A cold wind of change is blowing through the kiddie chat rooms of the Internet. In a surprise move this morning, UK Home Secretary, Charles 'fat boy' Clarke, took time off from fondling the final new designs for compulsory ID cards, to announce a new amendment to the Sexual Offences Act which will make it a crime for children under sixteen to chat to adults on the Net.

If convicted, offenders face up to ten years community service, or the withdrawal of their pocket money for life. The offence is targeted at the gangs of terrorist tots, some as young as eleven or twelve, who contact adults on the internet and extort money from them by accusing them of 'kiddie fiddling'. According to a report by the charity Help the Aged, child abuse of adults on the Internet has soared by roughly 1,592,738.37 per cent since 1995.

"The act can't come soon enough for me," said Mr Harold Gussett (91). The frail pensioner from Penge has been repeatedly targeted by the teenie cyber-criminals. "The little monsters robbed me blind. First they took my pension money and then my savings. Child abuse has ruined my life."

Another victim of this scandalous scourge was too terrified to give his name, but told us: "I was only looking for tips on how to enlarge my marrows with a vacuum pump when I received an instant message from someone called 'surfergurl69'. I was so shocked I dropped my pinking shears and fell out of my zimmer frame! She said that if I didn't send fifty pounds to her paypal account she would tell the Police I'd been fiddling with her. Is this what I fought two world wars for?"

Other concerned adults we spoke to expressed their relief at the introduction of the new law.
"I'm delighted that Charles Clarke has finally done something to curb the crimes of these predatory puppies," said Freddy Frimley (45), founder of the Fathers Against Revolting Teenagers action group. "The problem has got so bad that some of our older members are afraid to go online for fear of being blackmailed by some precocious pre-pubescent looking for a quick way to fund their new X-Box."

Does the new law worry these abominable abusers? Not a bit of it. Veteran blackmailer, 'Rachel' (not her real name) told us: "I always login from a different cyber-cafe every time and change my Hotmail account every couple of days. My mum thinks I'm doing community service for da Beavers. Well — in a way I am!"
Rachel (13), a pretty, blond-haired schoolgirl from London who looks as though butter wouldn't melt in her pouting mouth, explained how she operates.
"It's child's play, innit," chortled the cheeky chatroom chit. "All ya do is groom them for a bit until they upload some pics to their ICQ profile. Then ya download da really buff ones, do a bit of photoshopping and you've got a really fit shot of them with their hand in your knickers."

Rachel went on to show us several snaps that any self-respecting kiddie-fiddler would have killed for. Clearly, this enterprising entrepreneur knows a business opportunity when she sees it. We asked her how much money she'd made from her sleazy scam.
"About eight hundred and twenty quid at the last count," cooed the clever charmer.
"Doesn't it worry you that your activities could send innocent people to prison?"
"Nah," she replied with a coquettish toss of her angelic locks, "The stupid sods always pay up."

We asked 'Carly' (not her real name either), another self-confessed child abuser (or 'kiddie stitcher' as they prefer to call themselves) why they do it.
"I’m hooked on da power trip, y'know?" chirped the chatroom chick. "I mean it's so kewl to hear these cheesy idiots squirm when you mail them with a really filthy pic. I mean, who's gonna take da word of some lonely old geezer in a plastic mac over a ten-year-old girl whose Dad's a copper?"

We put this tricky point to a spokesperson from the Crown Prosecution Service.
"We have to rely on the evidence that is submitted to us."
"What if the evidence is a snap of an elderly gardener with his marrow up a little boy's bottom?" we asked.
"Then the unfortunate gent is well and truly buggered," retorted the spokesperson.
"What if the image has been faked?"
"We're simply not equipped to examine every image sent to us for evidence of malicious manipulation. We have to assume that children are inherently honest and well-meaning."
"Have you read 'Lord of the Flies'?" we asked him.
"No - is it out on DVD?"

With such entrenched resistance to the very idea of child abuse it is no wonder that thousands of calculating cyber-criminals have been getting away with murder on the Internet. We hope this new act will nip this nefarious rug-rat racket in the bud before another pensioner falls victim to these sick extortionists.

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