Five month computer delays leaving children at risk

Delay in computers seized from offenders being examined by the Digital Investigation Unit of GMP

Child grooming victims can wait up to five months for computers seized from offenders to be examined by the Digital Investigation Unit of GMP.

Ann Coffey MP warned that a high proportion of child sexual exploitation starts online and that any delay in retrieving evidence from computers increased the danger to children.

A mother whose 13-year-old daughter was being groomed on line, reported it to the police in 2013, and handed in her daughter’s computer and mobile phone for examination.

Ten months later the family had heard nothing. In the meantime the man had gone on to groom another girl online from another town and then to actually meet her and sexually abuse her.

He was subsequently charged with offences, relating to both the constituent’s daughter and the other girl. Finally jailed for four and a half years in November 2016 and put on the sex offenders register.

Ms Coffey said that pressure on the Digital Investigation Unit would continue to increase because digital crime and the use of new technology was ‘changing the face of crime’.

She stressed that increased use of mobile phones, computers and tablets by children multiplied the chances for the exploitation of young people. It is now estimated that 100,000 children aged 8 and about 20,000 aged six have mobiles, according to recent research by Aviva published in January 2017.

Ms Coffey said: “The major challenge facing GMP is dealing with the demand on resources created by online offenders who often have multiple victims.

“Conviction rates for online grooming are very high as there is supporting evidence in digital format.

“Any delay in examining computers, tablets or phones and retrieving evidence for use in prosecution increases the danger to children as offenders will continue to try and make contact with hundreds of children with a view to contacting them for sex.

“It is vital that the police and the Digital Resources Unit have enough resources to keep up with the bad guys.

“Catching online perpetrators early is a good method of preventing children from being harmed in the first place.”

GMP say that there has been an improvement in waiting times since June 2014 when there was a backlog of more than 16 months for non-urgent computer cases to be allocated to the DIU. According to figures in December 2016 the oldest case awaiting investigation was five months.