Web phones fuel child porn fears

Offences involving child pornography have jumped by 1,500 per cent since 1988, and third-generation mobile phones could make the problem worse, a children's charity has warned.

A report from NCH, formerly National Children's Homes, said that 549 people were proceeded against by police for child pornography offences in 2002, compared with only 35 in 1988.

The charity explained that GPRS and 3G internet-enabled mobile phones are set to make the situation worse as offenders will be harder to track than when using fixed line internet connections.

"Almost all the issues of child safety on the internet that exist today become much more complex when the internet goes on the street," said NCH.

John Carr, the author of the report, told BBC Radio Five Live that the internet has been fuelling the explosion in child porn offences.

"In the pre-internet days, if you wanted to get hold of child abuse images it was quite a difficult thing to do," he said.

"The internet completely changed all that. People perhaps with a suppressed or latent interest in it have now got a mechanism. They think the internet is anonymous."

Ray Wyre, a sexual crime consultant who has treated offenders, said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the huge percentage rise in convictions was probably because the problem was worse in the past than previously thought.

"Before 1988 the possession of child pornography was not an offence," he explained.