Police swoop on paedo porn collectors

Thirty six people have been arrested on suspicion of downloading paedophile pornography from the web.

However, despite having the names of 2,000 people in the same ring, police have been unable to arrest them all because of a lack of resources.

Yesterday officers from 31 forces searched 44 homes and seized about 30 computers.

Codenamed "Operation Ore", the arrests targeted computer users suspected of accessing US-based websites peddling images of children aged as young as five.

The names were given to the police National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) by US authorities, which traced the suspected paedophiles by their credit card details given in order to buy the images.

The arrests included men identified by police as serious sexual offenders.

It is the first time the police have targeted people who use the internet to buy images of children being sexually abused.

Home Office minister Beverley Hughes, who chairs the government's task force on child protection on the internet, said the operation sent "a clear signal to such criminals that they cannot hide".

"People who access child pornography are fuelling the widespread and often organised sexual abuse of children by paedophiles across the world," she said.