June 2002 Pervert bought pictures of abused kids PERVERT David Strudwick was today behind bars after downloading hundreds of sick images from the internet. The 33-year-old bought pictures from an American website featuring children as young as five being abused by adults. But he was caught after US authorities tipped off British intelligence services about people in the UK subscribing to the horrific site. Strudwick, from Sudbury Road, Wymering, was one of 36 people arrested when the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) swooped on more than 40 homes in May. And yesterday at Portsmouth Crown Court, Strudwick became one of the first people to be convicted following the dawn raids. He pleaded guilty to making 10 indecent images of children but asked for another 195 charges to be taken into account Strudwick faced a maximum five years in jail but was sentenced to six months. He will also be put on the sex offenders’ register for seven years. Following a tip-off in August 2001, the National Criminal Intelligence Service launched Operation Ore to track down people from the UK who had bought images of sexually abused children from the American website. Officers from 30 police forces across Britain including Hampshire Constabulary worked with the NCIS Serious Sex Offenders Unit to root out the subscribers. Vincent Harvey, director of UK Tactical Services at NCIS, said: ‘We must remember that every image of a child being sexually abused is an image of a crime scene and each photograph is that of a victim. ‘Using the sophisticated technology that is now available to us, along with traditional detective and analytical work, we can now identify these people, who presumably thought their activities could remain undetected.’ And he warned: ‘With continued close co-operation with the industry and other law enforcement agencies we can make sure that there is no place for paedophiles operating online to hide their criminal activities.’ Although Strudwick was one of 36 people arrested, NCIS said that figure was just the tip of the iceberg. The offending websites were said to have more than 2,000 UK subscribers who could not be tracked down.