Parents' apathy helps paedophiles target children online

Parents are failing to protect their children online and using technical ignorance as an excuse not to do more, said a senior police officer.

Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre and head of child protection for the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), said intelligence gathered by CEOP showed that child abusers were increasingly infiltrating social networking sites and other online environments to seek out and target youngsters online.

Reports to the agency concerning abuse in social networking sites increased from 11.4 per cent last year to 22 per cent this year. Mr Gamble said while it wanted the online industry to do more, parents’ continued apathy towards keeping abreast of technological developments was helping these child abusers find and groom their victims.

“Offenders use the internet, children put themselves at risk and parents and carers remain oblivious… [they] need to go beyond stating that they don’t understand this new environment. We simply do not see evidence of parents using the resources we offer,” he said.

The CEOP Centre, which today released its 2008/09 Strategic Overview outlining the emerging trends and patterns of offender behaviour, has also published a public version via podcasts and downloads.

It said it had received nearly 5,500 reports during the past 12 months; of which 2,500 came from members of the public with 1,373 of those coming from young children. Of these reports, 89 per cent related specifically to instances of grooming.

Cases in the past 12 months range from instances where offenders have infiltrated social networking and other online environments to collect pictures of young children to examples of sustained grooming and blackmail with offenders seeking to meet a child offline for abduction and sexual abuse.

CEOP also report a growing trend where offenders are using online networks to communicate with each other, show live-time abuse and share images – with the severity of the sexual contact captured, or the newness of the offence committed, gaining the offender extra kudos with like minded individuals.
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