New Clause 13 - Use of electronic communication to engage in, incite, entice, or solicit an act of gross indecency with a child: amendment of the indecency with children act 1960
Criminal Justice and Police Bill
9:30 pm
Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
The new clause deals with the issue of internet chat rooms and the luring of children by paedophiles. It mirrors similar amendments tabled last year to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill and rejected by the Government, who have rejected such measures four times. The most recent occurrence was in the other place on 8 November, when the proposals were defeated fairly narrowly. The noble Lord Bassam, the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney General and the Leader of the Lords voted against them, as did the Liberal Democrats. That is surprising, given that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey has tabled new clause 18, which relates to that issue.
The new clause is primarily designed to combat paedophiles who lure or entice young children into meeting them for sex using internet chatrooms. There have recently been two well-documented cases. The first related to a girl known as Georgie, who at the age of 13 began to use internet chatrooms and became infatuated with an on-line friend who said that he was an older teenager. They made an arrangement to meet, and luckily her mother went along, because in fact, far from being a teenager, he turned out to be a rather unpleasant middle-aged man.