The BBC speaks to the charity Barnardo’s about how teenagers are affected by sexual predators that target them online.

They speak to 15 year old Lorena, who was abused after meeting a man she had been in contact with online. She had been using the internet relatively unsupervised, from an early age – logging on to sites she describes as “for older people”.

Lorena is clearly damaged by her experience, commenting how “you feel like you don’t want to exist anymore.”

Barnardo’s is worried at the number of cases where older men deliberately target, encourage, coerce and then exploit young teenagers. The charity’s chief executive, Martin Narey, calls it “a hidden obscenity”.

“There is an understandable tendency to believe this happens very rarely. In fact it’s everywhere, in every town and city in the UK,” he says. “Professionals involved with children need to know the tell-tale signs. The earlier abuse is identified, the earlier we can stop it.”

Barnardo’s believes there are a number of warning signs that parents, teachers, social workers and police officers should be able to spot. These include young people who disappear from school and home, the secretive use of mobile phones and the internet, unexplained gifts such as new clothes, jewellery, mobile phones or money, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Access the original article online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10508392.stm