POLICE across the North-East have arrested more than 200 people for possessing images of child abuse, it has been revealed.

New figures show officers in Northumberland made 117 arrests between April 2011 and March this year, with 62 people arrested in County Durham and Darlington, and 32 in Cleveland, for taking and distributing indecent pictures of youngsters.

Many of the downloaded pictures included babies and children under ten-years-old.

Children’s charity, NSPCC, which carried out a Freedom of Information request, said five police forces across England and Wales who responded to their investigation, revealed 26 million images of child abuse had been confiscated in the last two years.

The charity added the number of convictions nationally for possessing indecent images has risen from 85 in 1995, to 1,495 last year.

Liz Benson, NSPCC Regional Head of Service, said: “The number of these dreadful images is absolutely appalling and only a handful of police forces could supply figures, so the true amount is likely to be much higher.

“It’s time the government and industry got together to find an answer to this corrosive problem which cannot be allowed to continue."

John Carr, secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, said authorities had to find better ways of stopping the problem.

He said: “These numbers beggar belief but we need to face up to the realities of the situation and find better, more effective ways of tackling it.”