AN officer who has dedicated the past 18 months of his life to catching online paedophiles has won an accolade for his work.

Temporary Det Sgt Clayton Ford supervises as many as 100 high risk child abuse investigations at a time leading a team of seven to stop online abuse.

His dedicated has won him the title of Essex Police Officer of the Year.

His citation read: “He has personally led on some complex investigations, offered support and guidance to colleagues and was described by his nominator as an exceptional and truly inspirational police officer.”

The 41-year-old, who has 16 years experience with the force, decided to challenge himself in an area of policing which saw a 60 per cent increase in workload in 2015 alone.

Det Sgt Ford was modest in receiving recognition.

He said: “I have to say I was a little bit surprised to win.

“I knew I had been nominated and I was grateful for the recognition.

“A lot of people are doing some really great work.

“Some of our work is somewhat covert and it is nice to get recognition.

Polit - the police online investigation team - also won the force’s team of the year award.

They have a detection rate of about 70 per cent from when an image is discovered to a charge.

Det Sgt Ford said: “We deal with online indecent images of children through downloading and uploading.

“We gather intelligence, execute search warrants and deal with cases all the way through.

“It can be very difficult to deal with. Many refer to it as child pornography but we see it as an evidence record of a child being sexually abused.”

The team cover the whole county and have to view the most repugnant and vile abuse of children imaginable.

He explained: “A lot of people say ‘I could not do that’ and you do have to have resilience but it can be the best and most rewarding type of work because you are protecting children.

“You get immense satisfaction when someone is convicted especially if they are in contact with children through their jobs and family and you have eliminated the risk.”

Det Sgt Ford helped catch one with sexual abuse connections to 35 children.

He said at its peak his team had 100 active cases but it is down to about 88 today.

He said he was extremely proud of the detection rate the the impact it had on protecting children.

Det Sgt Ford added: “I was in CID dealing with attempted murders and those sorts of crime but I saw this as a challenge and the opportunity to safeguard children.

“Sadly it is a growing area.”

He revealed some of those they deal with are some with a curiosity in pornography who have “looked at everything else” and some are those with a long held sexual desire for children.

He dedicated his award to his team.

He stated: “It would not have been possible to do it without the team.

“We have had a difficult period with the number of investigations, and the number of complex investigations, so it is great to get recognition.”

The detective, now a father to a bouncing baby boy, is not sure whether the images will become more stressful now he is a parent but for those in his team who are already parents it makes catching paedophiles one of the most important jobs police officers can do.