FORTY five suspected paedophiles remain at large in Sussex more than two years after authorities were tipped off about them.

Canadian Police handed over a mass of evidence relating to accessing child abuse images in 2012 following an international probe.

More than two years later nobody has been charged, with campaigners warning the delays could lead to further abuse.

Investigators in Toronto handed over 2,345 pieces of intelligence to the Government’s Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in July 2012.

The information was only passed on to the relevant police forces in November 2013 when the CEOP was taken in by the newly-created National Crime Agency.

Sussex Police received 68 referrals, of which 45 remain as ongoing investigations with nobody charged.

The total was the second highest number of referrals in the country with only the Metropolitan Force higher with 193.

Jon Brown, NSPCC lead for tackling sexual abuse, warned that some of those involved could be adults with access to children through work as doctors or school teachers.

He said: “It's vital any evidence of someone viewing or making child abuse imagery is urgently followed up by forces.

"There are clear links between accessing this material and contact offending so some offenders who make and view this abusive imagery pose a serious risk to children in communities.

"We appreciate these are complex investigations with no easy decisions and that the police are under enormous pressure dealing with the volume of these offences.

“But it's essential that offenders are quickly identified and authorities take the necessary steps.”

Child protection expert Jim Gamble, who was chief executive of CEOP, until he resigned in 2010, blamed the delays on a lack of investment.

He said: "These mistakes correlate directly to the lack of investment that has been made in child protection resources, especially in areas where the internet is involved.

"This government clearly does not understand the issues, they allowed CEOP to wither on the vine.

"There is far too much work for far too few people, and of those far too few people too few have the right specialist skills.”

He added: "Some people still think that it's somehow different, that looking is not the same as doing, that it doesn't cause the same harm and could be done by accident.

“That is simply not the case. People who look go on to do."

Sussex Police did not provide a comment yesterday.