Probing the realm of the predator

YOU'RE 10 years old, have an Irish spelling test tomorrow and your parents are refusing to let you go to the Westlife concert.

You want to gripe to the world at large so you do exactly that. You log on to your favourite internet chatroom and let the rant begin.

Within minutes there's a reply from someone who knows exactly how you feel. They think Irish is the pits too and they're determined to sneak out to the Westlife concert venue and listen from outside the walls if necessary. Cool.

Your new-found friend could indeed be just another miffed 10-year-old. But they could also be an adult paedophile who's just homed in on a potential victim.

Forensic psychologist Rachel O'Connell has herself been targeted for special, sympathetic attention when she posed as a lonely, disaffected youngster in need of someone to 'talk' to and her work is proving invaluable in understanding how paedophiles operate in a technologically sophisticated society.

A native of Montenotte in Cork city, Ms O'Connell, 33, began her research in 1996 as a PhD student at University College Cork, where she probed the sordid world of child abuse by entering paedophile internet newsgroups and recording how members exchanged fantasies, experiences and pornography.

Now head of the Cyberspace Research Unit, which she set up at the University of Central Lancashire in England, she has become recognised as a pioneer in the field and sits on the British Home Office's Internet Task Force, which is working on ways of preventing, detecting and prosecuting paedophiles who use the worldwide web to indulge their perversions.

Her work is divided into two main areas. Linking up with the National Centre for Technology in Education at Dublin City University, she is working on preventative measures to protect children from paedophiles who prey online.

Between them, they have visited 42 schools in Britain and 14 in Ireland where they held seminars with parents, teachers and children to get a clear picture of each group's understanding of the internet and the dangers it poses.

Back at base in Lancashire now, they are using the information gathered to devise information booklets for children and parents and training materials for teachers.

Ms O'Connell is also developing a dedicated website, For Kids By Kids Online, or www.fkbko.net, on which she is placing information and advice in child-friendly form, which also makes it easily understood to parents, who often know little about computers.

Ms O'Connell says: "A lot of parents don't know even how to switch on a computer and they are intimidated by the internet but they don't need to know much to keep tabs on their children. It's basic parenting the same way you ask children when they come home from school what kind of day they had.

"It's exactly the same with the internet. It's a virtual community and it might seem hi-tech but it is still populated by real people and you need to know how your child interacts with them."

The other main element of Ms O'Connell's work is a continuation of the research she began in Cork. Instead of moving among the membership of online paedophile communities, she now poses as a child to probe the "grooming" techniques of paedophiles.

She isn't the only actor online. Paedophiles too pose as children to befriend youngsters, building up a relationship until, after months of methodical manipulation, a face-to-face meeting will be suggested.

The paedophile will gently prepare the child for the shock of discovering their pal is an adult and if the child hasn't genuine affection for their cyberfriend, there is always blackmail.

The child will have been coaxed to divulge all sorts of secrets, some about their own sexual interests, and are threatened with exposure to parents or friends if they fail to go along with their pal's wishes.

There has been little research into grooming but a study in the US found 36% of paedophiles convicted of

possessing child pornography had also sexually assaulted children.

Ms O'Connell believes a pattern of behaviour can be established from using the internet to access child pornography to using chatrooms to target and groom children to perpetrating actual sexual assaults.

She is working closely with the police in Britain to see how patterns build up and leave trails to offenders.

After lengthy lobbying she recently had the satisfaction of welcoming new legislation which makes grooming a specific offence so prosecutors do not have to wait until a paedophile physically meets a child before they act.

There is still a massive amount of work to be done, however. Paedophiles use increasingly sophisticated means of avoiding detection on the internet Ms O'Connell says: "It takes two weeks to analyse a single computer hard-drive so there are enormous implications for police manpower and resources. But it's a very exciting time to be involved in this kind of work

"We're only really starting because we're only now beginning to get to understand the scale of the issues involved. When I started off it felt like I had stepped on to a speeding train and it hasn't stopped yet."