HAMPTON — As the result of a search warrant executed Thursday at a home in Hampton by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office, the GBI charged Michael Jeremy Batchelor with one count of possession of child pornography (OCGA 16-12-100) after images of child pornography were found on his computer. Batchelor, 38, was taken to the Spalding County Jail.

The search warrant was obtained as a result of evidence developed by the GBI of peer-to-peer sharing of child pornography images from a computer at Batchelor’s residence on Old Atlanta Road in Hampton. During the on-site forensic preview of the computer, several files of suspected child pornography were discovered. A computer and several hard drives in Batchelor’s residence were seized as evidence.

This investigation is part of the ongoing effort by the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, housed within the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit, to identify those involved in the child porn trade. The ICAC Program, created by the U. S. Department of Justice, was developed in response to the increasing number of children and teenagers using the Internet, the proliferation of child pornography, and the heightened online activity by predators searching for unsupervised contact with underage victims. The Task Force consists of 182 affiliate Georgia law enforcement agencies.

In 2008, the Georgia ICAC Task Force made 109 arrests and in 2009 made 164 arrests. In 2010, the Task Force made 162 arrests and in 2011, made 173 arrests. So far this year, there have been 52 arrests. There have been 820 arrests in Georgia by the ICAC Task Force since it was established in 2002.