It was a wet, cold and dark Tuesday morning when 10 doors were knocked in Fermanagh, Londonderry and Belfast by teams of specialist police officers investigating historical child sexual abuse in this county.

Detectives arrived while some of the occupants, aged between 63 and 78, were still sleeping and before they could even wake up they were arrested, placed into the back of a police car and taken to Omagh Police Station.

After checking into the station, an exercise which takes around 20 minutes, each suspect was taken to one of the 10 cells available at the PSNI facility after it had been cleared the night before. Contact was also made with legal representatives.

This was, by all accounts, a “significant” operation involving dozens of police officers and the latest in a long-running investigation into allegations made in this newspaper for most of last year.

One of the properties in Fermanagh was also searched.

Detective Superintendent Gary McDonald, Public Protection Branch said he was “not in a position to elaborate further at this time as to the specific detail of each arrest as these are very much live and ongoing investigations”.

He added: “However I want to give reassurance to both the victims and the local community that we are continuing to work on the reports made to us over the past year.”

Detective Superintendent McDonald said there had been “much local and social media speculation and commentary regarding these investigations”.

“Our enquiries are ongoing and this includes ascertaining if there are any significant or relevant links between the alleged offending.

“In order to protect the integrity of each individual investigation and to allow for prompt and effective investigations, the team of investigating officers from Public Protection Branch felt it important that these 10 people were arrested and interviewed simultaneously to ensure the integrity of the interview process.

“As our inquiries are still continuing it would not be appropriate to comment further on the detail of specific cases at this time and we would encourage people to refrain from speculation as we continue our investigations,” he said, in a statement issued to The Impartial Reporter.