100 Girls Involved in Online Child Porn Case

Mark Gary Bedford, 21, an unemployed Kingston man still living at home with his parents was arrested in relation with an online child pornography case that could involve in excess of 100 girls. Bedford allegedly has taken advantage of the girls convincing them to expose themselves on their webcams. Prior to contacting his victims, the man hacked into their e-mail accounts from where he retrieved their friends' addresses. Bedford always posed as one of their friends and used various tactics to convince the girls to go along with him, even threatening them with rape and death, according to police sources. As a result of his actions Bedford will face charges of extortion and of producing, possessing and distributing child pornography.

"I have never seen this many victims involved and in this early stage of this investigation we're looking at well in excess of 100," OPP Project P Det.-Sgt. Frank Goldschmidt said. He was unemployed; he was living at home with his parents and spent a lot of time of the Internet. There's no indication he was trying to make money."

This new child-pornography case raises yet again the question of underage children protection from online sexual predators. The sheer number of girls implicated is a proof of the system's vulnerabilities that are increasingly exploited putting minors surfing the Web at risk.