Detectives from across the globe will gather in America next week to hear how police in Bradford are tackling Internet crime.

Organisers of the law enforcement conference in Washington DC have invited Detective Superintendent Stuart Hyde, from Bradford police, to deliver a presentation to delegates.

He will speak about current attitudes to Internet crime, and how modern technology can benefit police officers in West Yorkshire and the rest of the world.

Supt Hyde said: "Internet crime is starting to take off - we're already getting examples in Bradford of people stealing credit card numbers, or paedophiles who are downloading and distributing images of children."

His comments follow a case at Bradford Magistrates Court on Monday, in which Greek student Eleftherios Karasoulis admitted downloading pornographic images of children from the Internet. The 20-year-old transferred 7,000 indecent or pornographic images on to a floppy disk using a computer terminal at Bradford University.

"There have only been a handful of Internet crimes in our region during 1999 - but that's more than last year," said Supt Hyde.

"We have officers with the relevant skills needed to tackle these types of crime. We gather information in the traditional way and they respond to that.

"We can't 'police the Internet' in the sense of having a dedicated team of officers monitoring it 24-hours a day, because it is so vast."

The conference will be an opportunity for detectives to share the latest information on computer crime, and how different police forces are using the Internet and E-mail to their advantage.

Supt Hyde will also visit the Washington DC homicide unit.

He said: "Washington is essentially the murder capital of the States, if not the world. I'll be looking at the methods used by US detectives.''

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