Secret lives and a hidden pandemic - The people investigating the sickest men online

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The officer went online posing as a teenage girl - Kelsey - aged 14, from Warrington. Within 20 minutes he had 50 replies from men. Many made no attempt to camouflage their intent. Tag names when they replied to 'Kelsey' included 'Northern Perv' and 'English well-hung'.

It proved the point that the officer's boss, Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Day, who oversees the Online Child Abuse Investigation Team (OCAIT) for Cheshire Constabulary, had set out to prove. That there is a pandemic of online sex crimes - and more resources were urgently required.

"I wanted to give senior officers an understanding of 'this is what we are dealing with and why you need to invest'. It was not a difficult sell, I told them it was huge, horrific, and affecting people's lives - they absolutely got it," said DCI Day.

READ MORE: The dangerous paedophile who has broken the order designed to stop him offending AGAIN - after targeting a child on TikTok

His colleague, Detective Sergeant Jess Barlow is a proud mum. But you will not see any pictures of her kids on her work desk.

She needs a clear barrier between home life and the chilling crimes she investigates. A target of her team was jailed last month for 20 months. She was disappointed with the sentence.

The man had thousands of indecent images of children. They included material of frightening depravity, fished from the Dark Web. A guilty plea meant his jail term was reduced.

"He wasn't sharing, they were all secure in secret vaults on his phone. In and amongst other child abuse images he had a selection of about 80 (of the worst) pictures."

Asked if such material affects her, DS Barlow said: "Personally I know my limits and I know that my staff do as well. No one is forced to go on the child