This week we have been highlighting the murky internet world that links perverts and paedophiles with our children. Writing about it is one thing, but we decided to go a step further and access some of the teen chat sites to see if there really are hidden dangers lurking on screen. Parents who are wondering whether or not to let their children use chatrooms might want to think twice after reading this. Zena Hawley describes what happened when an Evening Telegraph reporter went online.

"SO what have you done with a guy so far, then?''

Steve believed that "Kathryn'' was just 14 when he asked this question, minutes after she had logged into a teen chat room.

An Evening Telegraph female reporter had taken the guise of "Kathryn" to see what would happen when a teenager signed on to Teensay.co.uk.

What followed was a litany of questions about sex – even when the reporter tried to evade the subject and put them off.

It was clear that even if "Kathryn'' had just wanted to talk about other matters, the men were desperate to talk about sex.

Logging into the teen chat room couldn't be easier.

"Kathryn'' went online during the early evening – the most popular time for teenagers to log on to home computers.

Typing 'teen chat' into an internet search engine, she quickly found a number of sites that specialise in chat forums for young people.

Giving herself the user name Derby_girl 94, she was able to enter the first chat room without providing any more information about herself.

She went on to Teensay.co.uk, which advertises itself as "a safe and friendly community for everyone" and is run by Nitronet, which has a company address in Burton.

Users can contribute to a group conversation or engage in one-to-one chat with each other, known as a private chat, that other users cannot view.

Within seconds, the first contact was made by Steve, who engaged "Kathryn'' in a private chat.

Steve claimed he was 17 and into sport but within minutes, he had asked our reporter whether she was "into older guys".

During the first 30 minutes in the chat room, Derby_girl94 was bombarded by window after window of sexually-charged messages, requests for her picture and invitations to have a private chat, which appear to be unmonitored by the site's administrators.

At the same time, the main chat room, with its fast-scrolling text, had more than 350 people on it, and sexual content was rife, despite the site's rules asking users to "keep it clean".

The anonymity of speaking to people in chat rooms means that you really don't know who you are talking to.

Although our reporter's conversation with Steve started in a fairly normal way, it was not long before it became sexual.

The chat turned from sport and cinema to Derby_girl94's bra size.

He then wrote: "So what have you done with a guy so far, then?"

She said "just snogged" and he replied by giving a graphic description of his favourite sexual position and sex acts too graphic to describe here.

When "Kathryn'' expressed her surprise, he informed her he had lost his virginity at 14.

But worse was to follow from a user called simore88 in a chat room on Teenspot.com.

This website requires users to sign up before allowing them access. But this only requires a date of birth, postcode and an e-mail address.

Simore88 started in the same way everyone does in chat rooms with "asl" – shorthand for a request for the other person's age, sex and location.

This time posing as Derby_girl95, our reporter told him she was 14 and from Derby.

He responded by telling her he was from the USA and aged 20.

He asked her if that was too old for her? She replied that it wasn't too old to chat.

Immediately he wrote: "What about doing more?" When asked what he meant, he replied: "c2c rp phon3 sex".

He was suggesting phone sex but had disguised some of the words with numbers so monitoring wouldn't pick them up.

Hotrod20 also chose to strike up a chat with our reporter on the same site.

He wasted little time after he found out she her age in asking her "how big ur boobs?".

Also waiting to pounce on her was Guywithcamforgirl, from Florida.

He was also interested in our reporter's chest size after initially asking where Derby is.

"Kathryn'' made her excuses and left the chat rooms and said how surprised she was by the sexual nature of everyone's conversations.

She said: "If you are looking for a nice conversation on a shared interest then unless it's sex, you're wasting your time.

"To be honest, I am appalled by the attitude of the men towards a 14-year-old girl.

"I think that Steve probably disturbed me most of all because his language was too mature for even a 17-year-old, in my opinion.

"He didn't use the normal text speak that I was using and he was very explicit about wanting to get me on to a webcam, MSN or the phone."

Earlier this week, we featured an 11-year-old girl who was allowed to access an AOL chat room which is monitored and suspect words are blocked.

A middle-aged paedophile posing as an 11-year-old targeted her there but then suggested they speak on the MSN instant messenger service.

This enables the predator to communicate directly without fear that the chat is being monitored or observed.

Our reporter found that she, too, was repeatedly asked to go on to MSN to talk further.

The mother of the 11-year-old regrets the day she allowed her daughter to go into a chat room. She informed the police when she accessed the MSN log after eight weeks and the paedophile was tracked down.

She said: "Parents need to be aware of the dangers of these internet sites."

For more information about safeguarding children on the internet, go to ceop.gov.uk/par ents or www.thinkuknow.co.uk.