Following this week's sentencing of the world’s largest child porn ring, the Wonderland gang, police may now pose as children on the internet to lure paeodophiles into meeting with them.
The Home Office confirmed it is currently considering amendments to the law on entrapment. Changes would allow the newly established Hi-Tech Crime Unit to meet with paeodophiles who approach them over the net.
But funding is perhaps the biggest problem the police faces in catching paeodophiles.
BT charges the police £130 every time they want to conduct a search to track down a paeodophile on the internet.
“[These charges represent] a small amount of the costs we incur in providing extensive search facilities across the web,” said a BT spokesperson.
But John Carr of the National Children's Home gave a scathing review of BT's charging policy.
“I think it’s outrageous that BT charges so much,” said Carr. “Police budgets are tight and I would hate to think that these charges are stopping police from researching possible leads.”
“We need to think more imaginatively on how to stop internet crimes,” said Carr. “We don’t have enough cyber-cops and at the moment that is the biggest problem.”
Comments