A MEMBER of Parliament has pledged to push for more stringent controls on sex offenders using the internet on the second anniversary of a teenager’s murder.
Ashleigh Hall, from Darlington, was murdered by convicted sex offender Peter Chapman two years ago today after she was groomed by him on the social networking site, Facebook.
The 33-year-old had tricked 17- year-old Ashleigh into meeting him after pretending to be a goodlooking 19-year-old man.
The murder led to The Northern Echo setting up the Safety Net campaign which called for greater education in schools about internet safety and more stringent controls on social media.
The campaign helped to make e-safety a compulsory part of the school curriculum and worked to persuade Facebook to install a “safety button” linking to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.
The social networking site has also installed a range of other features designed to protect children.
However, Darlington’s MP, Jenny Chapman has said work is still needed to monitor convicted paedophiles online.
She said: “I think this is the one issue the Government has failed to look at properly.
“It seems to me that if you are going to attempt to monitor the activities of dangerous individuals in the community, then not to check their use of the internet in 2011, is ridiculous.”
Mrs Chapman has said sex offenders’ online identities should be registered and if they use unregistered identities, it would be a breach of their sexual offences prevention order and they could be prosecuted.
She said that Surrey police force has successfully trialled a similar system of monitoring sex offenders’ online usage.
Mrs Chapman, who is the shadow prisons minister, added: “This is the one thing that can be done with internet safety.
“Young people’s awareness of internet safety is now far, far higher than it was before and that is the one good thing that is come of out of this horrible tragedy.”
Yesterday, Ashleigh’s grandfather Mike Hall said: “I’m in favour of anything that would prevent this happening again.
“It takes a long time to get over this, I am just coming to terms with it and then someone mentions it and I’ll start crying again.”
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