Soham detectives arrested after child porn raids

Owen Bowcott
Friday September 13, 2002
The Guardian

The Cambridgeshire detective who read a poem at the Ely cathedral memorial service for the murdered 10-year-olds Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells was yesterday arrested on allegations of distributing child pornography.

Detective Constable Brian Stevens, who worked as a family liaison officer supporting Jessica's parents, was one of two Cambridgeshire constables on the Soham inquiry who were taken into custody following dawn raids on their homes.

Both Det Con Stevens and the other officer work at force headquarters in Huntingdon. They have been taken to stations outside the area for questioning by officers from the West Midlands. The investigation is being supervised by the police complaints authority.

Yesterday's arrests are not related to Operation Fincham, the murder inquiry into the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, but to an investigation by the American FBI called Operation Candyman which monitored internet chat rooms used by paedophiles.

Holly and Jessica's families have been informed of the arrests. In a joint statement last night they said: "We have been informed of today's developments by the police. This does not affect our view of the fairness and credibility of the police investigation."

Two other officers, from Sussex, have already been arrested and suspended from work in connection with the FBI surveillance, which extracted 7,000 email addresses from the website operator Yahoo!

"At around 7am officers from West Midlands police arrested both Cambridgeshire officers at their home addresses in the county," a West Midlands police spokesman said yesterday. "The Cambridgeshire officers were arrested on suspicion of inciting others to distribute indecent photographs of children, an offence contrary to common law. The investigation... is being supervised, at the request of Cambridgeshire constabulary, by the police complaints authority."

One officer is in his 30s, the other in his 40s. The PCA is not supervising the Sussex cases. A member of the authority, Duncan Gear, promised that a "full and impartial investigation" would be carried out.

Det Con Stevens was with the Chapmans and their daughters Rebecca and Alison throughout the inquiry, from the time Holly and Jessica vanished from their homes in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on August 4 until nearly two weeks later when their decomposed bodies were found in a ditch near RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk.

FBI agents have supplied British forces with a list of hundreds of suspected British users of child porn sites. Some of the information came from names on credit cards used to subscribe to websites.

The British arm of the investigation, called Operation Ore, has been targeting users of pay-per-view websites based in the US. It is being coordinated by the national crime squad. In May, 36 people were arrested in a series of raids.

Those wanting to buy images from the websites had to give details of their credit cards and billing addresses and were sent an email with a user log-in and password.

The FBI operation, based in Houston, began after three groups were identified as being involved in posting, exchanging and transmitting child pornography. One site described itself as being: "For people who love kids. You can post any type of messages you like too or any type of pics and vids you like too."