Examination of Witnesses (Questions 164-179)
MR JIM
GAMBLE QPM AND
MR ALEX
NAGLE
18 MARCH 2008
Chairman: This is the third session of
the Committee's inquiry into harmful content on the Internet and
in video games. I would like to welcome Jim Gamble, Chief Executive
Officer of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
and also the ACPO lead on extreme pornography on the Internet,
and Alex Nagle, head of harm reduction at CEOP. I invite Adrian
Sanders to begin.
Q164 Mr Sanders: Our focus today
is on the risks of harmful content on the Internet rather than
risks of harmful contact. Are the risks of contact such as grooming
greater than the risks of exposure to harmful content?
Mr Gamble: You come immediately
to the nub of the problem. In essence the issue for us is that
content is generated by people. We have become seduced by technology
and very often by technologists themselves who paint the picture
that it is too difficult and vast and is a technical labyrinth
that is hard to understand. This is about people who create content
and through that behaviour place it on the Internet. I think some
of the confusion arises on dividing the two. The content is often
a symptom of behaviour. An individual who says on Hyde Park Corner
something that is in essence a breach of the law and someone who
goes onto the Internet to generate content to reflect that are
no different. We should not be forced into a position where we
are made to believe that it is different. Yesterday I listened
to Sir Tim Berners-Lee who was asked whether we should regulate
the Internet like the rest of society. When he answered that the
Internet is part of society I breathed a sigh of relief because
nothing is truer. If we try to isolate different types of behaviour
committed in different public environments—because the Internet
is a public environment—we make our job much more difficult.
Q165 Mr Sanders: Do you agree?
Mr Nagle: I agree.
Q166 Mr Sanders: I do not think anybody
round this table would disagree. Are you saying therefore that
whatever happens within the environment of the Internet should
be treated absolutely no differently from what happens outside?
But are there examples where that is not so?
Mr Gamble: First, if we are looking
at either harmful content or conduct it can be mitigated in several
ways, for example by the criminal law. That which is a crime in
the real world is still a crime in the virtual world. It can be
mitigated by a framework that looks at access, so if it is harmful
content and you say that it is perhaps not harmful to an adult
but to a child the question is how you limit access to it. Some
people will say that that is not possible on the Internet. Try
to buy iTunes from the American site and you will be diverted
to the UK site. Therefore, where there is a commercial imperative
it can be done. You can mitigate first with the criminal law and,
second, with access controls. As to the third issue, we have to
regard the Internet as a public place and mitigate it by virtue
of bringing that place together in a way whereby those who operate
to commercial imperatives are duty bound to ensure it is safe
for their young customers because they use those customers to
attract advertisers to the environment and thereby make profit
which is wholly legitimate. As a counterbalance people will say
that they want to encourage e-commerce; it must thrive. I wholeheartedly
agree that we want to encourage e-commerce so it thrives and this
country must lead the way. However, coming from Northern Ireland
as I do and worked there previously as a police officer for many
years I am aware of the enterprise zone scheme whereby we recognise
the need to encourage a particular industry in some areas where
it is not embedded. For many reasons, not least social and economic,
we create enterprise zones where tax benefits are applied in the
first few years. But even in the zones where we try to encourage
new industry to grow we do not say that it can make up the rules
in that environment or that it does not have to comply with the
rules that apply elsewhere because we are so desperate for that
industry to thrive. Health and safety, building regulations and
the way we protect one another in society, in particular the vulnerable,
come first. I see no difference. Therefore, one mitigates with
the criminal law and the framework that protects those individuals
who should not have access; one mitigates with those regulations
that encompass any environment that is a public place where members
of the public are encouraged to go and underpin it with an absolute
commitment to free speech and the Human Rights Act so that people
can explore the limits of behaviour both online and offline. I
would love someone to give me an example of some harmful behaviour
online that is not of itself harmful offline.
Q167 Mr Sanders: We know that blocking
tools are available to parents, but you are saying there are blocking
tools available to somebody else who would intervene and prevent
access. Who should be controlling that blocking tool? Is that
a role for government or a regulatory body?
Mr Gamble: If as a parent you
allow your child to go into a shopping mall you will warn and
educate that child about the dangers. You have a responsibility
with regard to how you empower young people with information that
makes them safe so they can go out and enjoy the opportunities
in the offline environment in a way that enhances their lives.
Equally, as a parent you have a responsibility to engage and educate
yourself about the opportunities in the online environment so
you manage the risk and children can capitalise on the fantastic
opportunities. Therefore, the parent has a responsibility. If
we go back to the shopping mall, those people who operate it with
a commercial imperative will have a responsibility. If children
are encouraged to go to a young person's environment, be it about
go-karting or amusements for young people that are specific to
and bespoke for them, that will require a level of moderation.
Every parent will want to understand what moderation is present
and how the young person is protected. When a young person is
placed in harm's way each of those environments will be expected
to give that individual immediate and direct access to law enforcement.
That is how we protect, not nanny, and create an environment in
which people are able to operate to the full extent of their potential.
Many of my online industry partners do exactly that. They work
with best intent; they are good people within good organisations
who work hard with us, but is it fair that only the ones that
are big enough to invest in that do so? Is it right that some
do not do it, and how do you create a level playing field? I have
been involved in this work since 2002. I learned lessons through
the application of Operation Ore, the creation of the National
High Tech Crime Unit and paedophile online investigation team
and the building of the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre.
There are many excellent examples of industry working with the
police service, government and the third sector which has a big
role here, but I have not seen clarity of purpose and thought
in a uniform way that makes a real difference. Regulation has
become a difficult word because some people do not like it. Let
us move away from the word "regulation". There must
be some kind of framework that allows us to work better together
but recognises that each of us has a different role. It is not
about a group of individuals telling industry what to do. Government
tells me what the speed limit is when driving along the road.
That is about ensuring that I use that infrastructure, comparing
it with the information superhighway, in a safe and sensible way.
The picture of a speed camera lets me know that perhaps there
will be a consequence if I break that law and represent a danger
to someone else. What is different about the online environment?
We need to occupy it in a way that is sensible and sensitive to
the needs of industry but says to predators or persons who want
to post harmful content that if they do that we are policing the
environment. It is a forensic and digital environment by its very
nature and we will find them. In 1998 many thousands of people
in the UK went online and accessed the Landslide website in the
United States. They handed over their credit card details, personal
passwords, billing addresses and dates of birth. They did that
because they believed there would never be a consequence. The
2,500 who have now been held to account many years later now know
there is. Let us not lose the impetus that that has delivered
but continue to drive forward and recognise that it is a great
environment and we will ensure that every one of our citizens
can capitalise on the opportunity. To give an example of how to
make that work, I have brought with me a very small graphic illustration
which perhaps can be passed round. This is a representation of
a particular vehicle online. One of the benefits of operating
solely in this area is that we collect and collate all of the
intelligence and information that comes into the UK from foreign
law enforcement agencies, industry, NGOs and members of the public
here and abroad and all of our own domestic services. This is
Microsoft Instant Messenger. It is a vehicle with which every
child in this country will be familiar because children spend
significant amounts of their time day and night talking to one
another. I hope that those Members who have Instant Messenger
or another vehicle—AOL has a similar product—will
instantly recognise the front page. You will see that this is
an environment within which the child spends a significant portion
of time. We know from our statistics and the work we do that 60%
of grooming cases that arise will at some point leave the chat
room, social networking or other environment where people have
met up and go to another vehicle, primarily an Instant Messenger-type
environment. This is one example. What you see on the front page
is a small logo of a stick man. That is our report abuse logo.
It means that if you are a child in this room you can at any time
with one click go to the second page which gives you top tips
and advice about what you should and should not do. In that vehicle
the safety belt is on the child. That is about industry doing
the right thing for the right reason in the right place, not running
away from responsibility and making a potentially dangerous environment
safer for the educated and informed child. We have been engaging
industry across the board in respect of this since we began. This
is a good example of one huge industry partner that is often ridiculed.
I do not know whether that is right or wrong in other areas, but
I know that in this they have put their money where their mouth
is because that tab in the online environment is revenue potential.
We do not pay for that. That means every child in that vehicle
with one click gets advice and the second click reports directly
to us. There are people in prison today because teenagers have
used that vehicle at the time they are being seduced or engaged
or have seen something online that they do not think they should
see. That is critically important. On 26 August 2006 that went
live. In the week that followed our reports went up 113%. In the
month that followed instead of 22% of our reports coming from
the under-18, 54% of such reports came from that source. This
is about partnering with industry that puts up a sign. We have
gone into schools with our education programme because none of
us will be able to police the Internet by ourselves. To date we
have engaged with 1.5 million children primarily between the ages
of 11 and 16. We have educated them about the benefits of being
online and having fun and the need to stay in control, how to
do it and where to report matters. Why is this not omnipresent?
Why has not every outlet got this vehicle because it takes away
the duty of care and delivers it to the police service; it allows
direct access so data protection is resolved between that client
and ourselves. I for one do not understand. I have listened to
some industry colleagues who say there are many more things happening
online than simply, for example, grooming and sexual contact.
I agree that sometimes we focus on that area disproportionately,
but we have amended our site and are in the process of doing so
again so that when you click and report you can talk about bullying,
hacking or fishing; you can be diverted to other areas that deal
with that. The problem is simply that the online environment is
becoming congested with too many people doing similar things in
slightly different ways. If you have ever been in trouble you
do not want to go through a directory; you want to dial 999 and
access someone who can immediately make a difference. I give you
that as an example.
Q168 Chairman: How many reports do
you receive a week?
Mr Gamble: In a month we would
average anywhere between 450 and 550 reports. We do not take anonymous
reports. If you phone me up and say that someone is breaking into
your house and I ask where you live and you say you will not tell
me we will not send out every police car into the city to look
for you. We are devoting specialist resources to this. To put
the 500 reports a month into context, one report can be one offender,
26 offenders or, in the case of the Son of God investigation last
year, 700 paedophiles across two paedophile rings. The amount
of investigation that goes into each of those reports is huge.
We triage them and look at children at risk now, persons who are
potentially grooming and all of the rest. We turn round a child
at risk report within a day or overnight. We also get reports
from our good partners in the NSPCC. We now work with other agencies
that perhaps fear children are suicidal to identify, locate and
safeguard those children. Lots of good work is going on. The BT
Clean Feed system is an outstanding, world-leading initiative
which we applaud. It is a good crime prevention tactic. We applaud
the work done by the IWF. That is also a good crime prevention
tactic. Ultimately, they are crime prevention tactics and it is
putting a burglar alarm on one house and diverting people to another.
You have to address the principal issue which is not technology
but people's behaviour.
Q169 Chairman: You will have seen
the Panorama programme a few weeks ago in which a fictitious
14-year-old girl, I think, was put up on Facebook to see what
would happen. The impression given by the media is that the Internet
is basically a playground for paedophiles and any child will almost
immediately be approached. Is there hysteria growing up about
this? How big a problem is it?
Mr Gamble: It is a big problem
but we should not treat it in a disproportionate way. The benefits
of the online environment—unless you are the parent of the
individual child who is being abused—far outweigh the risks.
I do not think the media exaggerate. There is hysteria; you cannot
have a sensible debate about the subject of child sex abuse and
the Internet without emotion coming into play which can sometimes
be very negative. I believe that the emphasis is sometimes wrongly
placed. We are about to publish our annual review. Without giving
away the headline figures—we can supply a copy before you
finish taking evidence—we have more than tripled the arrests
we made in the first year. We have increased the number of children
rescued and the number of children educated. The emphasis should
be on that and how the environment is becoming safer. I have not
seen a headline in any paper which says that Microsoft Instant
Messenger is now one of the safest environments in the UK because
you can report directly. Therefore, the good news is not reflected.
Without reflecting the good news about the initiatives we take
with constructive partners we do not balance the bad news. I believe
that the emphasis is wrong. Any environment in which our children
participate must be one that we are prepared to protect with a
framework. I have a 15-year-old daughter. If when she was 13—or
even now—she went to the cinema and tried to access a film
for 18-year-olds and above she would have been stopped because
the broadcasting certificate saying that the film was suitable
only for 18-year-olds would be policed, not by law enforcement
but those who operate that cinema to a commercial imperative.
There is a sanction against them if they allow in that individual.
If she leaves it and goes to an off-licence and, because she appears
more like a 19 or 20-year-old than a girl of 15, and is sold a
bottle of vodka and leaves the off-licence the child will be held
to account in that regard. It is about making sure that responsibilities
are properly balanced and we do not fall into the trap of creating
an impression that it is all far too ambiguous and difficult and
really we just have to agree to get along until it sorts itself
out. That is not my view of it.
Q170 Chairman: You have praised MSN.
Yahoo is the other major IM service. Do they have a system similar
to MSN?
Mr Gamble: They do not have the
system we have. To be fair, each of our industry partners will
run a system whereby when reports come to them they transfer them
to us. I believe that each and every one of them is committed.
You will hear from AOL later. We have been talking to and working
with AOL very closely in the UK for a period of time and engaging
them in the US. The online industry shifts and changes so much
that sometimes in this market environment you will be talking
to one group one day that will be owned by another group the next.
That creates some difficulty for them, not us. That is why you
need a framework. People need to understand that it is not down
to personality. Some of the people at AOL are in my view absolutely
committed to child protection, but how that manifests itself as
an institution or organisation—AOL has great child protection
credentials, so I do not talk about them in particular—is
different. We can say that we should bring together industry and
reach a consensus and deliver guidelines, but do we do that in
enterprise zones? Do we bring together different industries and
agree how to do this and the limits to which they can go? We do
not. We create a level playing field where it is the same for
everyone. In essence we have worked very closely with industry.
I appreciate some of the difficulties they have which should not
be minimised. They balance a number of imperatives, the principal
one being the commercial one which is wholly legitimate. Our principal
imperative is to protect children.
Q171 Alan Keen: You have a very impressive
career in tackling the more unsavoury aspects of life. Maybe lots
of your colleagues enjoy chasing robbers about the place, but
you must be a real expert on this matter. What should we be doing
as politicians? What contact do you have with people who make
the decisions? Presumably, you have contact with the Home Office,
but what do you believe politicians should be doing to assist
in your work?
Mr Gamble: I am not party-political
in any sense, but the support we have had from our two Home Office
ministers, previously Paul Goggins and presently Vernon Coaker,
has been second to none. They understand the issue and have engaged
with us and taken time out to understand it, and I applaud both
of them for that. In a broader sense in government we need to
be more closely engaged and have a good level of resilience around
the funding support we are given. We need to be able to engage
much more constructively through government with industry and
make sure we are not always going to industry with cap in hand.
Constructive partnership is hugely beneficial, but if we are continually
asking industry to help us when we should be helping them on some
occasions it is not a constructive way to form relationships.
I think that on occasion we all suffer because of that. I know
that the Chairman and a number of Members will be coming to visit
the Centre to see how and what we do. It is important that more
people who have a critical influence in Government take time out
to visit and understand and use that influence. We are a cross-sectoral
multi-agency but law enforcement-led as you will understand that
when you see the Centre. Camille de Stempel who will give evidence
to you later invested in the Centre one of the people from AOL
when it began. That person was a director of research for AOL
but at their expense worked with us as we built an idea around
Safer by Design and decided how it would move forward. We have
representatives from other industries. We have very worked closely
with Vodafone. Government needs to recognise and capitalise upon
the cross-sector environment. DCSF has embedded with us a person
from the Department so we can eradicate duplication of effort
and ensure a single vehicle that delivers programmes to schools.
Sometimes there is unseemly competition; a number of people will
produce an education package and schools are left wondering which
one to take. You have only 45 minutes in the classroom and you
want to do it right, so it needs a whole school approach. We need
to demonstrate that understanding and government needs to educate
us to that effect. The Department of Health also has someone embedded
in the centre. We are cross-sectoral and I believe our governance
should represent that personality in government.
Q172 Alan Keen: You mentioned the
IWF to whom we have spoken. Is there anything more they could
do to help? Presumably, you are in continuous liaison with them.
Mr Gamble: We have a great relationship
with the IWF. What they do with regard to maintaining and administering
the list provides a vehicle to refresh the blocking mechanisms
that each and every ISP can use. We are engaged in a programme
of work to move much more closely to them so we can look at who
is behind these postings and who uploads them. Is there also an
issue about looking? If a site is blocked who is attempting to
visit it? How often have they attempted to visit it, and is it
a real person or simply a web spider that is going out remotely?
That is about resources and engaging in this environment in the
same way as anywhere else; it is not about it being a labyrinth.
Today we do not have a police officer on every street in London,
let alone every street in the UK. We prioritise where we go and
what we do and we do it on the back of a framework. We need much
more clarity with regard to the framework we impose in the UK.
Q173 Alan Keen: You deal with extreme
pornography. Is it possible to draw a line as to what perhaps
would be illegal and what is acceptable to some people and society
as a whole however much we might dislike it? How do we draw up
those sorts of guidelines?
Mr Gamble: We make what we call
the "reasonable person" judgment, do we not? When we
introduce that to the Internet sometimes it becomes wholly unreasonable,
but the Obscene Publications Act 1959 which has been about for
a long time, or even the Video Recordings Act 1984, is based on
reasonable people making an assumption. I accept that an assumption
can be high risk. Who said that we need a watershed at the time?
As reasonable people we make an assumption at a particular time
as to whether access by young people who are monitored and governed
by parents is reasonable or unreasonable with regard to the Obscene
Publications Act and the fresh approach to take account of the
nuances of the Internet in the new legislation now going through
Parliament in the form of the Criminal Justice and Immigration
Bill. It does that as well. It is about the test of reasonableness.
We already apply these tests in the real world. I do not know
why we lose confidence in our ability to apply the same test of
reasonableness in the online environment. Two weeks ago as a guest
of Sky Television I was in a room not dissimilar from this in
Second Life. My avatar was much slimmer, had a full head
of hair and no double chin and so it was a very pleasant period
for me, even if it lasted for only about 20 minutes. It taught
me a lot and reflects what Sir Tim, the creator of the Internet,
said yesterday about being part of society. When I was questioned
by the avatars in the room on the panel set up by Sky 341 avatars
were queuing outside who could not get in, so there was significant
interest. It was all about: what difference does it make if I
create a child-like avatar and have sex with it because it is
not real? The conversation went down all sorts of roads about
the extremities of behaviour. Two things emerged. First, when
I suggested that the world we are in represents people from the
real world and that perhaps there could be an undercover police
officer in the room sitting beside one of the people expressing
these views the conversation moderated immediately. Is that a
good or bad thing? What does it say about human behaviour and
psychology? It says that if people are told they can do what they
want they will go to extremes. Where do we let anyone go to those
extremes? Do we let them do it outside the house? I do not think
we would. Second, someone said it was not understood that this
was a three-dimensional world where we generated our own lives.
I understand that and obviously so does Sir Tim because we live
in a multi-dimensional real world where we generate real lives.
The online and offline distinction with children does not exist;
that is their real world. The statistics are two or three years
old and are hugely out of date. Anyone who thinks that kids spend
only a couple of hours online has not paid his child's mobile
phone bill for a while. When you look at the mobile industry you
ask: why do we license them in the way we do? Why do we create
a framework for them but not in this other environment that is
about how we communicate, gather, post information and lead our
lives? We can make the decision either to wait and follow others
or lead. We have a clear understanding because of the steps that
have been taken to put in place cross-sectoral, multi-agency,
law enforcement-led initiatives like CEOP. I am not an expert
in this field. Many people who follow me may want to argue that
point. I was head of counterterrorism in Belfast and, after that,
deputy director of the national crime squad, so I have dealt with
many and varied types of crime. In my experience the best recipe
for reducing harm is sensible, consequent deterrent for those
individuals who do not respect. What is the difference between
grooming and radicalisation? I do not think there is one. What
is the difference between the posting of an obscene photograph
outside this building and posting it online? Very often we will
try to hold to account a person who puts it outside this building
but abdicate responsibility for it when it happens online. Why
would we do that?
Q174 Chairman: You say there is no
difference between offline and online, but in one respect there
is. When most of the laws governing this area were passed these
kinds of activities were not even contemplated. I took part in
a report on Channel 5 about two weeks ago on Second Life
about paedophiles having sex with what appeared to be avatars
of 14-year-old girls. I understand the chances are that they were
not 14-year-old girls but probably 50-year-old men, but at the
moment there is nothing in law which says that is illegal.
Mr Gamble: You will know that
at the minute the Government is involved in consultation on computer-generated
images. If that conduct took place in Canada, for example, Canadian
citizens might take the view—they have laws about it—that
it was illegal. I was asked the same question in the Second
Life debate. Should that be a criminal offence? The answer
was that we were not sure yet because consultation was under way.
Should it be investigated? Absolutely. Do you know why? If you
want to have sex with a child and are fantasising about it either
in this world or the real one we need to establish whether you
represent a risk to real children. If you demonstrate that behaviour—classically
in old police terms it would be called circumstantial evidence—you
have shown a propensity for a particular thing. Why should we
become seduced because it is committed in another environment?
Q175 Chairman: Your bottom line is
that you suspect there will be a need to legislate and update
the law to take account of what is now happening online?
Mr Gamble: I think some laws need
to be refreshed. What is being done around extreme pornography
is absolutely sensible and is an opportunity to refresh and reflect
the new environment. If the police are trying to discover whether
an offence has been committed there are certain principles. A
public place was defined by common law many years ago as any place
to which the public have access whether free of charge or otherwise,.
Ultimately, we need to police those public places and ensure they
are safe. This room is exactly like the Internet; it is defined
in character by the people who sit in it. This room will be as
good or as bad as those of us who sit in chairs around this table.
There will be some who represent themselves, not just on my side
of the table, and not tell the truth; there will be a given number
in any room who will have criminal instincts, demonstrate previous
criminal behaviour and represent a risk. That is a fact of life
online and offline. I believe we need to grasp the opportunity
to do something significant on the basis of our considerable collective
experience over the past few years, and certainly from 1998 onwards.
Q176 Mr Evans: I know that we are
to visit the Centre but, to give me a better idea about how you
are able to cope with what you are doing already, you mentioned
funding and working with industry. How many people work at the
Centre and how are you funded?
Mr Gamble: As of today there are
115 people working full-time in the Centre. We are affiliated
to the Serious Organised Crime Agency for the purpose of the delivery
of corporate services, so the people working there are dedicated
to child protection activity. We are supported by that agency
with mechanisms that allow us to maintain the building and do
the things we do, for example to pay salaries and provide the
infrastructure. Last year we were core funded to the tune of £4.5
million. That was red-circled and delivered to us by the Home
Office via SOCA. That funding was supplemented by support benefit
in kind from partnership with industry to the tune of £3.5
million. In any affiliated relationship there will be hidden costs,
so the current estimates are that we would benefit to the tune
of about £2 million in hidden costs because we are supported
by a much bigger organisation. Last year we identified a huge
increase in engagement with the public in the first few months
of operation compared with what we anticipated. Reports increased
by 1,000%. We engaged with the Home Office and additional funding
of £400,000 was made available to us. We continue to grow
and engage significant support from industry, but we need to invest
to save. Our work is principally about protecting children online
from sexual exploitation. In doing that we recognise that we have
to deal with people. We have two teams, formerly the serious sex
offenders unit subsumed within our organisation and its UK and
overseas tracker. They work with multi-agency public protection
panels and foreign law enforcement to track sex offenders who
represent a threat both online and offline. We also have education
teams. We learned very early on the importance of educating and
empowering young people. They are tomorrow's parents. The gap
that exists in what parents know and what their children know
today will be much less with the next generation.
Q177 Mr Evans: Do you have sufficient
funding to be able to do what you need to do? It sounds as if
it is growing exponentially. The number of emails has grown every
year; it is nothing like what it was 10 years ago. Do you say
that youngsters are being put at risk or paedophiles are allowed
to operate simply because you do not have the manpower to be able
to track them down as a result of funding problems?
Mr Gamble: Do we have sufficient
funding? No. Are children being put at risk? That is a very difficult
question for me to answer. I have said we do not have sufficient
funding. We have to recognise the reality of the world in which
we operate. The reality is that there is no new money. This is
a new phenomenon. Whilst people say that social networking has
existed for years, it took off about a year and a half ago in
a way that no one anticipated. The benefits are huge. I agree
with Sir Tim that the very young and very old are the people who
will capitalise on the huge opportunities to improve their quality
of life. There must be a balance between how we engage through
the Police Service, government and industry to identify critical
resources that are not always about money. But do we need greater
investment now? The answer to that is yes.
Q178 Mr Evans: What is the backlog
of cases where people have emailed you to say they believe individuals
are either stalking them or are not who they say they are?
Mr Gamble: We do have a backlog
of cases.
Q179 Mr Evans: Can you give a rough
idea of its size?
Mr Gamble: I need to clarify the
position on the cases. First, we deal with cases at three levels.
The first level is the child at immediate risk. Those cases are
dealt with immediately, so none of those forms part of the backlog.
The second level is those cases where we have a suspect who may
be grooming. Those are dealt with in the short term. The third
are all of the rest. 13% of the reports we received from the public
last year were about bullying. We are changing our website so
we can divert those reports to a site that gives parental advice
and child advice about bullying because in the playground bullying
is a terrible thing. Once you put it onto an Internet site it
is even worse. I do not have an updated figure on the backlog,
but I believe we have about 700 cases at level three. It may be
slightly more or less.
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