Child grooming: Mother of murdered teen calls on PM to fix flaw in law to catch predators
The mother of a teenager who was groomed and murdered by a man he met on the internet has called on Prime Minister Theresa May to honour her pledge to fix a legal loophole to stop sexual predators.
Thousands of predators are thought to have gone unpunished as police can only arrest them if they meet the children they groom online.
At least 4,000 cases of grooming young children for sex have reportedly ended without prosecution because a law passed to deal with the issue has been sitting in a Ministry of Justice in-tray for two years.
It means despite the legislation being created two years ago, grooming alone is still not technically illegal in England and Wales.
Lorin LaFave's 14-year-old son Breck Bednar was brutally murdered by 20-year-old Lewis Daynes in a sexually motivated attack in February 2014.
Ms LaFave told ITV's Good Morning Britain she was "shocked" to learn the legislation endorsed by Mrs May while she was home secretary had still not been enacted into law after she entered Downing Street.
The new law would make it illegal for an adult to send a sexual communication to a child.
Ms LaFave said it will never be known if the extra measure could have prevented her son's murder, but appealed directly to the prime minister to make it law.
"Please, Theresa, make sure this gets through," she said. "We owe it to our children to do everything we can to deter predators from contacting our children."
She added: "We have to use our police resources in every way that we can to protect children.
"They're vulnerable. Every single child has a vulnerability. We need to use every law and every resource possible to keep them safe."
The absence of the law means police can currently only catch known or suspected offenders on other charges.
Good Morning Britain reported at least 4,000 cases of grooming young children for sex had gone unpunished because the law passed to deal with the issue has been sitting in a Ministry of Justice in-tray for two years.
The NSPCC has called on the Government to fix what they call the 'Flaw in the Law' after figures showed child grooming cases have tripled in the last five years.