Police, parents and children’s charities have expressed alarm at a growing trend dubbed “sexting”, where young people send explicit and indecent photos to each other using their mobile phones.

What started out as risqué fun among adolescents has spread quickly and with serious consequences. Police have said that paedophiles are increasingly trawling social networking sites to find explicit pictures taken by teenagers of each other. They then contact the young people involved, using the photos to blackmail them into committing indecent acts.

In the past year, investigators said that there had been a huge rise in the number of pictures being stored on hard drives by paedophiles that have been taken by teenagers in relationships.

Often the photographs are taken by teenagers in relationships who then split up and place them on social networking sites such as Bebo or Facebook. The pictures also get passed around friends at school, leading to bullying.

New research revealed yesterday that a quarter of all youngsters between 11 and 18 have received a “sext” by phone or e-mail. The figures from Beatbullying , the children’s charity, show that nearly 40 per cent of young people said that they had received a sexually explicit text or e-mail. The survey of 2,094 young people in England said 23 per cent of messages came from a present boyfriend or girlfriend, 45 per cent from friends and 2 per cent from adults.

Controversial cases of sexting in Australia and the US have resulted in campaigns to educate young people about the dangers of their behaviour. Teenagers across America have been arrested on child pornography charges and there have been reports of high-school leavers losing jobs or college scholarships as a result of being identified in sexually suggestive pictures on the internet.

Last year, a woman aged 18 from Cincinnati, Ohio, killed herself after being bullied by fellow pupils who had seen photos of her naked. Jessica Logan had originally sent the pictures to her boyfriend, but they had ended up in the hands of hundreds of her schoolmates. She endured months of insults online and in person, describing her as a “whore” and a “porn queen”.

Cases of bullying as a result of sexting are now beginning to emerge in Britain. Saskia, 15, whose real name has been changed, called ChildLine after a female friend took a photo of her while she was changing.

“As far as I was concerned we were just mucking about — it just seemed a bit of fun,” she said. “I asked her to delete the picture but she just kept laughing and said no. She kept teasing me and said she would put the photo online, on MySpace.”

“I tried to take the phone off her but it turned into an argument and she left. Saskia later found the picture on MySpace — the social networking site owned by News Corp, parent company of The Times — with comments saying she was “up for it”. Her phone number was also posted, with a note telling men to call “for a good time”.

She was distressed after receiving a number of messages from boys. A ChildLine counsellor advised her to write to MySpace asking it to take down the photos, which the website did. “It was a really horrible experience,” said Saskia. “I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through that. Some people might think it’s funny but it isn’t. It’s embarrassing and humiliating and should never happen.”

Police warned that sexting left young adults at risk of being exploited by paedophiles and sexual predators. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) said that as well as blackmailing children with the pictures, paedophiles have also pretended that they are the person in the picture to snare another victim.

An intelligence review, carried out by CEOP, found paedophiles running multiple e-mail accounts, sending out hundreds of messages a day to children. The CEOP said: “Paedophiles are actively looking for these pictures and then using them as leverage. The message is, if you do not want the image to be seen by other people, don’t take it.”

Will Gardner, the chief executive of Childnet International, the child internet safety group, said: “Once you share content electronically, you’ve lost control of it. These pictures are like a cyber-tattoo. It is easy to publish information — but this content sticks with you on the web and can rear its ugly head at any time.”

Four steps to trouble

1. Sarah, 14, takes sexual photo of herself on her camera-phone and sends it to her boyfriend, James, 15. Sarah is now potentially guilty of distributing child pornography. James is potentially guilty of possession of child pornography.

2. Sarah dumps James. Out for revenge, James sends photo to his friends at school. James is now also guilty of distributing — and his friends of possession — of child pornography. Sarah is embarrassed as sexual photo of herself circulates school.

3. James’s friend uploads photo to social networking profile, where his photos are visible to the public. James is in breach of website terms and guilty of distributing child pornography.

4. Paedophiles browse profiles with loose privacy settings and find image of Sarah. Sarah unwittingly becomes subject of child pornography for distribution among strangers and paedophiles.

*******            For your childs SAFETY and your PIECE OF MIND.

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Here is some advice and an explanation of Sexting from E-how

How to Prevent Sexting

Sexting is sending and receiving explicit text messages, video, and pics via cell phones and other mobile devices. Unfortunately, it’s bordering on becoming an epidemic with teens and tweens. In 2009, it’s estimated that 1 in 5 teens will send sexually explicit messages via their cell phone (or have already).

With a generation that has grown up in a world of instant gratification, virtual reality, and ever-changing technology, it can be difficult to convey the dangers of sexting to kids. This popular trend is seen as “virtually harmless” by kids, yet causing much concern for parents and teachers alike.

Here are some suggestions to help prevent sexting with your kids: