Ore Errors Covered Up

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


Operation Ore was based on flawed evidence from the start

CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection), a quasi policy agency, took over Operation Ore in 2006. The Home Office has announced that CEOP will be disbanded later this year.
The former director of CEOP who presided over Operation Ore, James Gamble, retired in October 2010 after disputes with Home Secretary Teresa May, which continue.


Cops raised concerns ahead of national meeting in 2003

By [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] • [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Posted in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Exclusive Britain’s biggest ever computer crime investigation, Operation Ore, was flawed by a catalogue of “discrepancies, errors and uncertainties”, disclosed reports of two national police conferences seen by The Register reveal.
The police memoranda show that within months of the operation launching in April 2002, detectives who forensically examined computers taken from suspects' homes in dawn raids found files showing that the main evidence used in Operation Ore was wrong. The evidence, it was claimed, showed that over 7,000 British-based subscribers had purchased access to child pornography websites.
At a national police conference held in a Pimlico hotel in February 2003, local police forces warned that claims made by the National Crime Squad (NCS), in control of the operation, had gone "pear-shaped".
According to a former detective inspector and computer forensic specialist who led an Operation Ore team in the north of England, police forces throughout the UK had been "assured from the outset" that it was not possible to subscribe to websites run by a Texas web gateway company, Landslide Inc, without clicking on and agreeing to a "Click Here Child Porn" banner on the "the home page of Landslide.com".
The NCS, he said in a report of the February meeting, were adamant that "it was not possible to enter any websites through the Landslide gateway without going through this procedure and making deliberate choices".
But after examining seized computers and looking at browser history records, two UK police forces told the meeting that the files found showed that "it was possible to ... pay for material ... without making any choices at all and without any warnings that paedophile material was available."
The forensic specialist added: "This has thrown the whole issue of incitement charges into question... I am of the opinion that in those cases where no images have been found ... there is insufficient evidence to proceed ... The NCS and CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] are looking at these issues as a matter of urgency and will be sending out advice in due course," he reported.
At a second meeting in Birmingham in March 2003, NCS retracted two claims it had made about child porn websites. The former DI alerted senior officers and colleagues that "this has serious implications ... [It] is yet another weakness in the NCS investigation which has only just come to light, with obvious consequences. I have serious doubts about the quality and integrity of the evidence supplied by the NCS and will be raising these concerns in the relevant quarter."
Former Merseyside police officer Peter Johnston said he was also concerned about claims in Operation Ore. "I ... asked ... can we have the evidence, can we see the credit card details, can we see the statements ... from the people who recovered this?”
Johnson's requests were turned down, he told ITN in a broadcast interview. He was told "it wasn’t relevant ... we have 7,500 people here ... they must be guilty, let's get out there and get them locked up".
No investigations took place. No advice was sent to police forces about the flaws in the "Click Here Child Porn" claim. Although the real front page of the Landslide website was included in an obscure part of the evidence bundle, it was described as a "front screen" while the fake front page was highlighted and described as the "front page". This sleight of hand meant that the false "front page" was always referred to at the start of court cases, thus purporting to prove that subscribers could only subscribe to Landslide sites for illegal purposes.
CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection), a quasi policy agency, took over Operation Ore in 2006. The Home Office has announced that CEOP will be disbanded later this year.
The former director of CEOP who presided over Operation Ore, James Gamble, retired in October 2010 after disputes with Home Secretary Teresa May, which continue.
Operation Ore police raids continued until 2008. It was not until 2010 that CEOP computer expert Dr Nick Sharples testified in an appeal case that subscribers to Landslide websites could not have seen the "Click Here Child Porn" banner and that it was not part of the Landslide website.
CEOP has refused to comment on his evidence, claiming to The Register that a transcript "should be available" on the internet. It isn't. CEOP said: "We will not be making any further comments on this operation or its various investigations unless
Interpretations and justifications


New evidence, exclusively available to The Register, shows that NCS knew that claims about the "Child Porn" home page were wrong – even before being told of computer evidence found by local police investigators.

Former NCS Detective Constable and SOCA agent Sharon Girling has admitted that NCS knew about the error before detectives from around Britain were called together in London and given the false information. "By February [2003]," Girling said in a recorded telephone conversation, "we were aware that that wasn’t the case.
"It was an interpretation," she added. She said: "The 'Click Here Child Porn' certainly wasn't available" to potential subscribers to web porn sites.

Asked specifically if she disputed that an innocuous image of a landslide on a mountain was the real home page, Girling replied: “Absolutely not.” (The real Landslide front page and the banner image used instead were illustrated in PC Pro’s August 2005 report, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.])
Despite this, from February 2003 on, NCS and CPS circulated nationally a "Generic Incitement File" claiming that "the Landslide home page ... included the words 'CLICK HERE CHILD PORN'".
Girling told The Register that she "was not in a position to respond", and referred questions to CEOP.
NCS officers also concealed a videotape recording of website browsing made by the Dallas detective Steven Nelson, and which also showed that he had concocted the "home page".

The way Nelson had made up website evidence was revealed in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] but was never admitted by NCS.
NCS first claimed that there had no copy of his videotape, then claimed that it was "too grainy to see".
The tape has never been examined in court cases.
Meanwhile, Detective Nelson refused to give evidence in the UK, and retired, claiming that he had to nurse his sick wife. His place was taken by a second US agent, who was asked in a court case where the child porn banner had come from. He replied. "I do not remember, sir, I'm sorry, the specific URL".
Another disclosed police document, provided in response to a Freedom of Information application, was written by a woman detective who had been ordered to arrest and prosecute a consultant surgeon in 2002. She catalogued more than 20 "discrepancies, errors and uncertainties" in the NCS-provided evidence.
The surgeon, a Hull trauma consultant, was nevertheless arrested and prosecuted. Police invaded his house "like stormtroopers", according to his wife, causing "18 months of sheer hell".
No pictures were found. The surgeon was sacked from his job, suspended as a doctor, suffered a stroke, and was put on trial as a paedophile in April 2004.
The trial jury was never told that Humberside police had challenged the NCS evidence, or that they had not been given all the evidence.
The judge ordered them to acquit the doctor, saying that the way information vital to the defence had been held back "stunk of unfairness".