#Technology: Net blamed for rise in child porn

The internet is largely to blame for the huge rise in child porn offences, according to a report by NCH, formerly National Children's Homes.

The charity says 549 child porn offenders were charged or cautioned in 2001, compared with only 35 in 1988.

The charity fears new third generation 3G phones, with video streaming, will lead to even more offences because they are in some ways even more anonymous.

John Carr, the author of the report, told BBC Radio Five Live: "In pre-internet days, if you wanted to get hold of child abuse images it was quite a difficult thing to do...

"The internet completely changed all that. People perhaps with a suppressed or latent interest in it have now got a mechanism... they think the internet is anonymous."

He said offences committed through chat rooms had also been rising "steeply".

But Ray Wyre, a sexual crime consultant who has treated offenders, said the problem may have been worse in the past than society had realised.

"Before 1988 child pornography, the possession of it, was not an offence," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Up until then I had clients who had even been given back the child pornography after they'd hands-on abused because there was no power to keep it."