Sussex Police have revealed that 14 innocent people who found themselves in the frame for internet child porn had been victims of credit card crime.

Stolen card details were used to purchase sexual images of children from the US web site which sparked the Operation Ore investigation.

The information passed on to police has been checked and no action will be taken against the 14.

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Chambers, Sussex Police's Senior Investigating Officer for Operation Ore, said he was satisfied that in the 14 cases no criminal offences had been committed .

He said: "These include cases where stolen credit cards have been used to purchase images."

In the last four weeks the force has arrested 112 people, including some women, as part of the national Operation Ore investigation.

About 1,000 computers and many more DVDs believed to have images downloaded from the internet have been seized.

Six people on the list of suspected paedophiles given to Sussex Police have died and a further 28 have left the county.

The remaining names have been warned to expect a knock on the door from officers soon.

The situation in Sussex is said to be no worse than anywhere else in the country, although the force is the first to have released figures.

DCI Chambers said: "We have made good progress in working through the names that were supplied to us of people who had used their credit cards to purchase images of child abuse.

"The aim of the Sussex operation, codenamed Chaucer, is to identify those people who pose a risk to child safety and actively to target them in order to protect children. "