Mobile phone child porn fears as crimes rocket

Published on Monday 12 January 2004 00:00

CHILD pornography crimes have rocketed 1500 per cent since 1988 - and an avalanche of more porn could be unleashed by new internet mobile phones, a report out today warned.

The massive rise in child porn offences is mainly due to the increase in use of the internet, according to the report from children’s charity NCH.

And now the launch of mobile phones which can access the internet will make the sickening trade even more widespread and difficult to combat, experts fear.

Child welfare professionals are worried the new phones will be used by paedophiles to access child sex sites, take pictures of sex with children and trade in vile images of abuse.

It will make it very difficult to trace paedophiles viewing child abuse images as well as increasing the risk children could be "groomed" for abuse while using the internet by mobile phone away from their parents.

Paedophiles have used the anonymity of the internet to prey on children - but some have been caught by tracing the computer’s owner.

But the mobile phone network is even more anonymous.

Prepaid mobile phones bought for cash cannot be traced as there is no record of who owns the handset. And advanced 3G - third generation - technology will allow paedophiles to access child porn on pay-as-you-go phones, with impunity.

Children’s charity NCH (formerly National Children’s Homes) said 549 child porn perverts were charged or cautioned in 2002, compared to just 35 in 1988.

Numbers were expected to rise even further when final data was published for 2002 due to the impact of Operation Ore, the investigation into 6500 Britons alleged to have used credit cards to access internet child porn, the charity said.