Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, has called for new laws to make it an offence to use Internet chat rooms to ‘groom’ children for sexual abuse and increased penalties for paedophiles who refuse to unlock encrypted information being stored on the Internet.
In advance of proposals to be announced in September, Mr Duncan Smith told conservatives.com, “Paedophiles rarely accept they are committing a crime and their re-offending rate is very high. Their movements should be monitored more closely and sentences should be appropriate to a crime which destroys young lives."
He added, “Internet ‘grooming’ should be an offence. It is quite possible to draft a clause which would stop any action by an adult towards a child for harmful sexual purposes. We should also make it a criminal offence to refuse to hand over the ‘key’ to encrypted Internet storage. Without this code, it is almost impossible to access the material and obtain vital evidence. Some things can be done quite quickly and what we are trying to do is precipitate action."
