A city teen has been caught in a massive province wide child pornography bust that has resulted in more than 120 charges against 35 people.

The 17-year-old Brantford resident is charged with one count of possession of child pornography and one count of accessing child pornography. He cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The teen was arrested Tuesday after city police vice officers searched a north-end home. The officers seized computers and media storage devices.

The youth was scheduled to make a first appearance in court on Wednesday.

Further charges are possible, said city police Insp. Kent Pottruff .

"Child pornography is not merely an image-based offence found on the Internet," Pottruff said in a prepared statement released Wednesday. "It represents the recording of actual sexual abuse and exploitation of real children that may live in our community or in Canada.

"We cannot afford to be a society of bystanders when it comes to the protection of children who are victims of this type of criminal behavior."

City police started their investigation after receiving information through a province wide initiative to combat child pornography that someone was accessing child pornography through peer to peer file sharing.

The charges were announced at a news conference in Toronto on Wednesday by OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino and members of the province wide initiative.

Two child victims, one in the province and the other outside Canada, were ``rescued,'' said police, although they refused to provide details.

``This is a crime that, to me, is one of the most heinous one human being can commit against another,'' said Fantino.

``(Police) will stop at nothing to hunt down child predators.''

City police were among 18 municipal police services that are part of the provincial strategy with the OPP.

Police said the individuals charged were not part of any ring.

Fantino decried a justice system that he said is too soft on child pornographers.

In particular, he lashed out at the maximum 10-year sentence.

``You can't in good conscience call that adequate punishment for such a brutal crime,'' Fantino said.

Kid's Internet Safety Alliance, an organization that helps child victims of abuse, applauded the bust.

At the same time, the group called the arrests ``a drop in the bucket'' of child-porn.

``The traffic in images of abuse is an international problem involving over a million pictures of more than 50,000 different children from around the world,'' the alliance said in a statement.

``Only about 1,300 of these children have been rescued.''

Police said those charged were arrested in recent days, with two arrests still to come.

One accused had more than six-million images stored on his computer.

Toronto Staff-Sgt. Frank Goldschmidt said it is not ``uncommon'' for individuals to have that many images.

``The images are horrific. The only thing worse is when the images involve movies and there's sound attached to them,'' he said.

``We see victims that are from infant stage to 18 years of age.''

Five youths were among those charged.

All those charged, described as coming from all walks of life and ranging in age from teens to one man in his 60s, appeared to have no prior arrests for child porn.

The accused, from places such as Ottawa, Sudbury, Toronto, London and Collingwood, face charges including sexual assault and making, possessing and distributing child pornography.

Since August 2006, there have been 8,260 investigations completed by the provincial strategy partners and the OPP sexual exploitation section. As a result of those investigations there have been just under 3,400 charges laid against 1,130 people across the province.

By Vincent Ball

www.brantfordexpositor.ca