1st anniversary of partnership with Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre

[16th November 2007]

Nine of the UK's highest risk child sex offenders have been located in the last 12 months as a direct result of the ‘Most Wanted' website.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre joined forces with Crimestoppers to develop the Most Wanted feature on the CEOP website . Launched in November 2006 as the UK's first national website, it is dedicated to locating convicted offenders who have failed to comply with notification requirements.

Nine of the UK's highest risk child sex offenders have been located in the last 12 months as a direct result of the ‘Most Wanted' website, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre. They had been missing for a combined total of over 20 years.

And for the first time in the UK, the images of child sex offenders who have been missing for a number of years have been ‘age progressed' by the leading UK charity for missing people to ensure that members of the public - and especially those working with children – have the very latest information on how these convicted offenders may look now.

CEOP's Most Wanted website – www.ceop.gov.uk/wanted will display age-progressed pictures of Joshua Karney and Peter Weatherley. The process was carried out on behalf of the CEOP Centre by the charity Missing People (formerly the National Missing Person's Helpline).

A new target - the site's 14th – was added on 16th November 2007.

35 year old Stephen Clare is wanted by Northumbria Police for failure to fulfil his requirement to register on the Sex Offenders Register in 2002 and his current whereabouts are unknown. He has been known to work as a photographer and has undertaken qualifications to teach English as a foreign language and has possibly travelled overseas.

For more information about CEOP or to read the full press release visit the CEOP website.

Visit Crimestoppers' Most Wanted for details of over 250 more appeals.