UK News 19-11-2002 "Victorian" Paedophile Laws Tightened Up who: Home Secretary David Blunkett what: Aims to eliminate child prostitution with new sex offence reforms where: House of Commons, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Any adult who pays for sex from a child under the age of 18 will face prosecution and a severe penalty - up to life imprisonment - under a tightening of the prostitution laws to be announced today," reports The Guardian today as David Blunkett prepares "to update laws on sexual offences and sexual offenders which date back to the 19th century." The Sun is quick to take credit for the reforms, saying it "had alerted Mr Blunkett to the problem by highlighting a shocking case in which a man escaped prosecution even though he enticed two 11-year-old girls into stripping for him." The Independent notes that paedophiles "who pose as teenagers on the internet" will face prosecution under the proposed legislation, making it an offence to go online to pick up minors for sex. Mr Blunkett is also expected to introduce a more comprehensive law against trafficking children for prostitution." The reforms, says The Telegraph, are based on a 2000 study, Setting the Boundaries, which said the offences of buggery, gross indecency and soliciting by men - the so-called "cottaging laws" - should be swept away. The law "should not treat people differently on the basis of their sexual orientation", it added. The Scotsman reports the shocking story of a jailed paedophile who "was caught on tape asking a man he thought was a paid assassin to murder a nine-year-old girl." Stuart Spring told an undercover policeman he thought was a hitman to "terminate" the girl he was convicted of sexually assaulting. "I want a body missing, permanently. Right, this is the one that put me in here," says the secretly recorded tape. "I want her terminated." Spring said he would like to read about his victim`s body "being discovered in woodland somewhere". [... more]

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