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POLICE have uncovered chilling new evidence suggesting Victorian children could have been sexually abused by suspects in the national child pornography bust. Detectives are following leads indicating that Victorian children may have been assaulted. Sexual Crimes Squad Detective Inspector Tony Cecchin confirmed police from Operation Auxin were investigating. "We've identified the possibility that children may have been abused or sexually assaulted by certain individuals," he said. "That's similar to what's occurred interstate. We've identified cases we have concerns about and investigations are being conducted." He had no reason to believe that children attending schools, childcare centres or other institutions publicly stated to be employing Auxin's suspects had suffered any abuse. Det-Insp Cecchin expected that most of the 89 Victorians interviewed over child-porn offences would be charged. Auxin, which has resulted in the seizure of more than 177 computers and software containing 500,000 pornographic images in Victoria, was part of an unprecedented national raid sparked by FBI investigations into Russian-run child-porn websites. Det-Insp Cecchin revealed that each year Victorian police arrest up to 75 people for child pornography as part of Operation Eket, the continuing Victoria Police assault on hardcore child porn and Internet-based sex crimes. The Eket operation, comprising five detectives, one sergeant and an information analyst, has been active for almost 10 years and functions separately from Auxin. "With Auxin, we've done a year's work in a week," he said. "It's the first time anything like this has been tried in Australia." He described as "sickening" the graphic imagery contained in child pornography photographs. He predicted there would be more large-scale national raids. "I think there will be. The trends overseas are that these sort of operations and websites are becoming more prevalent." He said the field was coming under increased scrutiny. "What's the magnitude of the problem? I can't quantify it, but there's been exponential growth in the issue and in the identification of the problem." Herald/ Weekly Times |
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