Police need help to tackle paedophiles, charity warns

By Tom Wills, Louis Goddard
Times
May 9, 2017

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-need-help-to-tackle-child-abuse-charity-warns-kk737v0n8

An online paedophile network with up to 10,000 British members was likely to be “the tip of the iceberg”

A child abuse charity has called for police to be given more resources to tackle indecent web images, after The Times exposed an online paedophile network with up to 10,000 British members.

Peter Saunders, founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said that the Freedom Hosting II network was likely to be “the tip of the iceberg”.

The network operated on a clandestine part of the internet designed to frustrate attempts by the authorities to identify website users and operators. It hosted at least a dozen forums where users exchanged images of abuse and was free to operate for almost two years before being shut down by hackers.

“Police should be given far more resources to smash these corrupt, evil groups of people and the people who facilitate this disgusting trade,” Mr Saunders said. He added that an obsession with targets within the police was preventing forces from dedicating time to complex child abuse investigations.

Paedophiles accessed the network using Tor, a system that anonymises internet browsing. Paradise Village, the largest of a dozen forums on the server, hosted more than 80,000 users. Details of the network came to light after hackers leaked its databases.