THE Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating a police force over its failure to act on child abuse intelligence.

North Yorkshire Police has referred itself to the IPCC in relation to intelligence it received from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) last November, originating from Project Spade, a global child pornography investigation.

The material, about people in the county who had been accessing indecent images of children, followed police in Canada identifying thousands of men in the UK who had allegedly been purchasing DVDs and videos of youngsters.

The investigation comes after the IPCC launched an inquiry in September into potential misconduct issues over how North Yorkshire Police officers responded to being given information about Jimmy Savile and the former Mayor of Scarborough and North Yorkshire County councillor, Peter Jaconelli.

As part of that inquiry, a serving detective sergeant from the force was served with a misconduct notice, while the watchdog said other officers could also be interviewed.

The latest IPCC investigation follows a list of suspected paedophiles being given to CEOP by Canadian police in July 2012, and 15 months passing before CEOP forwarded the intelligence to police forces.

Concerns over the speed with which forces acted on the intelligence arose after it emerged Essex Police failed for nine months to act on information concerning a deputy headmaster, who was being investigated over covertly filming boys, before he was found dead last month.

The Essex force and North Wales Police will also be investigated by the IPCC over failing to act on the intelligence they were handed.

Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Mason said: “North Yorkshire Police takes its safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously and as such the force made a voluntary referral to the IPCC in relation to intelligence received from CEOP.

“It would not be appropriate to comment further until the IPCC has completed its investigation.”

Last month, DCS Mason said the force was working to a nationally recognised method of gathering, accessing, developing and acting upon information and intelligence over child sexual exploitation.

He said "considerable progress" has been made by the force in that area, adding that further work was needed.

IPCC deputy chair Sarah Green said: "There is rightly considerable public concern about how police forces deal with sexual offences involving children.

"The IPCC takes this issue seriously and proactively contacted all forces and asked them to review their handling of intelligence to determine the scale of any issues."