Law change to help police trap predators

Gill Higgins confronts a man in a sting to entrap men who try to coerce girls for sex on the internet. Picture / supplied.

A law amendment will make it easier for police to lock up online sexual predators.

From March, police can pretend to be a person under the age of 16 in order to arrest older people grooming them.

Previously, if a police officer was impersonating an underage child it might not have been an offence for someone else to have made sexual advances on them.

The Crimes Amendment Act (No 3) was passed last year to strengthen the ability of agencies to "hold individuals to account for harming the most vulnerable in our community".

Alan Bell of ECPAT Child Alert welcomed the change to the law which made online predators easier to stop.

"It will allow law enforcement agents to pursue predators using the internet and bring more people to justice," Mr Bell told TVNZ.

Meanwhile, TVNZ's Close Up yesterday handed over unedited footage of middle-aged men who met an actor posing as a 14-year-old girl after grooming her in an internet chat room.

During the current affairs show's sting, a male producer on the show posed as the girl online and chatted to the men. It was made clear to the middle-aged men who chatted with the girl that she was 14 - under the age of consent - but in less than 30 seconds, one man had asked her for her bra size and "what kind of boobs" she had.

Later in the 40-minute conversation, the man asked whether the girl wanted to perform a sex act with him.

He also exposed himself to the girl using a webcam.

Many of those who propositioned the "girl" in the chatroom later arranged to meet her - but were confronted by Close Up reporter Gill Higgins when they approached an actress posing as the 14-year-old.

Last night, Higgins confirmed on the show that they had handed their footage to the police.

A police spokeswoman told the Herald that once they had received the footage they would assess it but could not comment further until they had seen it.

The Crimes Amendment Act (No 3) came as a result of the public outcry that followed the Kahui twins' deaths for which no one has been held responsible after their father was acquitted of murder.

As well as making it easier to prosecute people grooming underage girls and boys, it will also allow police to charge everyone in a household with failing to protect a child.