A surge in the number of seizures of child-like sex dolls by border officers has led investigators to identify dozens of previously unknown suspected paedophiles. The lifelike silicone dolls, which weigh around 25kg (55lb) and can cost thousands of pounds, are being imported to the UK after being sold by traders on sites including Amazon and eBay, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. They are a “relatively new phenomenon” in the UK and should be criminalised, said Hazel Stewart, the operations manager at the NCA’s child exploitation and online protection command (Ceop). Border Force officers have seized 123 such dolls in little more than a year since March 2016; seven people have been charged with importing them, including one man who was jailed last month.

The figures were revealed as a judge at Canterbury crown court dismissed an attempt by a barrister representing an ex-primary school governor, David Turner, to argue that a doll he imported was not obscene. Turner, a 72-year-old former churchwarden, pleaded guilty on Monday to importing the child sex doll after the application to dismiss the charge was turned down. Of the seven men charged, six also faced allegations linked to child abuse images. Dan Scully, the deputy director for intelligence operations at the Border Force, said this showed that people who ordered the models, which are primarily manufactured in China and Hong Kong, often committed sex crimes.(theguardian)…[+]