Give parents ‘the right to pry on Facebook’

PARENTS should be made to sign contracts compelling them to monitor their children’s Facebook messages, the coroner in the Ann Maguire murder inquest has claimed.

Under proposals due to be presented to Matt Hancock, the digital minister, parents would be given the right to pry on their children’s accounts because their “responsibility transcends” a teenager’s “entitlement to privacy”.

The suggestions would also require children aged 13 to 18 to have a named parent on their application to open an account, and make parents contractually obliged to monitor their messages.

Kevin Mcloughlin, the coroner, outlined the proposals yesterday as a jury ruled that the murder of Ann Maguire, a Spanish teacher, could have been prevented. Delivering a conclusion of unlawful killing, the jury at Wakefield coroner’s court said that the 61-yearold’s death had resulted from “missed opportunities to share and record the problem behaviour” of her killer.

Mrs Maguire, an employee of Corpus Christi College, Leeds, was stabbed to death by Will Cornick, a pupil, during a lesson at the school on April 28 2014.

The inquest jury heard that Cornick, then 15, had exchanged a series of messages on Facebook with friends in which he professed his hatred for Mrs Maguire and his desire to harm her.

In statements following Mrs Maguire’s murder, Cornick’s parents claimed they had no prior knowledge of their son’s intentions.

Commenting on the disclosures, Mr Mcloughlin said that Cornick’s online threats had been “sinister and grotesque”, adding that he believed that “parents have a responsibility to protect children”.

In order to do this, he said that they should be given “access to supervise content”.