No court for 'child sex' six
SIX islanders will not now face prosecution after investigations resulting from the anti-paedophile Operation Ore swoop.
SIX islanders will not now face prosecution after investigations resulting from the anti-paedophile Operation Ore swoop.
US authorities gave local police the names of 13 people in the Bailiwick suspected of downloading indecent images of children from the Internet.
Eleven of them were arrested. Four were later convicted of possessing indecent images of children and one case is under review.
However, six have now been dropped because the Law Officers deemed there to be insufficient evidence successfully to prosecute them.
The two remaining suspects were under investigation when they fled the island.
And the head of the Guernsey computer crime unit, Sergeant Gary Fusellier, was happy with the results of the local operation.
'As far as we are concerned, it was a big operation. It is not something that we had previously experienced before. It was very technical, involved using highly sophisticated equipment and went on longer than expected.
'But we have finished our investigations before many of the UK forces, although they, of course, have a much larger number of suspects to investigate.'
Referring to the pair who fled the island, Sgt Fusellier said: 'Unfortunately, because of the law at the time of the incidents, no arrest warrant can be issued for them. We tried to locate the suspects with the aid of the UK authorities but, even if we had found them, we could not issue an arrest warrant.'
When the offences were allegedly committed, the maximum penalty was a £5,000 fine in the Magistrate's Court - the suspects could not have been imprisoned. As a result, an arrest warrant could not be issued even if their whereabouts was known.
Since the beginning of Operation Ore, the law has been changed and the maximum sentence is a six-month prison sentence.
Now, if suspects leave the Bailiwick, an arrest warrant can be issued when they are located.
Sgt Fusellier said it was difficult to quantify the number of children who might have been helped because of the Guernsey investigations.
'The people prosecuted were looking at indecent images from the Internet. They may have been going to prey on children and were prevented from doing so because they went to jail, but that is difficult to assess.
'If, by being sent to jail, these people have been prevented from looking at more images on the Internet and will not do so in the future, then it may help children because companies will stop trying to profit from images of them.'
Sgt Fusellier said that the investigation was now complete and the local force would now rely on other forces to monitor the Internet.
'We have just not got the resources to police the Internet locally. Only forces in the UK and USA have the resources to be able to carry out such large, expensive and complicated operations using the latest technology.'
* The operation has been hailed a success in the UK, where the authorities claimed that they had saved more than 100 children - some as young as two - from further abuse.
