Goodbye to All Chat

The police had been tipped off by suspicious parents, but even so they weren't entirely prepared for what awaited them in a hotel room in the quiet spa town of Leamington, 160 km northwest of London. As they raided one day in August, stepping over the rubber stockings, condoms and sex-aid brochures found scattered about the room's floor, the cops found a 14-year-old girl who'd been enticed there for illegal sex by a man eight years her senior. The pair had corresponded frequently in the poorly policed realm of the Microsoft Network's Internet chat rooms. As David Hipperson pleaded guilty to...