Readers on a regional newspaper website were asked to pick the image they liked “best” from a set of children’s pictures in order to access an article on historic child sex abuse investigations.

The survey, a service offered by Google, appeared on the Gazette Live website, restricting access to an article headlined: “Cleveland Police investigating ’20 to 30′ historic child sexual abuse cases.”

A screengrab of the survey (below), which asked readers: “Which child do you like best?” and showed four images of young  children, was taken by Times head of investigations Alexi Mostrous.