Specialist CEOP unit arrests more than 500 suspects in most successful year since its creation in 2006
A record number of children have been rescued from immediate danger by a specialist police unit that targets online paedophile rings, it has emerged.
More than 1,000 children have been safeguarded or protected, including 414 in the last 12 months, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP) said as it published its annual review.
In the latest case this month, 130 children in the UK were rescued after police smashed an international paedophile ring that distributed millions of indecent images and films to 46 countries.
Peter Davies, CEOP's chief executive, said the unit was making progress but warned the battle was far from over. "Crimes against children are for me the most horrendous crimes and too often the victim suffers in silence," he said.
"We need to encourage ever more reporting and understanding, we need to work to prevent the crime happening in the first place and we need to pursue the offender no matter how complex the methods they use to hide their activity."
Figures released on Monday show CEOP has dismantled more than 394 high-risk sex offender networks since it was set up in 2006 tasked with tracking online paedophiles and bringing them to court.
Of these, a record 132 networks have been dismantled in the past year as the unit's actions led to a record 513 arrests, taking the total number of suspected paedophiles it has helped arrest in the last five years to 1,644.
In the latest case four men pleaded guilty at Nottingham crown court to various charges of making, distributing and possessing indecent images of children.The Lincolnshire police force, which led the operation, said it was the biggest paedophile ring of its kind in the UK and that 132 children had been "safeguarded" and a number of paedophiles had been removed from positions of trust, including jobs as teachers, doctors and youth workers.
CEOP, which is currently affiliated to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), will be merged with the new National Crime Agency when it is formed in 2013.
The move prompted its former head Jim Gamble to resign over concerns the shakeup was driven not by child protection but by a desire to cut the number of quangos. But, as well as retaining its own budget, Davies said the unit will keep "its own brand, its own approach and its own dedication to putting the safety and wellbeing of children first".
"I think today's figures show that we are shining light into those dark places, we are bringing this crime more into the open and are working collectively with many others to break down the taboos and obstacles that stop children getting the help and support they need," he said. "We can do that with confidence."
In her foreword to the report, the home secretary, Theresa May, added that the move will enable CEOP to "draw on wider resources and support to help keep even more children safe from harm in the future".
The unit's annual review also sets out plans to "address the self-generated risk that children place themselves in, understanding and working in partnership to safeguard technological advances and focusing on specialist areas such as the trafficking of children and young people", a CEOP spokesman said.