A university lecturer flew to the Channel Islands to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met online, a court was told yesterday, he set up the whole stage by grooming the teenager for months on a networking site.

Police are hunting a man who allegedly raped a woman in front of her three-year-old son after they arranged a meeting online. The mother, 23, had seen the man, known as Derek, in person several times after they initially met via the internet.

Ashleigh Hall, 17, whose body was found lying in a ditch in Sedgefield, County Durham, after she had arranged to meet someone she met on a social networking website. The trainee nursery nurse had believed she was going to meet a 16-year-old boy she had become friends with online.

Jobless drifter Peter Chapman, 32, a convicted sex offender, has been charged with killing Ashleigh, kidnap and failing to notify police of a change of address under the rules of the sex offenders register.

Ashleigh’s devastated mother, Andrea Hall, 39, has since called for security on social networking sites to be tightened in order to prevent predators from grooming children.

Internet is a bane and boon at the same time, the social networking sites are an excellent way of exchanging ideas and information and news our world in our homes has widened encompassing the whole universe.

But like all things beautiful there are some beasts also prowling, choosing their victims from the gullible, mostly innocent teenagers become their prey as the above news prove. Worst part is there is no way to control and curb the malignant activities of such evil persons.