Offenderbill to protect children online

The grooming of children or minors for sex abuse or exploitation including arranging online to meet them will be a criminal offence under draft laws to be published today.

A wide set of measures aimed at strengthening and modernising laws to protect children or vulnerable people from abuse will also, for the first time, allow for the electronic tagging of sex offenders or paedophiles after their release from prison.

Other crimes including indecent exposure, stalking and harassment will be clamped down on with strengthened laws in the Sexual Offences Bill 2014.