Avon and Somerset Police are struggling to cope with rising cases of child sexual abuse images and understaffed teams. Government inspectors said that police officers felt overworked and called on police chiefs to invest further resources in the growing area of crime.
Chief constable Sarah Crew said the force deals with over 70 cases a month, and expects that figure to double next year. She was grilled on how to better address the rising number of cases by Clare Moody, the Labour police and crime commissioner, on Wednesday, February 19.
Inspectors from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services found that Avon and Somerset Police’s team for investigating images of child abuse was understaffed, and officers felt overworked. Some cases were left outstanding, with three-medium cases months old, and one low-risk case more than a year old.
National guidelines say enforcement should happen within seven days for high-risk cases, 14 days for medium-risk cases, and 30 days for low-risk cases. Inspectors found that the police force has just one officer identifying victims, whose absence can have a disruptive impact.
The police have seen a growing number of cases of criminals uploading or downloading images of children being sexually abused. Over the last decade, the numbers have increased by 500 per cent, with hundreds of referrals from the National Crime Agency each year. At the moment, Avon and Somerset deal with around 73 cases a month on average, but this figure is still rising.
Ms Crew said: “That will probably be 140 a month this time next year, and we expect that to increase. But it’s not just about volume. As our digital world becomes more complex, how we respond to these also becomes more complex. It requires real specialism.”
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The first step is identifying perpetrators who have downloaded images. Officers arrest them carefully, to avoid losing evidence often found on phones. The contents of their devices are explored, including reviewing any images of child sexual abuse.
As the volume of cases is increasing, the police are struggling to keep up, allowing a backlog of referrals to grow. Staff have been redeployed from other areas and trained on tackling child sexual abuse images.
Ms Crew added: “Over the last 28 days we’ve resolved 140 referrals. That’s halved our backlogs. We’ll keep those extra resources in place and I think we’re going to need to continue to grow in this area. We’re expecting this to grow and grow and grow. But what we’re doing may not be that visible to the public, who expect to see uniformed officers walking around.”
The police don’t force staff to redeploy into this area, and officers “have to want it”. Welfare support for staff includes mandatory referrals for counselling and occupational health support. Staff aren’t “kept there for too long” either, with breaks from working on child abuse images. Artificial intelligence could be used to help review images.
The chief constable said: “The constant reviewing of images for hours on end is very hard on a human. I think technology could help us there, to reduce the impact on people.”