a direct risk to children? "Will they be barred from working with children? Can she confirm that there has indeed been a 75% drop in the number of convicted sex offenders who are being barred from working with children? "Does she believe the police and the National Crime Agency have the capacity to deal with the scale of this growing crime? Will any of these issues be covered by the child abuse inquiry which currently has no chair and no terms of reference? "You will know I have raised concerns with you over the last few years that the child protection system is currently not strong enough to deal with the scale of the problem that we face. So will you now urgently review government policy and resources, particularly around online abuse, as well as around the wider issues around child abuse and rethink the barring system approach? "And will you agree to come back to this house with an urgent action plan in September to deal with this very serious crime?" May said she could not comment on reports about 10,000 suspects as the National Crime Agency's investigation is ongoing. However, she insisted there were enough resources being made available to police forces, including experts from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre. Adding to the debate, Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the home affairs committee, called on May to force internet companies to do more to expose online offenders. He said: "Would you confirm that you are getting at the very least a list or a number of the websites that have been closed down as a result of the summit that took place last November? The public needs to be reassured that these websites are being closed, and if you give us regular updates that would be extremely helpful." May said internet companies were taking action but the government wanted to work further with them to "make sure we are getting the blockages and the filtering absolutely right so we can have the maximum impact".
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