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Networking websites 'feeding grounds' for paedophiles
Last updated at 17:22pm on 20.12.06
Social networking websites are "feeding grounds" for sex offenders who prey on children, a Met Police investigator said today.
In the last seven months the Met has arrested 22 suspects through its covert internet investigations, several of whom are now in prison, according to a briefing this morning.
Fourteen of those arrested were identified through a single operation in which they approached a police officer who was posing online as a child.
"Without a doubt, all the meeting at the moment is taking place on networking sites," said Detective Constable Jonathan Taylor.
He is one of the Met's six covert internet investigators at the Child Abuse Investigation Command, which targets child abuse of all kinds across London.
Yet though he appears online as a 12-year-old girl, with profiles set up on social networking sites as well as Yahoo and MSN, he has found entrapment is never an issue.
"There's no need [for it]. They come to me. They can just say to you 'Will you be my friend?'," he said. "They don't realise I'm a 40-year-old man."
Typically, after the initial contact has been made, the offender takes the relationship away from the website and into a private conversation via instant messaging or a mobile phone.
Those approaching covert investigators are hoping to perpetrate some very serious offences, according to the Met.
Detective Superintendent Alastair Jeffrey, acting chief of the Command, said: "Some will become sexual very quickly and others will take a lot of time grooming.
"These are men who are willing to travel to have sex with what they think is a child under the age of 16.
"They will bring with them things like condoms, lubricant - and on one occasion the suspect turned up with ligatures to restrain the child."
But grooming is not the only offence perpetrated, with children at risk of being exposed to obscene acts or images via their computer, or encouraged to carry out sexual acts over webcams.
And the profile of internet paedophiles has surprised detectives with its variety.
"There's no stereotype at at all," said Mr Jeffrey. "They are family people, they are people with children and they are professionals.
"They have one thing in common and that is to sexually corrupt a child."
The scale of the problem appears so large that the unit could expand massively in size and remain just as busy, it was said.
"I don't believe we are able to scope the problem," said Det Supt Jeffrey.
Now with Christmas approaching and many children set to receive new computers, police are warning parents to take precautions against internet predators.
Though 31 per cent of young people between the ages of nine and 19 have received unwanted sexual advances over the internet, just 7 per cent of parents know that their child has been approached in this way, according to the Met.
In addition, one in 12 children will go so far as to meet someone offline that they have met online.
To tackle the problem, parents should make sure that their computers are set up to record conversations over instant messenger programmes, so they can "monitor what is going on".
Meanwhile, children should not post personal details about themselves on websites.
Det Supt Jeffrey warned: "Children are vulnerable unless they are properly supervised."
As for the offenders themselves, he had the message: "If you think you can act with impunity and anonymity, you can't."
