Police search for child porn at number ten

[mistermack]

One of David Cameron's closest aides has resigned after being arrested on child pornography allegations.
Patrick Rock has been closely involved in drawing up Government policy on internet porn filters.
He quit after the Prime Minister learned he was at the centre of a police probe over images of child abuse.
Detectives from the National Crime Agency searched No 10 and examined IT systems and offices used by Mr Rock, deputy director of the Downing Street policy unit.

Read More

[JimC]

If he was drawing up such guidelines, he may have actually needed to investigate the sites...

[klr]

Let's hope he doesn't go blind ...

[mistermack]

If he was drawing up such guidelines, he may have actually needed to investigate the sites...

I think if you were going to do that, you would cover your back, to the ultimate degree.
Make sure that everything was documented, special permission requested and granted, as an official study.
And you wouldn't do it yourself, in his position, you would delegate, and just deal with the reports, from below.

The fact that there's a police investigation means that none of that was done.

They've waited three weeks, to announce this much. If it was a mistake, they would have cleared it by now.

[cronus]

Cream rises to the top, so does the scum. Nothing new....

[JimC]

If he was drawing up such guidelines, he may have actually needed to investigate the sites...

I think if you were going to do that, you would cover your back, to the ultimate degree.
Make sure that everything was documented, special permission requested and granted, as an official study.
And you wouldn't do it yourself, in his position, you would delegate, and just deal with the reports, from below.

The fact that there's a police investigation means that none of that was done.

They've waited three weeks, to announce this much. If it was a mistake, they would have cleared it by now.

You are most probably right; it may have started as a work-based thing, then he got sucked in...

So to speak...

[mistermack]

You are most probably right; it may have started as a work-based thing, then he got sucked in...

So to speak...

Or maybe he's taking a bullet for someone even higher up ?????????

Oooooooh errrrr.........

[Audley Strange]

If looking at images of child abuse is a crime it is a crime, no-one should be above the law.

[mistermack]

If looking at images of child abuse is a crime it is a crime, no-one should be above the law.

That would make it pretty hard for the police to investigate it though.

I think they should be doing sting operations, to catch people. Some do, occasionally, but obviously not enough.

From what I can glean, this investigation came about as an indirect result of some allegations of some sort of personal misconduct, that weren't upheld. Maybe someone who was disgruntled shopped him.

I think it's still pretty stunning, for the computers at number ten to be searched for child porn.
It's been reported, but not much has been made of it.

If that was a Labour government, this would be on the front pages for weeks.
It's amazing how much favoritism the conservatives get given in the media.

[Audley Strange]

If I recall correctly there are specific procedures in place with Vice squad in which they are meant to only observe it as evidence after it has been collected. Most of the sting operations involve using the identities of known recidivists and fake websites. There was a very very grim series a couple of years ago on BBC2 about it. The thing that came through is that the officers have to be well prepared, are protected by huge amounts of paperwork prior to being involved, are only allowed to work on it briefly at any given time and receive mandatory counselling.

They certainly don't get to just browse for it as part of their job. In fact I seem to recall they ended up having to charge a member of the public who'd found some site and reported it.