Operation Ore - Bill Hughes

Another scaremongering, liar who is directly responsible for the deaths of innocent men.

On 11/07/2006 Complaints to the IPCC regarding Bill Hughes conduct during Operation Ore were upheld. It appears that the IPCC are now unwilling to investigate the complaints as they are legally required to.

When it comes to the claims by SOCA that child pornography is exploding across the Internet, it should be remembered this it not a new lie, it is the same lie this started with, the story of 7,000 paedophiles on one site in the US. The FBI were distributing child pornography using Landslide to build their business and the FBI and SOCA are indistinguishable from the organised crime gangs they are claiming to target, indeed they work together.

Back at the start of 2003, Bill Hughes now Director General of SOCA spoke to the press following some critical reporting into Operation Ore:

In Canada, when the press accused the police of hounding internet child porn surfers, the police decided to show journalists a sample of the sites. "Several are still receiving counselling," Hughes says. "We couldn't do that here, but the police and the press must work together to ensure that we don't all become either too hysterical or too flippant."

Videos released by the BBC show the Metropolitan Police, smashing through windows and doors of the unsuspecting in an operation where more lives were taken than through recent bombings in London. People lost their lives for pictures and the stories that accompanied them.

"Whoever has been leaking is hugely irresponsible," Hughes says. "It undermines us all if people think we're celebrity-bashing. I haven't seen any MPs on the list. Some of it is spiteful. People ring us up to say they know that Cabinet ministers are involved. It's untrue. But the crime is committed across a huge spectrum."

"These sites can be horrendous. The Operation Ore sites showed newborn babies being brutalised."

"People think we're hounding people who flick through a few soft-focus images of scantily clad children. It's just not true"

(It's true, you were hounding and convicting innocent adult surfers, oh and killing some too)

In Canada, when the press accused the police of hounding internet child porn surfers, the police decided to show journalists a sample of the sites. "Several are still receiving counselling," Hughes says. "We couldn't do that here, but the police and the press must work together to ensure that we don't all become either too hysterical or too flippant."

Sir - I am writing in response to the article headlined "Paedophile hysteria is turning us into a brutish society" (opinion, Jan 20). In reply I would ask "what could be more brutish than the systematic abuse of children to feed a deviant market?"

To quote a colleague: "This is about children - children being horribly sexually abused, some no more than babies, having their childhood stolen from them and having the pictures of these shameful acts broadcast on the internet for all to see, forever, worldwide. As a society we must be ruthless about stopping this appalling crime."

Your columnist equates "fringe sexual appetites" and libertine kinkiness between consenting adults with real acts of abuse against children. She must be blissfully ignorant of the content of these websites - an ignorance that those of us involved with the investigation and prosecution of these offences cannot indulge. The impact on the welfare of even the most seasoned staff by exposure to these images and sounds cannot be overstated.

Barbara Amiel does not understand that abuse causes emotional, psychological and physical pain. One of the most striking features of her article is that she fails to grasp the fact that the purchase of child abuse images on the internet creates further demand. This is why British law criminalises what she described as a passive private activity.

The subsequent demand is met by the abuse of another child here or somewhere else in the world. The protection of children is our primary concern. This has underpinned the police response at every stage of Operation Ore. The police service is doing everything it can to protect children, anywhere in the world. To suggest that social or economic considerations in other countries should somehow remove a duty of care to children is unacceptable.

I would like to reassure the public that the police approach has been to identify suspects and categorise them in respect of the potential risk that they pose to children. This has been a painstaking process, as we are aware that accurate reporting is vital, as incorrect allegations could ruin a person's life or damage the prospects of a fair trial.

Such hysteria as it exists is being fuelled by ill-informed and speculative reporting among the less responsible sections of the media.