ENGLAND • Ashleigh HALL, 17 (2009) ~ London UK

Mum of web fraud victim Ashleigh Hall urges caution



Sex offender used Facebook to lure 17-year-old trainee nursery nurse Ashleigh Hall


London: She was a young girl who lacked confidence and simply wanted a boyfriend.
Then Ashleigh Hall clicked on to Peter Chapman's Facebook profile and saw a bare-chested teenager, who was muscular, good looking and — crucially — interested in her.
Tragically for the 17-year-old trainee nursery nurse, the image of her young suitor was bogus. In fact, he was a shaven-headed 33-year-old serial rapist who would lure her to her death and dump her in a ditch.
The appalling case has highlighted the astonishing ease with which potential predators can lure in their victims via social networking sites such as Facebook. Last night, Ashleigh's mother Andrea pleaded: "Parents, ask your kids to tell you who they are talking to online."
As "calculated and wicked" Chapman began a minimum jail term of 35 years for Ashleigh's kidnap, rape and murder, it emerged that despite being a registered sex offender he had vanished off the police "radar" for over a year after his risk level was downgraded.
Costly mistake
Hall, 39, wept as horrific details of her daughter's last few hours were revealed in court. She said later: "Ashleigh wasn't a bad kid. She wasn't naughty. She made one mistake and has paid for it with her life. "Something more should have been done to stop him. He had someone else's photo on his [Facebook] page.
"It's an awful thought that there is a boy out there and this man was using his photo to prey on young girls. It is unimaginable what my family and I have been through."
Chapman had previously been jailed for raping and robbing two prostitutes at knifepoint — including a 17-year-old — but a series of failings allowed him to roam free.
Even on the day he was arrested for the murder, he was on his way to meet yet another "Facebook friend".
He was stopped by police over a suspected arson attack in Newbury, Berkshire, a month earlier.
The case shows how easy it is for teenagers to be targeted for sex or worse by convicted sex offenders who can easily fake their identities online and then arrange to meet them.

QUESTIONS over the police monitoring of sex predator Peter Chapman
have led to the launch of a high-level independent investigation.




The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) confirmed it planned to investigate how Merseyside Police monitored Chapman.
The Stockton-born 33-year-old was jailed for a minimum of 35 years on
Monday for the kidnap, rape and murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall in
County Durham in October 2009.
It emerged following the murder that Chapman, who was required to be monitored by police as he was on
the sex offenders’ register, had left his home on Merseyside without
local police knowing.
Following Chapman’s sentencing, the matter was referred to the IPCC which has now decided to conduct an
independent investigation.
IPCC Commissioner Naseem Malik said: “My sympathies go out to Ashleigh’s family and friends.
“I cannot imagine how devastating Ashleigh’s murder must have been for
them and I fully understand their anger and belief that Chapman should
not have been in a position to commit this crime.
“Our investigators will undertake a thorough review of how Merseyside Police
monitored Chapman, what intelligence and information was available
about him and what actions were taken when it was established he was
missing. It is important that if there are lessons to be learned they
are shared with police forces nationally.”
Chapman had been linked to a number of sex crimes including the knifepoint rape of two
prostitutes he picked up in Middlesbrough.
Ashleigh’s mum Andrea Hall, has called for the public to be told of sex offenders’
whereabouts and has joined Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s calls for
Facebook to install a paedophile “panic button” providing a direct link
to child protection experts at the national Child Exploitation and
Online Protection Centre.
Unlike other social networking sites like Myspace and Bebo, Facebook has rejected calls to install the button.
Mrs Hall said: “Anything that can be done should be done to stop these monsters.”

I was just gonna ask you Tom if you were placing murder cases from abroad here as well, I wasn't sure if you'd want threads here or if theres another forum for foreign cases we should place them. I have noticed their seems be something in the water in Birmingham as of late. I'll start posting the cases I come across.

I also have been trying to keep a eye on New Zealand. Kiwi Mom can tell you theres a big problem there with the punishment of child abusers, I would love to see some serious changes besides a 'no smacking' law.

Joanie wrote:I was just gonna ask you Tom if you were placing murder cases from abroad here as well, I wasn't sure if you'd want threads here or if theres another forum for foreign cases we should place them. I have noticed their seems be something in the water in Birmingham as of late. I'll start posting the cases I come across.

I also have been trying to keep a eye on New Zealand. Kiwi Mom can tell you theres a big problem there with the punishment of child abusers, I would love to see some serious changes besides a 'no smacking' law.

Well, Joanie I may create a separate forum for foreign cases if there's an interest. This one, in particular, has a "global" interest because the pedocreeps are (and have been) using seemingly innocuous social sites as a point of contact with their victims.
Read the follow-up report below.

Even after 15 years in child protection, I was shocked by what I
encountered when I spent just five minutes on a social networking site
posing as a 14-year-old girl. Within 90 seconds, a middle-aged man
wanted to perform a sex act in front of me. I was deluged by strangers asking stomach-churning questions
about my sexual experience. I was pressured to meet men with whom I'd
never before communicated. So I wasn't surprised that a vulnerable teenager, Ashleigh
Hall, was groomed on Facebook before being brutally raped and killed. Anyone who knows what an adventure playground social networking
sites offer paedophiles would only be surprised that such tragedies
don't occur more often. For the internet is full of people with sexually deviant
desires - the level of danger goes way beyond even the most worried
parent's imagination. Child sex offenders existed before the internet, but with the
inviting, anonymous environment such sites provide, they have greater
access and opportunity, which they exploit all too readily. For these depraved men are not just lurking online hoping
youngsters will find them; they are actively searching for young girls
who will fall prey to their false charms, as I discovered when I set
out to investigate this dangerous environment. Anyone who knows what an adventure playground social networking
sites offer paedophiles would only be surprised that such tragedies
don't occur more often. For the internet is full of people with sexually deviant
desires - the level of danger goes way beyond even the most worried
parent's imagination. Child sex offenders existed before the internet, but with the
inviting, anonymous environment such sites provide, they have greater
access and opportunity, which they exploit all too readily. For these depraved men are not just lurking online hoping
youngsters will find them; they are actively searching for young girls
who will fall prey to their false charms, as I discovered when I set
out to investigate this dangerous environment.
They hold down jobs and are able to perpetrate abuse by hiding behind the internet for anonymity.
I know, because I have met some of the most dangerous sex offenders in the country in prisons.
The problem is that they can be caught far too late - like 33-year-old serial rapist and killer Peter Chapman.
What happened to Ashleigh Hall is desperately sad, but not
surprising, given the proliferation of paedophiles online and the fact
that 25 per cent of girls and 14 per cent of boys who make contact with
someone online will go on to meet them in person. That is why the policing of social networking sites must be changed radically.
I have followed a Metropolitan police paedophile unit that uses a covert approach to ensnare online abusers and arrest them.
It was incredibly effective, putting ten men in jail, but it is
not practised enough. Tragically, the common police approach is
reactive: finding and arresting abusers once they have been reported.
By then the damage has been done. What is needed is a pro-active approach. The Government must
provide police forces throughout Britain with the resources for covert
policing, so they can lure men with fake teenage profiles before they
ruin the lives of real children. The hunters must become the hunted. At present, these monsters wander the internet without fear or
caution - evident by the onslaught of inappropriate messages I received
when I put my fake profile online. For what is most shocking about my investigation is not only
the number of predators waiting to pounce, but also the lack of
policing. Those men who approached me are probably still there, waiting
for young girls. In fact, they may have already found and preyed on
many more. But because we don't have proactive policing, they will remain
at large until someone they abuse reports them. As a parent, I don't
consider that acceptable. Yes, my 14-year-old daughter uses Facebook, but with stringent
privacy settings and a maximum of 30 friends, all of whom she must know
genuinely - and I am one of them. What happened to Ashleigh must never happen to another child.
We need to turn around the online environment by targeting sex
offenders before they target young girls. Ultimately, it's up to all of us - parents, teachers, police
and internet companies - to educate and protect our children. Otherwise
there are going to be many more Ashleighs.

This is the one that you were asking about last night....

Tom, thanks for posting the other articles. I think this is why we have such a huge amount of teens missing. These teens make anybody their FB friend. I know cause my niece is 14 and I dont know how she knows so many people...Cause at my age I dont even that many people and if I do I dont want them all as my friends on FB...

Augh that is stomach turning for sure Tom.

I see what your saying Tom, I'll hold off then posting 'em for now. Ashleigh Hall's case is truly a global problem. the internet hasn't just helped the world learn and share news from all over the world we may have never heard about but has also given predators a new outlet to pray on our kids.

35-year minumum sentence for Ashleigh's murderer
3:09pm Monday 8th March 2010



CONVICTED sex offender Peter Chapman, 33, was today sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 35 years after admitting the kidnap, rape and murder of teenager Ashleigh Hall.

Chapman, 33, changed his plea to guilty this morning on the day he was due to face trial at Teesside Crown Court.

Ashleigh, 17, from Darlington, was found dead on farmland near Sedgefield after going to meet a man she meet on Facebook.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox passed a life sentence on Chapman and said he would serve at least 35 years imprisonment before being considered for parole.

"For it appears to me that you are, you were at the time, and have been for some considerable time, a very great danger to young women and, for what it is worth, I cannot foresee your release," he said.

"In my judgment, your killing was of such seriousness on its own, and in conjunction with other associated offences, that it falls clearly into the category of being particularly high."

Judge Fox said Chapman had carried out a significant degree of planning and pre-meditation in snaring Ashleigh.

"This was an evil scheme very carefully brought, and with considerable detail, to trap your victim," he told Chapman.

"She was particularly vulnerable because of her age. Before you re-bound her so that she died from suffocation, all that led up must lead to mental and, in raping her, physical suffering."

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/5047782.35_year_minumum_sentence_for_Ashleigh_s_murderer/