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April's parents call for child porn block ; PM 'HAPPY TO MEET THEM' TO DISCUSS CRACKDOWN [Daily Post (Liverpool, England)](Daily Post (Liverpool, England) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) THE parents of murdered North Wales girl April Jones have demanded more action to tackle child abuse images on the internet as ministers and technology giants agreed a new crackdown. In interviews with Channel 5 News, five-year-old April's parents Paul and Coral Jones and Steven Carter, father of 12-year-old murder victim Tia Sharp, said their children's killers were spurred on by sick images found online. Their comments came after senior figures from Google, Microsoft and BT were summoned to Parliament for a meeting with Culture Secretary Maria Miller. The four main UK internet service providers (ISPs) have agreed to provide an extra Pounds 1 million funding for the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to help it work with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop). David Cameron, in Northern Ireland hosting the G8 summit, hailed the "important steps" that had been taken. He said he was happy to meet the bereaved parents to discuss the issues. "I am personally committed to making sure we drive action on this agenda," the Prime Minister told a press conference. Mark Bridger, who killed April in Mid-Wales, and Stuart Hazell, murderer of Tia in south London, were both found to have accessed child and violent pornography, and some experts argue there is a clear link between their obsessions and their actions. Mrs Jones told Channel 5 News that she would keep pressing the Government to take tougher action. "April was a fighter from the word go and I promised her I'll do this for her," she said. "I said I'll help other children, so their family don't have to go through this, their brothers and sisters. It's not just us it affects, it affects brothers and sisters as well. I just want it stopped and I think the Government should put more pressure and get it done now. "I'm going to do April's internet fight so everyone else can help as well. If they see something they don't think is right, contact the police, so that person can help themselves before it goes too far and someone else is killed or abused." Mr Carter, Tia's biological father, said stopping indecent images of children from being published online could have saved his daughter Tia, who was brutally murdered by Stuart Hazell. He said: "You're fuelling the beast and it needs to be stopped." Representatives from Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, Vodafone, O2, EE and Three were summoned to the meeting in Westminster. The IWF only acts on content that has been reported to it rather than proactively seeking out illegal images. Mrs Miller said: "Now, for the first time, the IWF has been asked to work alongside Ceop to search for illegal and abusive images and block them." She added that the ISPs had agreed to introduce "splash pages" which tell people that the images they are attempting to view are illegal. In a joint statement, the UK's four largest ISPs - BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media - said they will work with Government and Ceop to establish how best the additional Pounds 1 million can be spent. Peter Davies, chief executive of the Ceop Centre, which attended the meeting, said: "It is essential we all work together to provide a consistent approach to prevent ISP platforms and/or services being used for these purposes." The firms will report to the Culture Secretary within a month on how they will support the IWF's proactive stance. However, shadow culture minister Helen Goodman said the meeting had been a "damp squib". "While splash pages are a welcome step forward, the agreement of just an extra Pounds 250,000 a year for four years from the industry for the Internet Watch Foundation is woeful," she said. "The internet service providers are still refusing to put filters on as default for all customers. "We need proper measures to stop people viewing child abuse hiding in anonymity." (c) 2013 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |