My stalker is claiming that she knows the "latest peadopile in the area"

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre did not have the information requested.

Dear Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre,

I am very concerned because I work with children, and a person who has been harassing and stalking me claimed, in the course of harassing phone calls to me, that she knows the "latest pedophile in the area".

She said so in a a voicemail I recorded, and the voicemail suggests that she's confident that this pedophile will help her make my life a misery – which was one of her threats. Thus I have been worrying about the safety of the children I have been working with and, in order to protect them, I've already left one of my jobs (which has been causing me financial hardship).

I am a respectable member of society and, as far as I know, I don't suffer from any mental health issues that could result in me making paranoid claims to you, or to anybody else.

In any case, I recorded the threats on a memory stick, and I would like somebody whose job is to protect the children who might be in danger to listen to them so that they may be able to use this and the other information I have about my stalker to make the relevant risk assessments, as appropriate.

Please let me know whose remit it to offer me any advice about what I should do and/or whether there is anything you could do to help protect the minor who may be at risk.

Yours faithfully,

Simona Florio

simona florio left an annotation ()

PS. I'd like to apologise for any spelling/grammatical mistakes you may spot in my request. I am writing this in third language, and I hope that the difficulties I am encountering at making myself clear won't impact on your ability to protect the minor who may be at risk.

Classification: NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED//

Our Ref: IRS 0025731

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your recent referral to the Child Exploitation and Online
Protection Centre. Unfortunately, this incident does not fall within
CEOP’s remit of work and as such we will not be able to take any further
action.

May I recommend that you report this incident to your local police station
for investigation.

Thank you for your referral and for joining us in our efforts to keep
children safe from online exploitation.

Kind regards,

Intelligence Officer

Referrals Desk

Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre

Email Address: [1][email address]

visit ceop.police.uk

Classification: NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED//
This email was classified on 13 January 2012 at 13:38:17
The above classification labels were added to the message by the Child
Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

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Dear "intelligence Officer",

Your reference: IRS 0025731

Thank you for your reply to what you refer to as my "referral".

As I wrote in my annotation, English is not my first language. So there may have been a misunderstanding, and I am now writing to clarify my question, and to ask you to clarify your answer.

My email to you described a situation which may be exposing minors to the risk of sexual abuse, and I asked you to please tell me:
a) whose remit it is to advise me about what I should do so that the potential risk to these minors is assessed, and
b) to tell me whether there is anything you could do to help protect the minors who may be at risk of sexual abuse.

Your reply ("Unfortunately, this incident does not fall within CEOP’s remit of work") confuses me.

What do you mean by this, and what do you mean by "incident"?

Please answer all of the following questions, unambiguously:
a) does your answer mean that it isn't within your remit to answer the questions I asked?
b) does your answer mean that it is not within your remit to tell me whose remit it is to offer me advice about what I should do so to ensure that the risk to the minors who may be at risk is assessed?
c) does your answer mean that it is not within your remit to let me know if there is anything your agency can do to protect the minors who may be at risk?
d) Does your answer mean that there is nothing you can do to help protect the minors who may be at risk in this case?

You recommend that I should report the incident to my local police station but (and I do apologise for not having mentioned this in my original email), the very reason why I sent my request to you is that all of my attempts so far to get the Police to help have failed.

I reported the acts of harassment against me, I gave them the sound clips with the recording of the relevant voicemails, I reported that my mobile phone was hacked (telling them that I had evidence that this really was the case, and explaining that I had been carrying the phone with me in the course of my work with children, etc.), but all failed: the sound clips were not listened to, and the evidence I had that my phone was hacked was not looked at. In fact, following my report, nobody got in touch, not even for the purpose to ask me to provide the (extensive) evidence I have.

This –the fact that I have reason to believe minors are at risk, and that the police is not assessing the risk– is why I left one of my jobs, and I now face hardship.

My last letter, of 15/12/11, to Southwark Police started:

"This letter is not a complaint. It is a heartfelt and desperate plea for help"

and went on to saying

"I work with children with special needs, as well as with vulnerable adults, and –given that I only realised my phone was hacked after using it in the course of my work– one of my greatest fears is that the perpetrator of the threats will use the confidential information she has accessed illegally to hurt some of these individuals (in order to carry out her threat that she'll ruin my life).  There is evidence that one of my volunteers has already suffered an act of harassment due to his contact details being stored on my phone, and –to me– this confirms that the third parties I have a "duty of care for" are at risk. In the course of her threats, my stalker claimed that she knows the latest pedophile in the area (please do listen to the sound clips I submitted as evidence with my letter of 3 June ). As a consequence I have been so terrified that I left one of my jobs –which I loved– at a children's community centre, as the centre is in stalker's "area".

This notwithstanding my letter never received a reply.

What else do you recommend I should do?

Please do not advise that I should complain to the Police because –whether or not I decide and find the strength to lodge a formal complaint against the Police at a later stage– my priority is to make sure that the crimes I have been reporting are investigated, and that the risk posed to both the minors I used to work with and the children I still work with is assessed. Also, I am worried because I have reason to believe that the perpetrator of the threats works with children herself, and that these children, as well as her own child may be at risk. I won't discuss the reasons I feel this way here, but I am also worried because I believe that –although the threats were made a few months ago– the likeliness that the perpetrator will carry them out is increasing, rather than diminishing, over time.

As I did not understand your answer, I still don't know whether advising me about what I should do, now that the Police has failed to investigate my claims, is within your remit. However, your website says:

"we are about opening the policing doors to new ways of thinking around this crime, working with industry, government, children's charities and the wider policing community to explore all options and possibilities.  In fact we want and will explore all options because we believe you can never stand still when dealing with such a complex, ever changing issue and where apathy can and does result in devastating consequences".

The issue I am exposing here is indeed more complex than it may appear at first sight, and I agree that, even though Southwark Police is not responding to my pleas, we can't stand still, l and that apathy can and does result in devastating consequences.

So I am asking you to, please, fulfil this aspect of your mission, and please act quickly, so that Southwark's Police apathy does not result in devastating consequences in this case.

Your website says that you are "part of UK policing and very much about tracking and bringing offenders to account either directly or in partnership with local […] forces". Please act upon this promise, and make sure that the pedophile who may be willing to carry out my stalker's threats is tracked down and prevented from doing so.

If, following thorough investigation, you'll find that I never had any reason to be concerned (and to leave one of my jobs), I shall be relieved.

However, I believe that any person who threats another that she'll subject children to sexual abuse in order to cause her distress is not fit to work with minors.

So, I won't feel entirely reassured until somebody makes sure that this aspect of the issue I have been trying to expose is looked into, and you can establish, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this person won't cause any children any harm whatsoever.

I do apologise that this email of mine is long, but I wanted to be as clear as I could, and found all of this very difficult to summarise.

I also apologise that this email asks for action, as well as for information. However, given that your answer to my original email did not provide me with the information I had asked for, I did not know whom else to turn to for help, and felt it was in the public interest, as well as in the interest of the children I am trying to protect, for my request for help to be made in the public domain.

I am looking forward to a prompt and pertinent reply, and for you to state what you are going to do to, if anything, to help me protect the minors who may be at risk.

If it is not in your remit to help me directly could you, please, at least provide appropriate advice to Southwark Police, and try and make sure that they look at the evidence I have been collecting?

In fact, could you prioritise telling me what you intend to do to protect the minors who may be at risk over providing me with an answer to my queries?

Also, could you please, on this occasion, sign your reply with your name?

Yours sincerely,

Simona Florio

1 Attachment

Classification: NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED//

Our Ref: IRS 0025731-LL

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your recent email to the Child Exploitation and Online
Protection Centre (CEOP). CEOP works to prevent and detect the sexual
exploitation of children predominately in the online environment. If you
would like to report an incident relating to the sexual exploitation of
children, please complete the attached reporting form and return it to
[1][email address].

If you would like to report an incident relating to harassment we would
recommend that you contact your local police force again over this matter,
as we believe that they are best placed to decide on the correct course of
action. If you feel that any children or adults are in immediate danger,
then we would recommend that you contact your local police force.

Kind Regards,

Intelligence Officer-LL

Referrals Desk

Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre

Telephone: 020 7238 1772

Email Address: [2][email address]

visit ceop.police.uk

<<CEOP Intelligence Reporting Form.docx>>

Classification: NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED//
This email was classified on 16 January 2012 at 16:06:26
The above classification labels were added to the message by the Child
Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

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Dear Referral,

Thank you for your reply. I am still confused, but I will send you my queries later.

A miracle (?) has happened, Southwark Police got in touch with me themselves, 1 hour after you posted your response.

I had been sending them my pleas for months, and they finally got in touch last night, over a month after I sent them the letter which I am quoting above!

A coincidence, perhaps... or perhaps...

For the time being,

Could you please explain why you don't sign with your name? It seems strange that I have to sign with mine, but that you can remain anonimous

Yours sincerely,

simona florio

Harley Faggetter left an annotation ()

Simona, my impression is that CEOP often have to employ baiting tactics such as using false names to catch paedophiles operating online. For such reasons it would put officers in potential danger if they were to publicly release their name in association with a case.

At any rate, your request has been satisfied and CEOP are no longer required to respond to your request, you may wish to update the status of the request to reflect this.