The newest detectives’ first matter was to see if the pictures was basically historic photo downloaded by Blanchard otherwise photos of “fresh abuse” drawn of the Blanchard or people he realized. Were there students exactly who needed to be saved including abusers who’d become averted? Specific was articles becoming users, procuring and you will exchanging photo of children, like in the latest “Lucy series” you to very first stumbled on cops desire inside 1997 and exhibited a young girl depicted in different degrading issues. Others need its subjects unsullied. Individuals who got access to a genuine kid sat in the the top pile. At the what end of your flesh-sector was Blanchard, investigators questioned? Detained under a beneficial superintendent’s warrant, they’d thirty six hours to determine.
Andrew Edwards, an it technician from the GMP’s hello-tech crime device, hence manage out-of a claustrophobic space identified from the GMP’s force head office called “the fresh cavern”, had the phone call on the Saturday morning. Process Morley would-be Edwards’s first biggest assignment.
His initial task were to rating inside Blanchard’s email profile and disassemble almost any methods cops retrieved regarding his ?350,000 home inside the Smithy Bridge, close Rochdale. Inside the a good cul-de-sac of the latest-stimulates labeled as Yea 
Bend, a bright black Volvo stayed parked to your driveway, but nobody is actually home. Blanchard’s wife Anne, exactly who he’d satisfied if you are she is an enthusiastic student at Liverpool John Moore’s college, was actually forewarned one the lady husband were to feel expected and, that have collapsed, had been looked after someplace else.
In to the, the place try immaculate. Even the toilet tissue ended up being rejected. Blanchard clearly wielded pure control, recalled investigators. Their swagger are stamped while in the, in the colossal dinner-room table hewn of a great slab from marble for the tremendous type yachts wear brand new cabinets. Possibly the climate are managed; Blanchard’s highest conservatory installing with air-strengthening devices, a surprise get in Rochdale.
Edwards made a list of exactly what officials retrieved: a great Nintendo betting servers, a good Sony PSP, an enthusiastic Acer laptop, a couple of pen pushes – recollections dongles that can easily be attached to a computer – a beneficial Hewlett packard laptop, one or two exterior hard disks, three memory cards, an apple computer system, a great Netgear drive, and an effective Nokia N70 cellular phone. It illustrated a beneficial haystack out-of gigabytes by which he would features to sort. Up coming discover the fresh new iphone 3gs. It had been therefore brand new that GMP did not know how to crack they.
Across the 2nd couples very important occasions, the new It specialist eviscerated Blanchard’s equipment, having fun with C4P, a digital unit designed of the Canadian cops that sought after and you will built-up photos held to the one computer, even reassembling individuals who is overwritten and you can split up. Edwards’s task was developed a little smoother because the Blanchard put no passwords or security.
The police quiz Blanchard
“He said, ‘Don’t bring your coating away from. There can be surprise query and also make for the Meters Department [level Trafford and you can Altrincham].’ We contacted him or her, learned about Blanchard and set-up a meeting with the brand new officials discussing they.”
For the hour Investigator Constable Andy Pilling, on the GMP’s intimate criminal activities unit, had arrived too, and you can and DS Willis go off having Altrincham.
With the morning away from Friday 8 June, Investigator Sergeant Bob Willis, of your own GMP’s sexual criminal activities equipment – a classic hand in the this type of query – arrived getting run Nexus House inside the Ashton-under-Lyne, new head office of unlawful analysis section
They’d get-off one to interviewing a small grouping of 20 photos to study, that Blanchard had been administered of not familiar supply. They represented naked very young children, this new oldest no more than 1 . 5 years. “These people were uncommon to be so younger there try a beneficial women’s chest and you can give looked in some of them,” said DC Pilling.