Internet Advice for Kent Parents

10 November 2010, 00:00 | Updated: 10 November 2010, 06:39

Police in South Kent are warning parents to make sure their children know the dangers of accepting strangers as friends on social network sites like Facebook.

It follows a case at Canterbury Crown Court last week where 31-year-old Peter James Jenkins of Westbury Road, Dover was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for grooming a 14-year-old boy.

Jenkins was arrested in April this year, and following a lengthy police investigation he admitted sexually grooming the boy after sending him a friend request on Facebook using a false identity.

Fortunately the boy became suspicious and raised the alarm and police carried out a warrant at Jenkins’ home address. He was charged with the offence and remanded in custody.

He was sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court on Tuesday 2 November.

The court decided that the 206 says he spent in custody on remand will count towards his two-and-a-half year sentence.

He was also given a Sexual Offences Prevention Order for 10 years effective until 2 Nov 2020. This means he is disqualified from working with children and prohibited from:


1. Denying access to police officers who attend to check whether these conditions are being complied with
2.  Undertaking any work or other activity where paid or unpaid which exposes him to unsupervised contact with any child under age of 16 yrs
3. Not to deliberately take any photographs or camera footage by whatever means of any child under 16 other than his own children
4.  Not to be in possession of or operate any webcam or portable camcorder
5.  Not to own or use any Facebook, Bebo, Twitter or other social networking site either via the internet or by any other medium capable of accessing the internet. Breach of this order is punishable with up to 5 years imprisonment.

PC Craig Ransley who investigated the case said: “Kent Police is committed to and will always seek to prosecute anybody who sexually offends against children.

Hear our Interview with Detective Inspector Tara Mitchell

This also shows that parents and children need to be aware of who they are in contact with and only accept friend requests and communicate with people they know in person and can trust."

Facebook users can now add a ‘Click CEOP’ feature on their accounts, which is very useful for children to report anything suspicious:

Parents and children can find more information about internet safety on the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) website: