Tayside Police double size of Computer Examination Unit

Nov 24 2009 by Alison Lowson, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

TAYSIDE Police has doubled the size of its Computer Examination Unit – and invested £300,000 in upgraded equipment – after child concern reports almost doubled in the wake of the tragic killing of toddler Brandon Muir.

Councillors heard this week that a serious backlog had developed in the unit and computers belonging to suspected paedophiles were left unexamined.

A meeting of the Tayside Joint Police Board was told: “It was suspected that many of the computers awaiting examination contained pornographic images of children.

“The backlog meant that the owners of these machines were at large and without restrictions placed upon them pending the examination of their computers.”

But Acting Chief Constable Justine Curran reassured board members that the backlog had now been cleared.

She added: “Work to achieve further improvement in this area and to incorporate the unit into an expanded technical unit is still ongoing but the backlog has been dealt with.

“Technicians can recover paedophile images in real-time following the detention of suspects, which allows investigators to conduct thorough interviews and put suspects before the courts immediately.”

In a report to the meeting in Forfar, the police chief explained that three Public Protection Units had been set up in the Tayside Force area in June, 2008.

A number of factors, including the death of Baby P and that of Brandon Muir had combined recently to “focus” the attention of various agencies on child protection.

She added: “The introduction of the Public Protection Units has been welcome but their success and the additional focus on these matters has increased the workload and stretched the resources in this high risk area of business.

“In June, 2009, a post implementation review of the new arrangements identified that the number of Child Concern Reports submitted by officers had almost doubled in the period.”

“And, as a consequence, administrative demands are in danger of overwhelming capacity. In response, Divisional Commanders in all three areas moved quickly to supplement investigative and administrative resources.”

The workload in the units was further raised following concerns raised from the ‘Baby P’ review when the force decided that a sergeant should attend all multi-agency Child Protection cases/conferences.

The Acting Chief Constable concluded: “It is likely that the review of the Child at Risk reporting procedures and overhaul of administrative support to Public Protection Units will result in the identification of a need for more, possibly centralised, administrative support.’’