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At a conference on Child Pornography yesterday, the group proposed making possession of violent pornographic material a criminal offence.

In addition, a new Centre for Child Protection on the Internet was announced that will support both the police and the child protection authorities in their efforts to target paedophiles trafficking illegal images across the Internet.

Philip Geering, policy director, said: 'The new Centre will be part of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and its aim will be to reduce the harm caused to children, families and societies by child abuse facilitated through the Internet. The CPS will be working closely with the new Centre once it is set up.'

The CPS said it also now boasts a team of 110 lawyers specially trained to crack down on Internet crime and child pornography.

The squad of lawyers is the result of a strategy involving training programmes and establishing best practices so that CPS lawyers aren't baffled by technological jargon,

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and that they can explain issues in a meaningful way to a jury.

We were told one successful example occurred when a man from East Anglia put forward a defence that in order to set up his firewall, he had to visit a number of porn sites in order to block those web addresses. While his lawyers considered the argument robust, the CPS was able to show that it was simply fallacious.

Solicitor General, Mike O'Brien QC said: 'The Government is determined to do everything to tackle crime on the internet and especially to protect children from porn merchants. We have strengthened our legal framework, giving courts the powers to pass longer sentences ... The UK is leading the way in
building stronger partnerships internationally. The creation of the international database of child victims will play an important role in the prosecution of the perpetrators of this abuse and identify their victims so protection can be provided for them.'

However, the authorities have yet to tackle the problem of viruses head on. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at UK security firm Sophos said there is as yet no formal mechanism to report virus infections. And if there was, the volume of reports would be so massive that any system set up to deal with it would require a lot of resources.

'This move is good news for businesses across the UK, but there is still room for improvement when dealing with high-tech crime. The legal system must now focus on drawing up a formal framework for reporting Internet security issues such as spyware and Trojan horse attacks,' he said.