Ashleigh Hall’s death prompted the community of Darlington to try to create something positive out of a tragic tale. David Roberts charts the success of the Safety Net campaign, which brought together The Northern Echo, Darlington College and Darlington Partnership to improve internet safety.

NO other story in the history of The Northern Echo exemplified the impact that the internet has had on our lives than the tragic case of Ashleigh Hall.

The circumstances surrounding her death were very much a 21st Century phenomenon.

Ashleigh died after a meeting a man on the internet who she thought was a teenage boy.

When she first went missing, the concerns about her whereabouts were posted on Facebook.

When the news of her death was announced, her mother, Andrea, spoke to friends about her grief through the social networking site.

Then, as the story was reported on the websites of The Northern Echo and other media organisations, tributes to Ashleigh poured in on web pages set up in her memory.

For most teenagers, and even younger children, the internet is a way of life. And it is here to stay. Yet, it quickly became apparent that there was little help or information for young people about how to stay safe online.

What information was available was not necessarily readily accessible and there was no requirement for schools to teach it.

“Stop, Look, Listen”, “Say No to Strangers”, “Clunk Click With Every Trip” are modernday parables of which every child is made aware from a very early age.

But there was no equivalent for the internet.

As Ashleigh’s grandfather, Mike Hall, said: “This is an old thing, it’s not something modern.

“When I was a lad my mam would say don’t talk to strangers – now I know why.”

It was apparent that something needed to be done to rectify this situation.

On the eve of Ashleigh Hall’s funeral, members of Darlington Borough Council’s children and young people’s scrutiny committee, along with other prominent education figures in the town, met to discuss the problem.

Their findings were alarming.

The National Curriculum had last been updated in 2000 and, while it recommended internet safety should be taught in schools, there was no guidance about how to teach it.

In Darlington schools, mentors were teaching e-safety using information provided by the thinkuknow website and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop).

However, it was up to individual schools and headteachers how that guidance was implemented.

The committee came up with nine safety measures, which it hoped would be implemented in schools across the borough and help fill the inconsistencies.

From these recommendations, The Northern Echo’s Safety Net campaign was born.

In conjunction with Darlington Borough Council and Darlington College, the newspaper called for internet safety to become a compulsory part of the school curriculum.

The challenge was to ensure that where Darlington was leading the way, the rest of the country should follow.

Councillor Jenny Chapman, Ashleigh’s ward councillor and the former cabinet member for children and young people, helped lead the campaign.

She said: “It’s important that when tragedies like this occur we don’t just shrug our shoulders and think nothing can be done. I am proud of the way Darlington’s schools, colleges and The Northern Echo have joined forces to make sure all young people know how to avoid falling into the same trap as Ashleigh.”

The campaign was endorsed by Ashleigh’s family, including her mother, Andrea, and grandfather Mike.

They were keen that Ashleigh’s legacy should be that what befell her should not happen to any other youngster.

Mr Hall said he was moved to do something after seeing the hundreds of youngsters who turned up to Ashleigh’s funeral.

He said: “It was going up to the church gates and seeing all of them, all these students, all of them crying.

“It’s them we have to get the message across to.

“They have shared our grief, and we don’t want to have to share anyone else’s grief.

“I don’t want another family to go through what we’ve gone through. We don’t want Ashleigh to go in vain.”

As the campaign gathered momentum, a number of internet social networking sites began to look at their security and safety measures.

Ashleigh’s death highlighted how it easy it was for an online predator to pose as a youngster and prey on unsuspecting victims.

Facebook’s director of policy, Richard Allan, backed The Northern Echo’s campaign for e-safety to be taught in schools.

The first sign of success was when online social networking site Bebo installed a “button” on its website which linked to the Ceop website.

Users who were sent inappropriate material, or who were victims of cyber-bullying could contact Ceop directly.

There, trained police officers and advisors could deal with the complaint.

However, a number of social networking websites, including Facebook, MySpace and Netlog resisted calls to install the Ceop button.

Some sites argued that they had their own safety measures.

However, Ceop said a link to its site would put potential victims directly in contact with police and social workers.

In Darlington, every parent was sent information about internet safety and plans are under way to make a film highlighting the dangers of the web.

In addition, a safety conference was held at Darlington College where children from every school in the town discussed how to keep safe online.

Darlington College produced Ashleigh’s Rules – a set of guidelines devised by former classmates of the 17-year-old – to be printed in a credit cardsized format and distributed to every child in Darlington.

College prinicipal Tim Grant said: “This is a good example of how young people have brought a positive out of a terrible tragedy.”

The major victory came on December 9, last year, when Schools Minister Ed Balls announced that every child over the age of five would be taught internet safety in schools.

Speaking exclusively to the Northern Echo, he said: “The circumstances that led to the tragic death of Ashleigh Hall will have resonated with every parent.

“It is every parent’s worst nightmare and underlines the need to keep children and young people safe online, something I often hear from parents.

“And it’s why The Northern Echo’s Safety Net campaign is so important. I want young people to enjoy the benefits of the internet as much as adults.

“But that means all of us – parents, schools, Government, internet providers, social networking sites – have a duty to ensure they stay safe.

“Ashleigh’s death was tragic.

No one can guarantee something like this will never happen again, but what we need to do now is do our best to make sure all children and young people are kept safe in future.”

The “Click Clever, Click Safe” campaign was accompanied by a “Zip It, Block It, Flag It” message, heralded as a Green Cross Code for the internet.

In addition, 140 websites, including Facebook and Bebo, signed up to safety guidelines protecting children and young people online.

The news that something positive had come out of such a tragedy was welcomed by Ashleigh’s family.

Her grandfather said: “I am really pleased, it is about time somebody listened to us.

“It should have been done before, but anything that can be done to prevent this happening again is good.”

Councillor Cyndi Hughes, the former chairwoman of the children and young people’s scrutiny committee, who called the initial meeting, said: “We are unique in that we have lost someone special in our community, but we are not unique in that these dangers face young and vulnerable people all the time and I am pleased that the Government sees that these are influences that every child faces.”

As technology advances in the 21st Century, it is to be hoped that Ashleigh’s legacy will be to ensure that what happened to her will not happen to any other young person.