A RETIRED QC living in central Victoria faces child pornography charges following a federal police investigation into a global internet child abuse ring. Police have described some of the images and videos seized, which involved babies as young as 12 months old, as the worst ever seen.Neil James Williams, 74, of Newham, is among 22 men arrested across Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Williams was arrested by Australian Federal Police on October 22 and appeared in the Bendigo Magistrates Court shortly afterwards, where he was granted bail. The retired QC is charged with one count of using a carriage service to access child pornography and one count of knowingly possessing child pornography. A 27-year-old Maldon man, Rodney Peter Smith, was also arrested last month before appearing in court.Together with Williams he will appear at Bendigo Magistrates Court on March 4.Yesterday an AFP spokeswoman said the arrest of the men could only now be made public.“We just haven’t been able to make these arrests public previously for operational reasons . . . but we’re at the point where we can now,” she said.Operation Resistance has so far resulted in the arrests of 22 men across NSW, Victoria and Queensland.Those arrested were among 200 people from 70 countries named as persons of interest following an investigation by Brazilian authorities and the AFP.More than 15,000 videos and 500,000 images of child abuse were seized by police.AFP acting deputy commissioner of operations Andrew Colvin said two children in NSW had been removed from contact with alleged offenders. AFP acting assistant commissioner Neil Gaughan, national manager of high-tech operations, said further arrests could be expected in the next few days.Information from Brazilian police indicated that the men were trading the material through a peer-to-peer network. That allowed them to share files without going through a central network server, avoiding filters operated by the internet service providers and keeping out those not involved in the network.Police are urging anyone with suspicious about child pornography to contact local police, or report the incident online through www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com