It's horrifying and illegal'
2:58 AM
Jessica Logan posing in happier days. The teenager was a victim of 'sexting'
For the Radio 4 programme, I spoke to children from a range of public and state schools. It is certainly not the case that this behaviour is being perpetrated by those from a deprived background or those who lack intelligence. In fact, it's the privileged, supposedly brightest youngsters who are most at risk.
'What some of today's youngsters are doing is, by any civilised, contemporary standards, obscene,' says John Carr of the UK's Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety.
'It also happens to be illegal. It's a genuinely new problem which is the result of the emergence of new technology together with an increasing cultural tolerance of pornography.
'It's horrifying, and we are only now becoming aware of the full extent of the problem.
'Publishing any photograph of a child - that's anyone under 18 - which is of a sexual nature is illegal. So children who put pornographic photographs of themselves online or share the material via their mobile phones are, technically, breaking the law.'
So far, 90 children in the UK have been cautioned as a result of posting sexual material of themselves or their underage friends online or on their mobile phones.
This is the first generation to become sexually active with the internet, and the internet is playing its part in the process - sometimes with horrifying consequences.
'There was a notorious case not so long ago where a 13-year-old girl took a picture of herself touching herself in an intimate sexual manner,' says Mr Carr.
'She sent it to her boyfriend, who thought it would be smart to send it to five of his friends. Within a few hours, the police reckon, it was on about 1,000 different screens.
'The police managed to trace the girl through the school because she was wearing her uniform. They treated the case very seriously; but in the end they didn't prosecute
