Jim Gamble: 'Viewing' paedophiles need not be jailed

Paedophiles convicted of looking at child pornography should not necessarily go to prison, the police child protection chief said today.


Jim Gamble of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), told the BBC he believed some sex offenders should be encouraged to seek treatment rather than be threatened with jail terms.

Mr Gamble said answers needed to be found outside the criminal justice system and that some offenders should receive a police caution, then be managed within the community.

He said there were too many people being convicted of paedophilia to be dealt with in the criminal justice system.

Mr Gamble told the broadcaster: "We shouldn't be sending everyone that ever commits an offence - particularly of the viewing kind - to prison."

He said some offenders could be "managed" and dealt with by police caution in a way that allows them to maintain their lives and their families.

In another part of the interview, broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Gamble said it was time to adopt a more "intelligent posture" in tackling the problem.

He said: "(If) someone is at the beginning of the spiral of abuse, where there is evidence to indicate during the investigation that this person may well benefit from a police caution and be managed, then of course that needs to be done."

Mr Gamble conceded that "we cannot protect every young person on the internet all the time", but said more work needed to be done to "educate and empower" youngsters.

He said people with a "deviant sexual interest in children" should get help before they "live out that fantasy" and are caught.

The CEOP was launched in 2006 to tackle child sex abuse in the UK.



Mr Gamble said there was a "need to engage with the predator" in a new way to divert them from offending.

He said: "If we are to say, just throw everybody in prison then, I think, we are missing the point."

Ultimately there would not be enough prison places, he said, and added: "We have to apply the law in a sensitive and sensible way."

He said the number of people accessing child pornography on the internet caused CEOP "significant concern".

Donald Findlater, of child protection charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, told Today: "We know the problem is of monstrous proportions and therefore requires really radical, and frankly, fairly new solutions.

"My interest is far more in preventing it happening in the first place than trying to sweep up some of the pieces after the harm has been done."

Sexual crime prevention expert Ray Wyre told Today: "There is a great deal of confusion in the way Mr Gamble has given these messages."

He said not all people accessing illegal images were paedophiles, and some users were motivated by anything from "stupidity to curiosity".

But he said Mr Gamble was wrong to talk about "predatory paedophiles" being given police cautions.

"Predatory paedophilia is often used to describe the very men who may have abducted Madeleine (McCann)," he said.

Mr Gamble's views on people who download illegal images were also attacked by Michelle Elliott, director of the charity Kidscape.

She told the BBC: "They are just as guilty as the people taking the photos.

"If they didn't view, the child wouldn't be abused. Therefore I think those people deserve prison."



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Paedophilia cannot be dealt with as if it is shop-lifting or nail-biting.

This seems to be the part that Gamble and company do not understand.

A man who fancies blondes cannot be told to stop fancying blondes. A woman who fancies somebody who looks like Clarence Mitchell cannot be told not to fancy Clarence Mitchell. If she desires Mitchell, she desires Mitchell and that is the end of it.

Of course paedophiles should be locked up for looking at children in photographs! They have to be kept away from children. We should not be waiting for a paedophile to take the opportunity of touching or raping a child before they are locked away.

This is an area of psychology that even psychiatrists are loathe to deal with. This dubious ex-copper has no depth of knowledge in this dangerous area of the human psyche.

If he wants to help Madeleine McCann in any way at all, he can start by asking how it came to be that her parents had their own personal copy of a CEOPS manual in Portugal shortly after Madeleine went missing.

This manual is not something one would pick up in an airport shopping mall for holiday reading. Nor is it a self-help book for coping with abductions of children. So his top priority should be finding out why an allegedly abducted child's parents had this manual.

Venables was arrested for being a 'viewing paedophile' on this occasion, and was apparently feigning some measure of remorse in court. Despite his heinous activities, it has been decided by the court that he is not such a bad lad after all, so he has been handed a paltry sentence, that is not only an insult to Jamie Bulger and all other children who suffer abuse at the hands of men and women every day, but an insult to his mother Denise and the rest of his family who will never see him grow up. The public have to recognise that successive governments and all other major authorities will never openly admit that it is totally impossible to 'manage' paedophiles. Please sign any petitions that seek to ensure that paedophiles should only be 'managed' by being imprisoned in a secure environment.

There is a stupid notion in the heads of some authority figures, that we can somehow 'manage' paedophiles and prevent 'viewing paedophiles' from progressing to actually abusing a child in reality. Venables is a screaming example of a person who had already committed heinous crimes in reality before he went on to 'view'. Therefore, it stands to reason that countless others who have also been caught 'viewing' may already have committed far more heinous crimes before they were ever caught 'viewing'. How would anyone know for sure, whether a person is a) currently sexually abusing a child, or b) has sexually abused a child at some point prior to loading down the films and images onto the computers that have caught them out?

The same stupid argument continues over and over with regard to drugs, and whether or not soft drugs leads to hard drugs. A person who chooses to use drugs for whatever reason, may or may not choose to experiment with other drugs. The fact is that they have an interest in drugs.

Similarly, paedophiles choose to use children and show an interest in children. We cannot consider soft options simply because somebody was found to be a 'viewer', because the 'viewer' knows it is an absolute abuse of the child. They are fully aware that any children they 'view' have already suffered in order for them to 'view' the abusive photographs or films. Therefore, it is as equally despicable to 'view' as it is for them to commit this crime in physical reality. They need to be locked away from children and babies at the earliest opportunity, not 'managed' in the community.

Every day that a paedophile spends in jail is another day when he can't abuse a child.
Therefore if a paedophile is banged up for life then he is prevented for his whole lifetime from abusing a child.
Makes sense to me.

It's all very well having experts talking about prevention and early intervention, but this is the last taboo, a 'hidden' crime, and it's often too late to intervene, therefore jail is the only answer.
I don't want to hear about lack of room in prisons -- there's plenty of bricks and mortar out there and plenty of able craftsmen to do the construction.
All that's missing is the political will. And then we have the good old British tendency to sweep anything nasty under the carpet and pretend it's not happening.

As for child porn watchers and downloaders, this is a 'product' like any other. If there isn't a market for the product then children won't be abused for someone's twisted pleasure. And the only way to do that is to bang them up where they don't have any access to the product.

One would suggest to the authorities that all able-bodied paedophiles should be made to build themselves a village with a high wall around it where they can live happily ever after with others of a similar ilk. The best recipe for killing any type of sex-drive is hard labour and a cup of bromide for breakfast, lunch and supper.

Judge Mental wrote:One would suggest to the authorities that all able-bodied paedophiles should be made to build themselves a village with a high wall around it where they can live happily ever after with others of a similar ilk. The best recipe for killing any type of sex-drive is hard labour and a cup of bromide for breakfast, lunch and supper.

Brilliant idea, JM [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Absolutely shocking! Gamble is unfit to head COEPS because he is giving out the wrong message; and ought to be sacked. Citing lack of prison space is pathetic. Round these sickos up and place them in a small primitive island surrounded by shark or crocodile infested water and feed them anti testoterone tablets until their wi,,,,,,,,,,shrivelled up and feed it to jackal placed together with them. They shouldnt be left to mingle free in the community, and all children should be guaranteed paedophile free zone to protect them.

Does Gamble know he is talking from his derriere. Viewing paedophiles naturally meant they are that way inclined; and given the opportunity they will prey on unsuspected children. Some children sexually molested are either not capable to relate it to adult or did not realise they were violated. If they went further the children violated risk losing their lives. Even Molested children are scarred for life.

In fact providers of chid porn sites should be severely punished and jailed to deter them. Its preposterous of him to treat childporn viewers lightly because we are talking about threats, damage, and murder risk to children, not klemptomanics who at most harm the profit bottom line of big avaricious corporation.

When those 'viewing paedophiles' go on to take their next inevitable steps, I do hope people remember who it was in power that claimed they were of no harm to our children!

You will find some of those paedophiles who physically abuse children started by viewing on their computers, he seems to be saying that viewing isnt that serious, what about the poor kids who are being abused in those videos - he obviously doesnt seem to spare a thought for them. With this lax attitude anyone would think he was trying to take steps into legalising paedophilia, start by scaling down the seriousness of viewing, we already know about the freemason paedophile judges who let their paedo mates off, what will be next I wonder.

It's CEOP, but not as we know it Jim.....

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The restructuring would apparently also put paid to CEOP chief executive Jim Gamble's plans to take his organisation independent. It has so far been overseen by SOCA, but following lobbying the last government agreed to make it a non-departmental public body in its own right. Reports suggest that move is now off the agenda.

MR.D wrote:It's CEOP, but not as we know it Jim.....

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The restructuring would apparently also put paid to CEOP chief executive Jim Gamble's plans to take his organisation independent. It has so far been overseen by SOCA, but following lobbying the last government agreed to make it a non-departmental public body in its own right. Reports suggest that move is now off the agenda.

A few well-placed Masonic elements at the top should eradicate any need for panic though. The Central e-Crime Unit has obviously been singled out for praise, so more funding for this will probably already be earmarked because of the need to keep it everything neat and central.

''Last month Britain's most senior policeman Sir Paul Stephenson criticised the lack of progress made on organised crime in recent years. He did however praise the Met's new Police Central e-Crime Unit, which has already had its small budget slashed by the Home Office.''

If the Police services are being restructured they need to seriously look at the suitability for Gamble to head any unit dealing with child abuse, in light of his extraordinary comments about how paedophiles should be dealt with which has angered many charities who actually work with victims of child abuse. I would think many of those who work with victims would not feel Gamble is suitable in view of his leniency towards paedophiles imo

Judge Mental wrote:Of course paedophiles should be locked up for looking at children in photographs!

Comment deleted by Admin

Tom Moore wrote:

Judge Mental wrote:Of course paedophiles should be locked up for looking at children in photographs!

Tom Moore's comment deleted by Admin

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] :evil: [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Tom Moore wrote:

Judge Mental wrote:Of course paedophiles should be locked up for looking at children in photographs!

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As I don't think there is anything Tom Moore can say to justify his comments, he has been banned.

Seems like a good time to bump a few of these threads