The head of the National Crime Agency has apologised for exposing children to harm from a paedophile teacher after senior officers failed to pass on a tipoff about him for more than a year.
In July 2012, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (Ceop), which is now part of the NCA, received a warning about Martin Goldberg, deputy headmaster at Thorpe Hall school in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, from a Canadian police investigation into images of child abuse.
However, it only contacted Essex police in November 2013 to issue a warning that Goldberg had bought videos from a Canadian seller of images of naked boys. When he was finally confronted by Essex police last month, following another 10-month delay caused by further failings by the local force, more than 1,000 illegal images of boys taken using a secret camera were found in his possession. Of those images, 75 had been taken in the school changing room and 465 were taken at the local swimming pool changing room. Goldberg killed himself the day after police confronted him.
Keith Bristow, the director general of the NCA, told the Commons home affairs select committee: “I’m sorry if that’s led to harm to children or exposing them to risk because that’s not what we stand for.
“Sitting on data for the period of time between July 2012 and November 2013, that could have led to children being protected or safeguarded, seems to me whether it’s systemic or it’s down to individuals – and there are certainly some systemic issues that we need to work through – that’s not in the spirit of what we stand for.”
Essex police have already apologised for their own delay. The force said that when an assessment was made of the Canadian evidence against Goldberg in January 2014, it was decided “this was a lower risk investigation and other cases with evidence of more serious offending... should take priority”.
It was not until last month that Goldberg’s profession was checked. When he was found to be a senior teacher, he was immediately confronted. Essex police admitted that Goldberg took some of the images after detectives had been handed the file from the national agency.
Asked about the low-risk assessment, Bristow told the MPs: “We are sat on a daily basis on top of significant risk because of the sheer volume of images and the different methods of offending by people who have a sexual interest in children. And we have a problem – not just NCA, not just law enforcement, not just government – we as a society have a problem with the number of people in the UK who access these horrible images or paying for children to be abused online. So in relative terms, it’s still horrible that children are posing in an erotic manner, but when seen against some of the other images that our officers have to assess it is relatively lower risk.”
Parents at the £10,000-a-year school have said they feel “betrayed and disgusted” by Goldberg, but they have also voiced anger at the police. “They should have done something,” said one mother.
The case is being reviewed by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
