A TV documentary following undercover police as they work to hunt down paedophiles was put together with the expert advice of Norfolk's top officer.
The three-part documentary, which is called 'Undercover Police: Hunting Paedophiles,' will be aired on Channel 4 tonight and reveal how covert police teams work to catch paedophiles online.
Simon Bailey, Norfolk's chief constable, played a big part in advising the show and a spokesperson for Channel 4 confirmed he was involved in making the series happen as National Child Protection lead for the police.
It comes after reports that online child sexual abuse has worsened during the pandemic with nearly nine million attempts in the UK to access child sexual abuse websites during lockdown in April 2020, according to the Internet Watch Foundation.
Speaking about the series, Channel 4 documentaries senior commissioning editor Alisa Pomeroy said: “This powerful series is both timely and vitally important.
"As a direct result of Covid, millions of children are now stuck at home, bored, hidden away in their bedrooms and chatting online.
"Each potentially laying themselves open to the sinister practice of online grooming by an increasing number of would-be sexual abusers.”
Executive producer Joe Mather said the documentary had been filmed with "great care and sensitivity" over the last two years.
He added: "It’s been extraordinary to have been granted access to such a complex area of policing and to witness the work of undercover detectives as they go about searching for paedophiles operating online.
"What the child sexual abuse officers are witness to on a daily basis is truly horrific yet these detectives, often with children of their own, have to engage with the offenders in order to find and arrest them, knowing that for every one they arrest there are countless more victims still at risk.”
Police rolled out a new strategy in 2017 across England and Wales to catch paedophiles online using undercover police officers.
The broadcaster said the police teams featured in the programme have led the way in developing the tactic, which has seen hundreds of child sex offenders not previously known to police, identified and arrested.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here