Blogger News Network

May 31, 2006 

A Townsville man was arrested on Wednesday after flying to Perth to meet a member of the Cyber Predator Team who he thought was a twelve year old child.

The man was the second to be charged under the new Cyber Predator Laws which were implemented in WA in April to be used by the specialist WA Police Cyber Predator Team.

Police allege the 49-year-old organized to meet with the officer after chatting together for a week on the internet.

Major Crime Squad Detective Inspector Kellie Properjohn said the arrest was significant, 'this is a message to the public, you have to be aware this is now a borderless crime.'

'We are dealing with national and international predators that chose to come to WA to exploit our children and we have to educate our children on the risks of that and about talking to people they don't know on the Internet,' she said.

The man has been charged with using electronic communication to procure a person the offender believed to be a child to engage in sexual activity, and using electronic communication to expose a person the offender believed to be a child to indecent matter.

Attorney General Jim McGinty said the new laws carried prison terms of up to 10 years for people convicted of procuring a child they thought was under 13 for sexual or indecent activity, or supplying a child under 13 with indecent material.

'Sexual predators are notorious for using chat rooms to groom children by having sexually explicit on-line conversations and sending obscene images,' Mr McGinty said.

Mr McGinty said the new laws will enable police to go online and uncover people who trawl internet chat rooms for potential victims.

'Under these new laws, paedophiles will no longer have the anonymity of the Internet to prey on young children because police will be using the Internet to turn the tables on these perverts,' said Mr McGinty.

A range of educational strategies are also in the process of being developed to equip children to guard themselves against sexual predators who use the internet to abuse children.

These will add to the booklet already available for parents titled Who's Chatting to your Kids? which has been produced collaboratively by State, Territory and Federal police agencies.