Episode 1 - Catching a social predator

Speaker 1 

Welcome to Cambs Cops: Our Stories, the podcast series that delves into the unseen world of policing. In this episode we're joined by DC Charlie Mitton from the forces’ child abuse investigation and safeguarding unit who talks about the investigation into a highly manipulative  

and dangerous paedophile who prayed on young girls through social media. A warning at the start of this episode that it contains discussions some listeners may find upsetting or difficult to listen to. [Music] 

Speaker 2 

Just tell me a little bit really about what you do day to day um give us like an example day for you.  

Speaker 3 

Oh god so we obviously get loads of Investigations that get allocated to us um and you literally could have anything you could have an assault on a child by a family member to then a  rape it literally can go from something quite small obviously and escalate quite quick um we work with like um partner agencies, so we work with like the mash social care schools and things like  that and if for example someone does a referral um at school and they've got concerns about a child then it obviously gets escalated from that to social care and then we get involved and there'll be like a strat um and they'll make basically an outcome whether it would be a section 17  which is just a single agency where it could just be social care intervention or they'll decide  that it's a section 47 and they need police it'll be a joint so police and social care um so  then we would go out and speak to the children um and basically build up a bit of a rapport  with them and find out what's happened um we at the moment is quite busy we're getting a lot, so juggling obviously your live jobs that come in and your ongoing investigations can be quite hard but yeah it's it's a full-on job but it's great it is absolutely great  

Speaker 2 

Very worthwhile I'd imagine  

Speaker 3 

Yeah definitely yeah  

Speaker 2  

Good and so narrowing it down to a specific case now so tell us about Kevin Brock and how he first came to the attention of yourselves 

Speaker 3  

So a bit  of background really obviously Kevin Brock he has just been obviously Jailed for for 32 years and it all began because in February 2022 the victim's mum came forward saying that she'd found  some messages on her daughter's phone that she wasn't obviously quite happy about she  there was indications that that something was going on bare in mind this this young girl  was under 13 and she these messages were not appropriate that you would send to a 13-year-old and she came forward to the police to say there's something going on I'm not  quite happy it got allocated to me and obviously that's when the investigation began  I downloaded victim's phone and saw there was over a thousand messages between Kevin Brock  and the victim and he was basically grooming her saying he would buy her lots of things  he would take her places and then there was like comments being made in the messages about  we don't have to do what we did last night we can just cuddle I can wait till you're 18 I  love you and things like that which are really inappropriate messages to send to to a child. So then um I obviously interviewed Kevin Brock the first time and said to him obviously put  all these messages to him and he said that it wasn't meant in the way that he he he said  basically he's saying that that she was a friend and that he did love her but as a  friend and that there's nothing more to it um and he said that he could see how the messages  would come across but he just said that's how he talks to most girls so but I knew deep down  that there's something wasn't right so we well myself looked into it more and more and there  just was something just wasn't sitting right with me and I couldn't figure out what it was   

I downloaded his mobile phone which was seized originally and found  indecent images of  children on the device which there was there wasn't loads but there was a few which obviously  raised my concerns even more there was lots of pictures of the victim some were indecent but could if someone else had viewed it and didn't know the whole background would have thought that  it was nothing if that makes sense that he was just taking pictures or of normal sort of things  but for me it's still wasn't sitting right um and then it was about a year later in January  2023 that a colleague of mine had an investigation where he was a suspect again but  it was it was transferred from another Force and he was a suspect and it was for engaging in  sexual activity with the child online and she had done some searches and also seized a device  of him um she asked if I would grade train grade sorry the device because she wasn't grade  trained and I was like yes cuz I was like there's something not right with with the job that I've  got I know there's more to it um and I graded his phone and found thousands more indecent images of  children and found videos of him raping my Victim and my victim’s sister which was awful yeah it wasn't great um so yeah and then there was also hundreds of other online  victims  

Speaker 2 

What happened next after you found that material on his phone?  

Speaker 3  

Well  along with that I found that there was hundreds of online victims and I realized that  the investigation was bigger than for me just to handle by myself obviously now we'd got  a lot of evidence against Mr Brock that he'd been obviously sexually abusing his girls and  obviously inciting hundreds of girls online to engage in sexual activity so I escalated  it to my boss thinking help I can't deal with this alone so then that's when it became op parallel and  a team was put together with some amazing officers that basically we worked long hours  to get basically ready to arrest Brock he wasn't arrested straight away because we  needed enough evidence and we needed everything put together so that when we did arrest him he  wasn't coming out and we knew that he had already got bail conditions from previous  from my previous interviews with him so we knew that safeguarding was already in place so we knew  that he wasn't able to be near these girls that he he yeah was still had access to online devices  so he still could have sorry he had access to devices and still could access online but he had  bail conditions in place for that time being so we knew we had a tiny bit of time to get ready and  then obviously on the 7th of February  he was arrested in the early hours and by 4pm he  was remanded and charged with 13 offenses and they were just the contact offences and indecent  images we knew that we had more to come but that was what we had for now and yeah he obviously  was remanded and then a couple of weeks later he pleaded guilty at court for those  13 offenses.  

A week after him  pleading guilty  he then was rearrested in prison and   brought back to the station to be interviewed with the other the further online offences and after  that he was then charged for further 14 offences so we had 27 offences all together which was  considering at the beginning we didn't we just had a couple of offences which weren't solid and then  to then have 27 was amazing like absolutely amazing and the CPS were great they were really  good and worked with us and it was really good to get that result.  

After after that he obviously I'm sorry did he I've already said bout him pleading guilty to the second lot  yeah yeah yeah so um yeah so it was it was great all of our hard work paid off  

Yeah it was  just it was like a feeling of relief that he was  finally we had something on him because he had Brock had previous investigations  before this come about involving children and they were all  there was no further action on any of them  so there was that element of finally we've got him  like and it was kind of like we felt justice for all the victims even the ones previous that it  was probably true that what he's done to them the previous investigations but we didn't could never  prove it so yeah it was it was amazing feeling  

Speaker 2 

And what was he like as a person what was he like in in interview? 

Speaker 3 

Cold. Yeah he spoke in the first couple of interviews but then obviously once all the evidence was put to him he went no comment but he was cold. There's just no emotion there was nothing. No Remorse yeah it just nothing there you just think that someone's done this sort of  thing to to these victims you would show something he wasn't even he wasn't even anxious or shaking  or knowing knowing he's going to prison for a long time nothing no no and you spoke about  the the hundreds of online victims  

Speaker 2 

Just tell us a little bit about what what he was doing there how  he was you know speaking to these young girls what what was happening there? 

Speaker 3 

So he would I  say I want to say hunt for them because he would  

he would he would scroll through Tik Tok and  find he had a criteria of things he would search like he would search for girls doing handstands or  cartwheels it was very weird things that he would search for and then he would message them  and say I can make you Tik Tok famous. he's like  

if you do these following things I can get you thousands of followers. So then he would then add them on Snapchat because obviously Snapchat you can’t sometimes you can't see the messages once you've sent them so he he obviously knew that and he was sending them he had a script that he sent to most of his girls and it would be like you need to do this and so it would be like number one you need to like send a picture of you naked number two you need to send a picture of you with no clothes on inserting tings into your private  parts but obviously they were a bit more graphic than that. 

These girls were like the youngest was I think we found out was eight wow and that's just like that's horrific like that also these girls have obviously got access to the to Tik Tok and Snapchat when they at this  age they shouldn't do but yeah he would send this script to them and they would be vulnerable  and think yeah okay and send him stuff back and  

then he would then buy followers so he would pay  for followers and put them onto their accounts for them so and then obviously they would then  tell their friends look how many followers I've got and then it was literally a cycle of that happening all the time and he would end up doing video calls with them and them doing things sexual  acts for him and he would record them and then he would share this to other paedophiles so he was  like a prolific offender like a really high scale paedophile like and I always think that if  we didn't catch him now what else was capable of he was so young like what what else is  he well what has he done what else is he could do in the future but yeah it was it was bad.  He used social media and he I would like to say preyed on the vulnerable he picked girls that he   

knew that would do this stuff to him and for him sorry yeah.  

Speaker 2 

So tell me what it was like when the judge said those words 32 years what was the atmosphere like how did everybody feel  

Speaker 3 

I think everybody was shocked because it's a big sentence and after obviously his percentage off it was  crazy like and I remember looking around behind me at the other officers and the DI Susie  Hines and was just I was like like gob smacked I really was and the the victim's mom was  holding my hand and she was just like squeezing it and then but he didn't like Brock was like nothing  showed nothing. 

And the like the judge said he was a predator he that's what he is and   

he deserves to go to prison for a very long time and that's what he got so it felt amazing  and as we left the the courtroom I got really emotional because I felt like it was just it's  the end and I just I cried and the victim's mom hugged me and obviously she was quite teary  and she said like whispered in my ear I couldn't have done it without you and then I've cried even  more but I was trying not to cry cuz obviously this is your job you're like you know you're  you're you're trying to put on a brave face for  

the victim and the victim's family but yes we’re police officers but we're still human we still feel things that everyone else does and we have  to see things that not everyone should have to see but we do it for a good cause and we do it for a good reason and this was one of those times where  

all wh

Speaker 2 

Absolutely and so going talking about what Brock did in in messaging these girls on social media do you have a message for for parents or Guardians who who may be listening to this and you know may have children themselves? 

Speaker 3 

I think that parents should think about uh what they're giving their children the phone for to start off with and how old they are like if they're really young do they need a mobile phone? and to make.  

sure that on them if they do give them a mobile  phone that they've got restrictions on that phone and that parents are open honest with their their  children and say this is your phone is for this however I'm going to be checking it or just being  very much like they want to know what's on the phone and what they're doing with the phone and  it sounds like strict parenting but it's to keep their children safe. um and I even now to this day my sister's quite she's in her teens and I check her phone all the time she hates me for it but I’m protecting her so and I know deep down that  

I've done that so she's fine like I I know what she's up to and I think that's what parents should do and if their children are asking for these Tik Tok Snapchat apps wait until they're older until they understand how to use it and what it's for and they need to be aware of the risks that  these social media platforms prevent present. 

They're they're awful in in some aspects I I don't agree with them I don't agree that children should have them at a certain age. I do know that  

uh Tik Tok and Snapchat are working on their  safety and their privacy settings and everything like that so I think you have to be certain age  but yeah I definitely think that they should talk to their children about about the  phone about what they're doing with it before they have it. 

Speaker 2 

Absolutely and what can parents do if if they're worried about who their children might be talking to um or if they have some concerns like like we said earlier perhaps they've they've checked the phone and there's something on there  that doesn't seem quite right what what can they do? 

Speaker 3 

They they can call 101 and if they think that it it's something urgent call 999 they'll always refer you to somewhere else if it's  it's not urgent yeah but they can also do online an online report we're always here to give  advice I know there's people in the control room that they have got a wealth of knowledge of this sort of thing as well so they can give advice to parents if if it's not made to a criminal offence if it's not got that far yet that's a good thing because you want to stop it before it gets that far so yeah just just call in we're always here to help. 

Speaker 1 

Thank you for listening to Cambs Cops Our Stories if you or someone you know has been affected by the issues raised in this episode help and support is available for more information visit the forces' website www. cambs.police.uk