Campaigning in memory of Ashleigh (From The Northern Echo)

Campaigning in memory of Ashleigh

5:20pm Monday 8th March 2010 in

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Tomorrow's edition of The Northern Echo will be dominated by the trial of Peter Chapman, the Facebook murderer, who killed 17-year-old Darlington student Ashleigh Hall.

National newspapers will almost certainly lead also lead their front pages on the jailing of Chapman for a minimum of 35 years. It is clearly a story of huge national significance.

But as Ashleigh's local paper, it was important to me from the outset that The Northern Echo led a positive response to this appalling tragedy.

In our coverage tomorrow, we will tell how we worked in partnership with Darlington Borough Council and Darlington College to improve internet safety for young people in the light of Ashleigh's murder.

Together, we successfully campaigned to make internet safety part of the national curriculum and to persuade social networking sites to install safety buttons.

We also produced and distributed thousands of internet safety wallet cards for young people in Darlington. The bullet points of advice were branded "Ashleigh's Rules".

My thanks to the council and the college for making sure that the Ashleigh Hall tragedy had a positive outcome.

I hope her family finds some comfort in the knowledge that her home town took steps to protect other young people from internet predators.