You've read the horror stories in the papers, seen the desperate parents on the news, but could a pedophile really trick your internet-savvy child? John Carr, the National Child Helpline's Internet Consultant explains more

How grooming starts
Adults with an established sexual interest in children will frequently go to chat rooms that are known to be popular with children.

They will generally keep up to date with all the latest fashions in clothes, music and sport so they can present themselves as being another child, or as someone who is in tune with children's interests. The adult might be particularly adept at identifying younger, more naive or vulnerable children in a chat room, and he will make them the focus of his attention. He will try to be their 'special friend'.

Lies and deceit
At first the adult will almost certainly lie about his age as part of a calculated process to establish a closer relationship with the child. He may be skilful at communicating with children. At some later stage he may, or may not, reveal the truth about his age. Typically, if he does it is because he believes he has developed such a close bond with the child that the child will accept it and not see it as deceitful.

Taking it off line
The initial contact may quickly move from an open, public or semi-public chat room, to a private chat room, then onto email, to SMS text messaging via mobile phones, instant messaging, and then to direct voice contact via a fixed or mobile phone, or even by voice over the internet.

There have been instances where the predator has sent a mobile phone to the child to ensure that the child's parents have no way of knowing about, or monitoring, contact between the two.

There have even been cases where the predator has established a Freephone number for the child to call him on. In the UK, Freephone numbers do not show up on telephone bills; again making monitoring impossible, or at any rate very difficult. Secretiveness is generally essential to the abuser's strategy.

The shocking facts
So far, in the UK, following the sort of grooming process outlined above, in the past two to three years 25 children or young people have subsequently gone off to meet such predators in real life, and have been either raped by them or subjected to a serious sexual assault. Of the 25, 22 were girls and three were boys. We know about these 25 children because, in each case, the crime was reported, the perpetrators were caught, convicted and sent to jail.

We do not, of course, know how many cases there have been where no prosecution was not brought or did not succeed for want of evidence, or because the incident was not reported to the police. But we can be sure that 25 convictions does not represent the real level of offending.

For more information about the NCH go to www.nch.org.uk