Innocent people were arrested and had their children taken away after police errors meant they were wrongly accused of being paedophiles.

The mistakes emerged in a report by Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Stanley Burnton who analysed a series of blunders by officers handling phone and internet data.

It mean blameless individuals were arrested, saw their homes and electronic devices searched, and had their children taken into care as a result of serious errors.

In one instance the incorrect day and month was typed into an IP resolution request during an investigation into the use of blackmail to incite sexual acts by children over social media.

As a result, police searched an address unconnected with their investigation, carried out forensic examination of a large number of devices owned by innocent people and conducted voluntary interviews of four people, including two children who were then subject to formal safeguarding processes and separated from their parents for a weekend.