Features

However, this most critical computer evidence produced in Operation Ore, I have found, was flawed. On 2 October 2002 in Fort Worth, Texas, incorrect evidence was handed to a British police officer by Nelson. He swore it as true evidence and was backed up by Mead. The evidence was then distributed throughout Britain, shown on TV and paraded in courts up and down the land.

The objective of Operation Ore was the protection of vulnerable children from adult abuse and harm. But the mistakes meant huge quantities of police, technical and social work resources were misdirected to some futile and ill-founded investigations. The worse result was damage to innocent lives, and the welfare of families and children.

Widespread disgrace

In Britain to date, 4,283 people and their families have had experiences similar to 'Adam Smith', and another 3,000 computer users still on the Operation Ore target list could face similar treatment.

If any one of these people has not been broken by the experience, no-one I know is aware of them. Many have contemplated self harm under the toxic pressure of these investigations, and some have seen it through. On 8 January 2005, Royal Navy commodore David White, commander of British forces in Gibraltar, took a one-way trip into his swimming pool. He was the 33rd such victim of Operation Ore.

Britain's experience has not been alone. The same events have been repeated around the world. In Ireland, Canada, and

ADVERTISEMENT

Australia, similar tragedies and deaths have occurred.

Their common cause was a 1999 police operation in Fort Worth, Texas. Billed as the exposure of the world's largest 'paedophile ring', America's 'Operation Avalanche' had swelled by 2002 to a global crusade.

The entire investigation depended on computer evidence. What was on the Internet, who logged in to it, when and how? On this digital sword, many lives and careers would be tested and some would end.

Landslide goes down

Detective Constable Sharon Girling of the National Crime Squad, honoured with an OBE in the 2005 New Year's honours list, is a stalwart police footsoldier in the investigation of paedophile activity on the Internet. Her first big computer case, Operation Cathedral in 1998, involved an unquestionably savage group of men who exchanged images and videos of children being abused and violated. DC Girling was employed to track down some of the child victims. And it was this work that led to her being given a starring role in the 2000 Texas trial of Thomas and Janice Reedy, who founded Landslide in 1996.

Ironically, Landslide was set up in response to the US Communications Decency Act of 1996, which seeks to prevent minors from seeing sexually explicit adult material on the Net. The industry came up with a simple, effective answer: blocking access to adult sites except for people who could prove they were old enough to have a credit card. Subscribers paid a small annual fee to one of these merchants and were given a password and ID for a range of porn or sex chat sites. Generally called Adult Verification Services (AVS), they continue to flourish.

Late in 1998, Landslide branched out to new porn services with a service called Keyz. With AVS, people might buy six months' access to over 5,000 sites for about $50. With Keyz, they paid for access to only one site, perhaps for as little as a week. By the time Landslide was closed down, there were nearly 400 sites available through Keyz: some were adult, and some were clearly about children.