Walsall teenager in custody on sex charges involving children in US
Jun 16 2009 by Chris Henwood, Birmingham Post
A Walsall teenager has appeared in court on child sex charges that have seen four children taken into care in the United States.
Detectives from West Midlands Police’s Child Exploitation Investigation Team (CEIT) uncovered a 30-year-old woman was using her webcam to broadcast the live sexual assault of her young child.
The CEIT launched their investigation on Thursday last week after Humberside Police alerted them to a man who, it is alleged, used the internet to show inappropriate material of children.
Child abuse detectives along with Walsall policing teams and specialist search officers arrested an 18-year-old Walsall man, who has not been named, just after 8pm the same day. He remains in custody and has been charged with possession and distribution of abusive images of children.
The following day West Midlands Police contacted Child Exploitation Online Protection and the US Embassy with intelligence for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which led directly to the arrest of Julie Carr, a 30-year-old woman from Maine, at 11pm. Computers and associated hardware and equipment were removed from her property.
Her children, believed to be between 18 months and five years, were taken into protective custody and she was due to appear in court again yesterday. She was being held on a $20,000 bail after being charged with gross sexual assault.
DCI Dave McCrone, of the public protection support unit at West Midlands Police, said: “Our officers worked through the night on Thursday and Friday to ensure the identification and safety of these children across the other side of the world. While enquiries are on-going and the investigation continues, I can only comment on the speed with which we were able to respond. Many use the internet safely and securely. However there is a small minority who choose to use it to commit criminality. We work to make people safer, sooner. The very same technology used to commit the crime enables us to work to protect those who may be vulnerable.”
