In the UK, the Home Secretary (the chap in charge of crime and security for the UK population) has announced plans to increase the risks of active sex offenders by ensuring that their online details including usernames and email addresses are published on the sex offender's register when caught. This is a positive step, although we all know that emails can be forged or changed and usernames are fluid. But it does, however, represent steps towards trying to make online life safer, especially for children. And this is something we need - right?

But that in itself may be misguided. In a recent survey, the vast majority of parents reported anxiety or concern with regard to their children using the internet yet statistics show that it is very rare, even in these days, for boys or girls to be groomed on the internet. In Britain alone, there were only approximately 40 cases investigated last year and far less convictions. Contrast that with real world statistics.

In the "real" world, sexual abuse involving contact is reported by at least 14 % of youngsters proving, or at least suggesting, that grooming and sexual contact in the real world is a far greater concern. It is those children who live in fear in the home, not in cyberspace, that the statistics pray for. While online activities need to be policed and it is commendable that the metropolitan police, in particular, have taken steps towards combating this horror, would it not be better and more productive to target resources towards the real offline world first?