Hacked sites 'host abuse images'

Jim Gamble, the former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency, has said more investment is needed in law enforcement as child abuse images are often hidden by extended security measures.

The Internet Watch Foundation has said dozens of businesses have been hacked to host images of "the worst of the worst" child sexual abuse.

They included images of newborn babies and the rape and violent sexual abuse of very young children, the charity told BBC Radio 5live.

In one case a furniture business had its servers breached and an "orphan folder" was created on the computers containing hundreds of abuse images.

Links on "adult" sites were then hijacked so that if a visitor clicked on them they would be directed to the offending material.

Pressure to act against online images of child abuse has increased in recent months following high-profile murder trials.

April Jones' killer Mark Bridger and Stuart Hazell, murderer of Tia Sharp, were both found to have accessed child and violent pornography. Some experts argue there is a clear link between their obsessions and their actions.

Prime Minister David Cameron has threatened to impose tough new laws on internet giants if they fail to blacklist key search terms for horrific images by October as part a crackdown on online pornography.

Read: Online pornography to be blocked automatically

Dozens of websites are being hacked to host images of child sexual abuse which are being inadvertently viewed by internet users, a charity has warned.

The Internet Watch Foundation said it had received 227 reports of hijacked websites in the last six weeks.

It also said legal pornographic sites had also been attacked to redirect visitors to the illegal material.

The charity's chief executive Susie Hargreaves told BBC Radio Five Live: "It means for the person whose accidentally stumbled across it, they're seeing the worst of the worst without any idea of how it actually happened."