Sara Payne backs call to block online porn as she says images could encourage perverts to turn fantasies into reality

By Chris Greenwood for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:36 EDT, 7 May 2012 | Updated: 08:55 EDT, 9 May 2012

The mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne last night backed the Daily Mail’s campaign for an automatic block on online pornography.

Sara Payne said she feared easy access to hardcore images on the web could encourage perverts to turn their fantasies into reality.

The campaigner, whose eight-year-old daughter was abducted and killed by paedophile Roy Whiting, called on the Government to intervene to protect youngsters.

Support: Mother of murdered school girl Sarah Payne, left, Sara Payne, right, has added her backing to the Daily Mail's campaign to limit access to porn online

Her comments will increase pressure on David Cameron to introduce the toughest possible protections.

The Prime Minister is already considering introducing web filters to make adults ‘opt in’ if they wish to view pornography and last week said he planned to consult on the issue.

But ministers are also considering less stringent options than the automatic block.

Mrs Payne said: ‘We think it should be an opt in – something you actively choose.

‘We have a duty to protect our children from being morally and emotionally corrupted from images that serve as a gateway to a bad and dangerous place.

‘We are not saying this applies to everyone who looks at pornography but sex should be a consensual activity by adults.’

Campaigners fear children as young as 11 are becoming addicted to obscene online material, which they can access freely through web-enabled mobile phones or computers.

Research suggests as many  as one in three ten-year-olds has seen pornography on the web and 80 per cent of children in their mid teens admit regularly viewing explicit images and videos.

Addiction: According to experts children are more likely to get hooked on pornography and some have even said to be spending 10 hours a day looking at explicit material

Horror: Police officers discovered the body of Sarah Payne after searching for the school girl for two weeks

Tory backbencher Claire Perry has accused internet companies of being ‘complicit’ in exposing children to damaging material.

Internet providers prefer a less stringent ‘opt out’ system under which parents are simply offered the choice to install a filter.

Companies who control the £3billion-a-year market in access to the internet said it should not be up to them to ‘police’ what those using the web can see.

But they have been accused of being driven by profit because explicit internet traffic is so lucrative.

Evil: Paedophile Roy Whiting abducted and killed eight-year-old Sarah Payne

Since the murder of her daughter in July 2000, Mrs Payne has been dedicated to campaigning for tougher laws to control the activities of paedophiles.

She successfully saw the introduction of ‘Sarah’s Law’, a scheme which allows parents to check whether people with access to their children are child sex offenders, and has continued to campaign despite suffering a stroke.

Shy Keenan, who founded paedophile victim support group Phoenix Chief Advocates with Mrs Payne (www.thephoenixpost.com), added that sex crime victims often said that their attackers were influenced by pornography.

She said: ‘The evidence cannot be ignored that for a small number of people, looking at extreme pornography can lead to violent acts.

‘The number of times we have heard of people with the most disgusting indecent images of children who say they started with regular pornography.

‘Every single attack on a child starts out as a fantasy. The number of fantasies that become reality depends on the individual and their lifestyle.’

Last week, Tory MP for Devizes Mrs Perry called for the internet to be regulated in the same way as television.

Caged: Whiting, pictured being interviewed by police, was jailed for life for the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne and told that he will never be released

She said: ‘We don’t want to ban pornography, we don’t want to make it illegal. But what we want is better protection that preserves consumer choice, and that is where an opt-in solution delivers on both counts.’

Her comments came after a ruling in the High Court that the five major internet service providers had to block users’ access to an illegal content-sharing website, The Pirate Bay.

The move was widely seen  as evidence that stronger  action could be taken if the  law demanded.

The Internet Service Providers’ Association has said their members should not be forced into the position of ‘judge and jury’ when it comes to combating piracy.

A spokesman said: ‘It’s not for the ISPs to be the police of all that content.

‘It’s not down to an ISP to decide what content the people of Britain should look at.’