News of a global child pornography investigation that revealed 162 computers were used to swap images in Bermuda over the last 16 months has sparked outrage and calls for action.

Responding to the findings from a US task force, child protection lobbyist Sheelagh Cooper said: "The figure for Bermuda doesn't surprise me. It's horrifying, but it doesn't surprise me."

Flint Waters, the US Special Agent who conducted the study, told The Royal Gazette an estimated 30-percent plus of those who swap images of child pornography are actively engaged in child abuse. He has offered to share his findings ¿ which include a map of locations of the suspect computers ¿ with law enforcers in Bermuda.

Ms Cooper, chairman of the board of the Coalition for the Protection of Children said: "This is a tremendous opportunity and I hope they will avail themselves at the earliest opportunity to get that map and investigate. I just hope this is a wake-up call. If they can get a map for 160-plus computers they'd better get cracking."

She claimed that reluctance on the part of victims to come forward, a propensity within the community to sweep the problem under the carpet and difficulties faced in mounting successful prosecutions mean only five percent of known crimes result in conviction.

She also raised concern that Police officers trained in investigating child sexual abuse often get promoted through the ranks before they can put their skills to use.

Anglican Bishop Ewen Ratteray said the call he received from this newspaper yesterday was the first he'd heard of the statistics uncovered by the investigation.

"I'm quite alarmed by that. All I would say is that's quite appalling," he said. "I was not aware of a particular problem here. It's not something we've discussed. Obviously if we were aware of it we would have said or done something about that."

Government passed tough new legislation last year to protect children from pornography and sexual predators on the internet, working in partnership with Internet Service Providers.

Then-Attorney General Philip Perinchief said cooperation and technology would allow the ISPs to get a computer "fingerprint" to track suspected predators in cyberspace.

Luring a child over the web or by other means carries a maximum ten-year jail sentence, as does making child porn. Fines can reach as high as $1 million.

Mr. Waters' investigation has sparked global action, including an announcement yesterday by Canadian police that they have launched an anti-pornography operation across the province of Ontario.

A Government spokesman said last night: "The Government of Bermuda takes a zero tolerance approach to child pornography. Bermuda is one of the few nations in the world to pass child protection legislation specifically targeted at the online environment and including aspects of distributing child pornography online as well as luring and grooming."

The spokesman said the Department of E-Commerce is working on an online safety initiative with local ISP and cell phone carriers, which launches next month. TechWeek 2008 in April will also focus on online safety.

He said that the figure of 162 computers could also be artificially high due to the large number of visitors to the island who may bring laptops with illegal images that they connect locally. Persons guilty of accessing child porn may also have more than one computer at home.

"However, while the number of computers that have been tracked trading these images may be low, even one person accessing and distributing these images is one too many," he acknowledged.

The spokesman said the Bermuda Police Service has yet to receive formal notice from US or Canadian law enforcement officials of Mr. Waters' findings and is liaising with them "with a view to ascertain whether or not that information is indeed accurate."