MOSCOW, October 20 (RIA Novosti) - Hundreds of cases related to pedophilia are still unsolved by the British authorities years after Canadian police provided the United Kingdom with a list of names of users of a pedophile video website, the Press Association reported Monday.
According to the news agency, some 271 cases are currently under investigation by 21 forces across the UK. 34 people have been detained and five have accepted cautions.
Controversy was aroused in the British media after it was revealed that British national Myles Bradbury, who pleaded guilty to numerous cases of child abuse, was on the list handed over to the UK authorities by the Canadian police back in 2012. However, the investigation was reportedly shelved until October 2013.
According to the Press Association, Canada has given over 2,000 pieces of intelligence to Britain's Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre (CEOP); however, the information was passed on to police only after the CEOP became part of the National Crime Agency in October 2013.
"The NCA is currently leading an unprecedented operation against online child abusers in the UK," the Press Association quoted an unnamed Home Office spokesperson as saying.
In 2010, Toronto police launched an international investigation into child pornography called Operation Spade. Canadian police alleged that a 42-year-old Canadian man was instructing people around the world on the creation of obscene videos of children and distributed the footage via his company, Azov Films. The undercover operation resulted in the arrest of 348 Azov Films customers worldwide, over half of them in Canada and the United States.
