Girls 'forced into net porn by boyfriends'

SCOTS schoolgirls are being drawn by young boyfriends into posing for "Lolita-style" photographs that end up circulating as child pornography, delegates at a top-level conference on internet security were warned yesterday.

The one-day seminar in Stirling was told that girls as young as 12 - the age of Dolores Haze in Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 book - were taking topless pictures of themselves and inadvertently fuelling internet demand for paedophile pornography.

Speaking at the event, Detective Chief Inspector Gordon Dawson, who headed Central Scotland Police's Operation Defender, an inquiry that identified more than 200 online paedophiles, described the internet as a "huge risk" for children.

He said distribution of images often began with a girl sending a risque picture to her boyfriend over her mobile phone.

He said: "Boys ask their girlfriend to take a picture of themselves with no top on, or he'll dump her. She does it to stay with him, but inevitably they split up. Then he's sending it round his friends over Bluetooth and eventually it's seen by everyone in the school."

To double the danger, he warned, the web had given the playground bully broadband access to every child's home.

DCI Dawson told the conference, attended by parents, professionals, voluntary workers, carers, teachers, social workers and council officials: "It used to be when you left school, you wouldn't see the bullies again until the next day.

"Bullies can now text them, be on their Facebook page being abusive, or contact them on MSN. They can't escape it."

DCI Dawson warned delegates that predators used a variety of tactics to try and get a child to do what they want. He said the predators were mainly men aged between 19 and 30, and were often in respectable jobs.