TOWNS are cracking down on the use of camera phones at swimming pools and sports centres amid fears over paedophiles.

Middlesbrough Council has become one of the first authorities in the region to ban the increasingly popular phones, which have been promoted by adverts starring footballing superstar David Beckham.

Council chiefs say the technology can be open to abuse and they have been forced to restrict their use in sports and recreation areas in order to protect children.

Pictures taken with modern digital camera phones can be transmitted within seconds on to the Internet, and there have been reports of unauthorised children's images taken while they use sports facilities being posted on some websites.

Diane Simon, sport and leisure services manager at Middlesbrough Council, said a blanket ban was in place for the reason that that they did not have the resources to individually check every mobile phone brought into its centres.

She said: "Historically, there has always been a restriction on the use of cameras within our leisure centres.

"The current situation is that members of the public - or in fact anyone else - are prohibited from taking photographs anywhere in leisure centres without the prior permission of the centre manager, and even then there are strict conditions that must be adhered to."

Darlington Borough Council spokesman Steve Jones said staff at the authority's Dolphin Leisure Centre would ask members of the public to refrain from taking pictures with camera phones in certain instances.

But he said: "We are not the camera police and we are not going stop parents from taking pictures of their own children or at something like an organised event such as a swimming gala.

"Staff in these sort of environments are aware, though, that some people might want to take pictures and use them for illicit purposes, and if it was felt that was the case we would question that and ask them to stop."

A new report by Barnardo's, Just One Click, described mobile phone technology as "dangerous new tools" for those who seek to abuse children.

Detective Inspector Terry Jones, Internet paedophilia consultant and former head of Greater Manchester Police abusive images unit, said: "The development of digital cameras in the past three years has caused an explosion in the number of child abuse images on the net."

One local education authority, North Yorkshire County Council, has now drawn up guidelines on the subject and allows parents the opportunity to refuse their child's photograph to be used on school websites.