Clarke: Crackdown on paedophiles

The home secretary has unveiled plans for a new drive against internet paedophiles.

Charles Clarke announced on Friday that a Centre for Child Protection on the Internet will be established next April as part of the new Serious Organised Crime Agency.

The group will seek to bring expertise together in a bid to tackle the problem, with 50 investigators and experts seconded from industry forming part of a 100-strong staff.

Police officers will be joined by child protection and IT specialists, taking on work currently carried out by the National Crime Squad's Hi-Tech Crime Unit with an expected extra £1m funding.

Clarke said the centre will harness new technology to target internet grooming of children and the distribution of pornography.

"Protecting children is a key priority for the government, and that applies online as well as offline," he said.

"Online abuse by definition crosses geographical police force boundaries so it makes much more sense to tackle the problem at national level.

"The new centre I am announcing today will protect children online, help the police do their job more effectively and catch and prosecute child abusers who target children through the internet."

He added that surveillance would enable the centre to keep an eye on suspicious activities in the way parents would in other areas.

"Parents know how to protect their children from danger offline. We want to help protect their children online in the same way," the home secretary said.