Hundreds of Britons have been convicted over internet child porn

But the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says other organisations already offer that support and that offenders must be held responsible for their crimes.

These are images of children who are being abused, and people who are accessing child pornography on the internet are feeding this industry, but I think this is among a number of suggestions that need to be explored.

Most people who are downloading indecent images of children are not known about.

This is a genuine initiative to try to encourage people to come forward who are prepared to admit that they have a problem with this area - they want to do something about it to address the issue.

People aren't going to come forward if they know they are going to be prosecuted, face publicity and all the rest CCPAS director David Pearson

We know from the Home Office Stop It Now! helpline that people are ringing in and seeking help in that area.

I think it's something like 20% of calls have involved issues in regard to access to the internet.

They would come forward on the basis of handing in their computer to the police, facing the issue, being independently assessed, treatment being provided, and where someone isn't posing a risk to a child, avoiding on that basis a prosecution.

It wouldn't be a soft option.

This is a genuine attempt, in order to protect children, to prevent people continuing down a road which might lead in some cases to directly abusing children.

Those people aren't going to come forward if they know they are going to be prosecuted, face publicity and all the rest.

There are already ways in which people who fear their use of the internet is leading them into trouble can receive help - that is through other charities.

They can speak to somebody on a confidential issue who will give them advice.

We are not the most appropriate social agency to deal with those sorts of situations.

The difficulty we have got with somebody handing in their computer is that clearly we would want to search the whole of it for evidence - it might be that somebody is using this as a ploy to avoid prosecution for something else.

Anything that reduces the culpability of offenders clearly undermines the care we give to victims of sexual abuse ACC Stuart Hyde Acpo spokesman on child abuse

We would probably also want to try to pursue the people who were posting the images in the first place.

We have said for a long time, if somebody wants to put together a business case as to how this might be a viable option, we would be more than happy to listen to it. But that has never been done.

We cannot just look at this in isolation - this is also about protecting the rights of victims.

These are pictures of children who have been abused, who have been sexually tortured for the gratification of some of these people.

If that trade continues, then more and more children will be abused.

All this is trying to do is set in motion a way of reducing the culpability of offenders, at a time when I think they need to be held to account for the offences they have committed.