Mediaboss Marketing

Parents warned after men target girls online

2:16pm Monday 10th June 2013 in News By Sarah Davies

MIDDLE aged men have been using social networking websites to groom young girls in Worcestershire, police have revealed.

Officers from West Mercia Police are currently involved in at least two separate investigations into men contacting teenagers in the Redditch area and their inquiries are ongoing.

The incidents have sparked detectives to urge parents and carers to talk to youngsters about the dangers of the internet.

PC Richard Waterhouse, of West Mercia Police, said: It seems that no matter how often young people are warned of the dangers at school, many young people have friends on social media sites that they do not know and have never met.

I am urging parents to sit down with their children and check their friends on sites such as facebook. If there are any that they do not know and never met they need to remove them as youngsters have no idea who these people are and are putting themselves at risk.

Young people - and their parents - often fall into the trap of assuming they are safe in their own homes, and that being upstairs in their bedroom playing on mobile phones and computers is preferable to being out on the streets.

However the sad truth is that people online may not always be who they claim to be.

"They may in fact be a sexual predator who seeks to gain a childs trust before asking them questions which make them uncomfortable, persuading them to take indecent photographs of themselves or even setting up a meeting, which is extremely dangerous.

Link:
Parents warned after men target girls online