Police are reporting that children are pretending to be paedophiles in order
to frighten their classmates online.
Police in Devon and Cornwall are investigating claims that nine children were
harassed on social networking sites by someone who was originally thought to be
an adult. But a witness has claimed that the culprits are children who are
pretending to be predatory paedophiles in order to scare classmates.
A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall police told the Guardian: "
Information from the public has highlighted a possibility that the offenders
could be children aged 10 and over, masquerading as a paedophile."
"The investigations are continuing and at this moment we are looking into
every line of inquiry and are not ruling out any possibility. It could be
youngsters playing a sick game to try and intimidate friends they have fallen
out with."
"This will be treated seriously and we will be contacting the families of the
children involved and we will try and help them by involving social services."
The events occurred in Padstow in Cornwall and initially caused a panic among
parents.
A spokesman for the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre told the
newspaper: "We have many incidents of cyber-bullying – where children use the
internet as a forum to pursue grievances – but have not heard of this happening
before. It sounds like a very extreme and worrying course of action."
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