NI minister orders probe over teaching website run by paedophile

An official probe should establish whether children in the North were harmed by a teaching website run by a paedophile, the North's education minister said today.

Caitriona Ruane launched the review after Samuel Kinge, 28, from Worcestershire, was jailed for a second time last month for downloading abusive images of children.

He had been running the Sparklebox teaching and parenting resource website used in thousands of schools across the UK.

Access to the site was blocked earlier this month – more than three months after Kinge’s rearrest – after a parent from a Belfast primary school reported his conviction to the school, the education minister added.

Ms Ruane said Barry Mulholland, chief executive of the Western Education and Library Board, will conduct the investigation into the group which manages the IT system in the North and report back by March 24.

“The terms of reference of his investigation are... to determine if the Sparklebox website contained any content or interactive elements that would have been harmful to children. If so, to explain what action was taken regarding these elements,” she said in response to an Assembly question.

The parent had a child at Stranmillis Primary School in south Belfast.

Kinge, from Evesham, a former teacher, was jailed at Warwick Crown Court in January 2005 for possession of child pornography.

He started Sparklebox in February 2006 having changed his name from Daniel Kinge and was arrested again last September on charges of making and possessing indecent images of children.

Worcester Crown Court sentenced him to a year in prison last month with a 15-year sexual offences banning order preventing him from using a computer unless it has a police detection programme installed.

The group which manages the IT system in the North, C2k, became aware of issues surrounding Sparklebox last December and spoke to the regional broadband consortia in England, several of which had already blocked access to the site until they satisfied themselves that suitable safeguarding arrangements were in place.

Ms Ruane asked Mr Mulholland to establish and explain the actions of C2k from the time it became aware of the trial of the owner of Sparklebox to the point at which it removed access to Sparklebox from the system.

It will report on the protocols, procedures and processes used by C2k for child protection issues relating to schools’ use of its system and to assess whether they were appropriate and effective.

She also wants to know how many schools in the North used the website.

The most senior official in the North's Department of Education will oversee an examination of the department’s internal procedures and protocols.