Online Child Grooming

By Romany & Richard

 Definition

Child Grooming is actions deliberately

undertaken with the aim of befriending
and establishing an emotional
connection with a child, in order to
lower the child’s inhibitions in
preparation for child sexual abuse.
Child Grooming is also used to lure
children into sexual explotiation such
as child prostitution or the production of
child pornography.
 Examples
http://www.dailymail
.co.uk/news/article-1314900/Facebook-Bebo-used-paedop
hile-postman-groom-children.html
A postman who used social networking sites to
groom up to 1,000 children some of whom he
sexually abused was jailed for eight-and-a-half
years. Michael Williams, 28, used different profiles to
target children he met on his post round, while doing
school runs as taxi driver, and as the secretary of a
football club.He tricked his victims into performing
sex acts on a webcam or to meet him in parks,
beaches and at his home in Penryn, Cornwall, where
he abused them.
 Examples
Police say Williams dyed his hair different
colours and adopted various hairstyles to
set up a series of Facebook profiles This is one of the profile’s
pretending to be teenage boys and a girl
called gorgeous Charlie to meet children that Williams set up under
aged 11 to 16. On his own Facebook the name of James Thomas.
page he posted images of himself as a
youngster meeting Manchester United
manager Sir Alex Ferguson and players These are some of the hair
including Ryan Giggs and Peter colours which Williams
Schmeichel.Police say Williams who used to hide his identity.
used Facebook, Bebo and MSN
Messenger to chat to several victims at
once is a fantasist who kept newspaper
cuttings about Ian Huntley.
 Paedophile Rings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yZOBcZ3cOs
This video highlights how easy it is for paedophiles
to get in contact with young members of the public
as they have cracked the biggest paedophile ring
to date.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12762333
International police led by a UK team say they shut
down the largest internet paedophile ring yet
discovered.The global forum had 70,000 followers
at its height, leading to 4,000 intelligence reports
being sent to police across 30 countries.The
operation has so far identified 670 suspects and
230 abused children.
 Paedophile Rings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/07/scottish-paedophile-ring-guilt
y-child-abuse
The biggest paedophile ring in Scotland included a former welfare
campaigner for young gay men and 7 other paedophiles were convicted
of child abuse and producing indecent images of children. The men from
Edinbrugh were found guilty by a jury of more than 50 charges, ranging
from abusing infants from three months old to conspiracy and holding
more than 125,000 images of child pornography.
One, James Rennie, 38, then the chief executive of the gay and
lesbian helpline LBGT Youth Scotland, had been babysitting the
son of close friends, called Child F during the trial, since the child
was three months old. The child's parents were so comfortable
with Rennie that he was allowed to bathe, change and dress the
boy, whom he went on to abuse repeatedly for four years,
allowing another ring-leader, Neil Strachan, to participate.
 Vanessa George Case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/01/vanessa-george-plymout
h-abuse-background
The youngsters thought of her as cuddly and her workmates saw her as
bubbly and fun, the life and soul of their social events. She had never
been in trouble with the police and everyone trusted her. One mother
who had a child at the nursery said most parents considered her an
"angel".
• George began to find time alone with
children at Little Ted's, sometimes when she
changed their nappies. She sexually
assaulted them and used the camera on her
mobile phone to record the abuse. She used
objects found at the nursery in the assaults,
but also smuggled a sex toy in for at least one
attack.
 Ceop - Think U Know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp5nScG6C5g
CEOP helps young people by giving them information on how to deal
with inappropriate behaviour on the internet, such as;
Unfortunately, there are some really strange people who use the
internet - people who aren’t friendly or who have bad intentions. If
someone is being nasty to you online or on your mobile, have a look at
our bullying section for help and practical advice.
If someone is being inappropriate; saying sexual things or asking you to
do things that you feel are wrong, start by saving the conversation,
blocking them and then report it to CEOP using ‘CEOP report’.
Sometimes, people can seem really friendly and then do things which
make you question the friendship and make you feel weird.
http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/11_16/control/
Paedophiles getting caught
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=yFZc2CuCor4

An intervew with a child rapist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=yVJsDvvPJys&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=vuAIsgwHveM&feature=related
 Who should regulate the
internet?
Regulation of the internet should be a split responsibility
between the service provider, website owner and the police.
Considering our subject, we feel that paedophiles shouldn’t be
allowed internet as it is easy for them to find what they want
and should be kept on the sex offenders list. Also, they should
be under supervised release.
However, it is partly the parents responsibility to monitor what
their children are accessing. To do this, there are many
different software programmes such as, ‘Net Nanny and
PureSight’ that are able to block inappropriate and harmful
websites.