IT started as a routine visit.

PCSO Adam Grundy, 28, had good relations with the man in his 80s who he regularly saw. But something was wrong.

"This guy would engage with me, but he was being evasive,” says PSCO Grundy.

“He was standoffish and wanted me to leave.”

Then the officer noticed a condom and Viagra tablet on the kitchen table and the alarm bells began to ring.

Knowing the man had a history of sexual offending, PCSO Grundy did some digging. He found the man was visiting a woman and had access to a young girl. Social services were called in and the man was served with an agreement ensuring he had no contact with the child, potentially saving her from becoming a victim of abuse.

The case in south Durham is being lauded as the first success of a pioneering scheme adopted by Durham Constabulary, to help officers and frontline workers detect hidden signs that give child abusers away.

PSCO Grundy, who is based in south Durham put his new knowledge into effect within two weeks of completing his training on the new Intervene to Protect and Child programme (IPC).

First developed by the Texas Rangers in the US, the IPC has been tailored for use in the UK by international expert Dr Joe Sullivan.

Unveiling the programme at Durham Police headquarters, Dr Sullivan says: “IPC originated in the US with the Texas Rangers who wanted to upskill their patrol officers.

“They carried out a review of what their officers were detecting in terms of crime and discovered in the ten years before introducing this programme they didn’t have any arrests leading to the discovery of a child being exploited.

“So two Texas Rangers got experts to help them come up with a training package that would help them recognise some of the behavioural signs or indicators that a child might be being sexually exploited.

“After three years 150 victims had been identified and protected.”

It was around this time that Dr Sullivan, who advised detectives in the search for Madeleine McCann and the murder of April Jones, had a chance conversation with Durham Chief Constable Mike Barton about bringing the programme to the UK. Mr Barton agreed to pioneer it in Durham.

Dr Sullivan says: “I have been conducting research into perpetrators of sexual crimes against children for the last 19 years and have compiled a large database of accounts from perpetrators.

“They have given an enormous insight into the ways in which they go about manipulating and abusing and grooming children, but also other people to facilitate that abuse. So it is sharing the insights we have from the offenders themselves and giving the behavioural and also situational factors that they have identified as being common.

“We can say to professionals that if you see this (or that) it’s not absolute proof a child is being sexually exploited, but you antennae should certainly be twitching.”

Indicators can be global or specific to an area. Dr Sullivan does not wish to give specific details to members of the public, but says: “There are items of clothing and certain tattoos that are common among people that go about sexually exploiting young people, we would alert participants of the programme to.

“Again those will vary depending on circumstance. A tattoo on its own wouldn’t indicate a sexual offender but a tattoo with certain themes contained within the drawings might be something be using as indicator.

“Some of the individuals we have come across have had quite explicit and inappropriate material tattooed on their body.

“Or items of clothing are also indicative of a mindset. A lot of what the programme is about is helping people understand behaviour that might previously have made them feel unnerved or uneasy, but not really understanding the nature of what that behaviour is all about.”

Mr Barton says: “Part of the resonance of this is that child sexual exploitation is such a high profile issue now.

“And that serves to underline for me the need to accelerate the training and the fact that we had success so soon we are over the moon.

“Ultimately what this training did was give PCSO Grundy the confidence to know that he wouldn’t be seen as foolish by raising a concern.

“What his training does is give credence and support to what feels like a hunch. And what we are encouraging our frontline staff is to follow u on that hunch. I would prefer 99 inquiries that resulted in nothing and we find (and protect) one, rather than to miss a child that is possibly being sexually exploited.”