Children’s clamour for ‘likes’ puts them at risk of predators on internet
Garda who put paedophile Matthew Horan behind bars has warned
THE senior garda who led the prosecution against paedophile Matthew Horan is warning children are leaving themselves open to perverts because their social media security settings are too low.
The 26-year-old Dubliner coerced young girls into sending him sexually graphic images and created and distributed them even while facing charges. He was jailed last month for nine-and-a-half years with two suspended.
In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview, Detective Superintendent Declan Daly of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau told the Irish Mail on Sunday children often discard security settings in the ‘race’ to get as many
‘The profile is 25 to 50, probably professional’
online friends as they can. And he warned predators are taking advantage of this to swipe images off children’s social media accounts and post them on child pornographic or prostitution sites – or contact them directly.
‘They are taking an image from an open Facebook account and using it for advertising purposes on one of these websites in a different country. The child may never know,’ Det. Supt Daly said.
‘Children have loose controls on their social media and they should have high controls. It is like a race where they want to get as many friends as they can, more likes.
‘When their security settings are low people can come on, a predator can take those images and use them. It’s called harvesting.
‘The profile is 25 to 50, maybe a little older, with adequate to good internet ability. Probably in a professional job. Could be married. From all cross-sections of society.’
The country’s top child safety garda was speaking ahead of Safer Internet Day on Wednesday. Gardai and webwise.ie – a Government and European-funded internet safety group – are using the day to raise awareness of online dangers.
And he detailed the different ways predators can get to children and young people online, including catfishing and online grooming.
‘If a child is the victim of catfishing, the predator is pretending to be somebody they are not,’ he explained. ‘The predator may pretend to be a 15-year-old and will get images of victims this way.
‘The predator may look for further images and try to coerce or threaten the child. We have had children from seven on.
‘There are different stages to grooming – building up a child’s confidence, building credibility, maybe giving the child gifts or making promises – all with the intention of coercing the child to meet them for sexual purposes or get sexually explicit images.’
Det. Supt Daly warned this is not necessarily a long process and showed us a conversation from a live case that has been completed.
‘Sex was mentioned straight away. Some of them are very quick. It can happen like that, but it doesn’t have to be quick,’ he said.
‘There are so many different ways they can communicate. They sometimes move off chat forums on to Skype or some form of private chat service.’ Det. Supt Daly stressed the key message for prevention is not to share anything.
‘Don’t share any images or if you have had an approach don’t share any more, don’t delete, preserve the evidence, tell somebody, stop the communication, block the predator and inform the gardaí,’ he said.
‘If everyone was do that a lot of the incidents online would be prevented from taking place.
‘It is a minefield and parents can feel it is a different world, a world they don’t understand. But with a little bit of work on their part there is lots of information they can get online that will educate them.’
Communication, he insisted, is key. ‘Children are given phones all the same and whenever that child gets a phone it should come with a conversation and that should be about online safeguarding and that is really, really important,’ he said.
‘Equally important as well is the parent’s reaction. Technology is very important in children’s lives. If a child is of the opinion that they will be cut off they may not tell.
‘We want children to be able to go to their parents. We don’t want a child trying to deal with this on their own. We know children let their guard down on the internet and the solution is proactive policing and effective awareness raising.
Garda efforts to protect children online have included the Online Child Exploitation Unit rebranding and two new initiatives – the Victims Identification Unit and Proactive Investigations Unit. A child abuse reporting line has also been set up.
And gardaí are working closely with Europol, Interpol and police forces in other jurisdictions.
Det. Supt Daly added: ‘There are no boundaries in the online world but we are countering this by close cooperation.’
‘Online world doesn’t have boundaries’