A BLACKBURN man working for Scotland Yard's paedophile unit spoke today of his harrowing work featured in a controversial BBC documentary.
Detective Constable Andy Ryden, whose mother and sister still live in Blackburn, has been on the high profile unit for four years, dealing with the cases of some the most shocking and sadistic paedophiles in the country.
The 15-strong team were filmed in their work for two years for the shocking three-part BBC2 series The Hunt for Britain's Paedophiles.
The shocking series produced a harrowing glimpse of the horrifying crimes perpetrated by some of Britain's estimated quarter of a million paedophiles.
It provoked a national response, with many, although shocked by what they had seen and heard, seeing it as groundbreaking television.
Andy, who went to Billinge School , Blackburn before joining the police force at 16 and still a staunch Rovers supporter, defended the programme which he believed was a necessary account of the unit's work and important for public awareness.
He had initially been unsure of the content, in case it was portrayed in an inappropriate light.
But he said: "There was nothing dressed up for the camera crews. The things they showed were the kind of things we deal with on a day to day basis.
"I think it has provided an insight to the legislators and the like. People now have some awareness of what the subject matter is about.
"It has dispelled the myth that all those people are just shambling wrecks with bad social skills. I think the public broadly supported the programme.
" It is a sad fact of life that there are people that produce this kind of imagery and perpetuate the abuse of children.
"I am not here to condemn anyone, but there is a body of evidence in the psychology field which believe that people who view and collect child pornography do so because they have have an inherent sexual interest in children.
"There are others who say there is no problem and they won't necessarily go on to that. I don't believe that. For some, it is so strong, they will always have a sexual orientation towards children.
"Child pornography is a misleading title. The important thing to remember is that every single photograph we seize is a permanent record of a child being sexually abused."
He was featured in the first programme in the three part series, on an investigation into a computer programmer who had thousands of pictures of children being abused on his computer.
When Andy joined the unit, after being in the police force for more than 20 years in London, one of the things he had to do first was see some of the kind of material he would be dealing with.
He was shocked and disgusted, but realised it was a job which had to be done. He said: "I had never seen anything like it before.
"But at the end of the day, it is a job I have chosen to do and it is certainly the most rewarding job I have done in the police. Every case that I deal with and every person is someone who has been identified as a potential child sex offender."
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