Children rescued from sex offenders

RECORD numbers of children have been rescued from paedophilesprowling the internet for the fifth consecutive year.

More than 1000 have been safeguarded or protected, including 414in the last 12 months alone, the Child Exploitation and OnlineProtection centre (CEOP) said.

The agency's figures show it has dismantled more than 394 high-risk sex offender networks since it was set up in 2006, tasked withtracking online paedophiles.

Of these, a record 132 networks have been dismantled in the lastyear as the unit's actions also led to a record 513 arrests, takingthe total number of suspected paedophiles it has helped arrest inthe last five years to 1644.

Peter Davies, CEOP's chief executive, said: "Crimes againstchildren are the most horrendous crimes and too many times thevictim suffers in silence.

"We need to encourage more reporting and understanding, we needto work to prevent the crime happening in the first place and weneed to pursue the offender no matter how complex the methods theyuse to hide their activity."

CEOP, which is affiliated to the Serious Organised Crime Agency,will be merged with the new National Crime Agency when it is formedin 2013.

Home Secretary Theresa May said in the report it would enableCEOP to call on more resources in its fight.

An NSPCC spokeswoman said: "This impressive work by Ceopunderscores the constant and serious threat to children."