Lonely children ‘most at risk from net paedophiles’

UNLOVED and lonely children are most at risk from internet paedophiles, according to a Cork-based expert.

Professor Max Taylor said paedophiles in chat rooms were skilled at exploiting children's vulnerabilities.

"You've got children who see themselves as unloved or lonely or have problems with their sexuality. Having an encounter online with someone who's terribly sympathetic, who warms to you, is very attractive to them," he said.

By the time the children meet the paedophile and realise their mistake, it is often too late, Prof Taylor added.

Prof Taylor, head of the Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe (COPINE) project at University College Cork, is addressing a conference on internet sexual abuse in Belfast today.

He said a recent survey by the Crimes Against Children Research Centre in the US state of New Hampshire revealed that one in five children had been solicited online and that one in 33 had been solicited aggressively using presents, letters or phone calls.

Prof Taylor said the alarming growth in online soliciting had made examinations of computers routine for police. "When police are investigating a missing child, one of the first questions they ask is if the person had a computer, if they used chat rooms," he said.

The COPINE project helps international police forces to identify child abusers and victims. It downloads up to 140,000 child pornography images every six weeks to carry out this work. But it is much more difficult to track down paedophiles engaging in seemingly innocent conversations in chat rooms. Professor Taylor said there was no doubt that paedophiles here were using chat rooms to 'groom' children.

"A child who goes off to meet someone is clearly at considerable risk, so it is an issue to control. I don't think there have been prosecutions here yet. But in Britain, online grooming will be an offences under the Sexual Offences Bill," he said.

The Internet Advisory Board, which was set up after a 1998 report on illegal and harmful use of the internet, said online grooming was not yet an offence here.

"It is an issue and it's something the board is considering. But what we want to do is create awareness that who you're talking to may not be who you think. That is the first line of defence," a spokeswoman said.

The Internet Advisory Board recommends that parents:

Talk to their children about dangers on the internet.

Watch their activity in chat rooms.

Check their e-mails if necessary.