IT BEGINS as a passing interest in looking at pictures of children being sexually abused. But within a short space of time, some men who have satisfied this need find themselves wanting more. Their new online friends begin to put pressure on them to provide them with new photos and videos of children being abused. Some men are more than happy to oblige. They begin to groom children online in an attempt to cajole them into sending them naked pictures of themselves and try to persuade them to meet them in person. The transition from someone who looks at child porn to child abuser can happen within a matter of weeks.

"Collectors" of child pornography are increasingly forming relationships with like-minded people online and are sharing rather than buying pictures. They are also pooling their collective information on how to get away undetected with assaulting children. Videos on how to groom children are shared. Abusers also swap tips about how best to masquerade as a child when interacting with kids in internet chat rooms.

A wealth of international research has identified a definite link between those who access child porn and paedophilia. One of the most widely accepted pieces of research has emerged from the American federal agency the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).

It found that 30% of people who were arrested in America for possession of child pornography were also involved in the abuse of children. "There have been various studies. One found that 80% of men in prison in the US for possession of child porn had abused children," says John Carr of the European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online (eNACSO).

"Every study in the world, except for one in Switzerland, found that there is a strong link between people who collect child porn images having a much higher probability of going out and abusing children. It makes sense. If you buy Gardener's Weekly magazine, it's more than likely you're going to spend some of your time gardening."

For some people, looking at pictures of child porn is enough to satisfy their urges. But others keep pushing the boundaries until they begin to seek out children to abuse. One of the killers of toddler James Bulger was charged last week with downloading child pornography. Jon Venables, now 27, was charged with downloading child porn using peer-to-peer networks (P2P), a popular technique in Ireland.

On one private peer-to-peer network set up online by a group of child abusers, new members who wished to join were not permitted to unless they could provide a brand new image – not an old photo – of a child being abused.

In other words, to become a member, a child porn enthusiast had to go out and abuse a child. It is also a very clever way of stopping undercover police from infiltrating the group.

"This is a very dangerous development. It's actively encouraging abuse of children. The child porn industry is becoming less about money and more about like-minded people developing communities," says Dr James Walkerdine, a research fellow at the UK's Lancaster University.

Walkerdine is involved with the ISIS organisation, which supports law enforcement agencies in policing social networks for the purpose of online child protection. The group is currently developing a software programme for police that will help them identify when an adult is masquerading as a child online through language techniques.

While adults who try to groom children online often use simple language, they can still be identifiable as adults on this new computer programme.

"Simple things like grammar and using capital letters can give someone away as being older than they actually are – also the tone of the language used and if there is an attempt at dominance," he explains.

Walkerdine and his colleagues recently undertook an experiment at a local school in Lancaster. Adults posing as children chatted online to the kids but only one in five of the children were able to tell they had been talking to an adult.

In comparison, the language software programme was able to determine correctly in 94% of cases when an adult was posing as a child. Eventually, it is hoped that the language software programme will be available for police forces worldwide, as well as for parents to install on their home computers to protect their children.

The techniques used by men who seek to groom children on the internet are becoming more sophisticated, due in part to the sharing of information by paedophiles and child porn enthusiasts online.

"Often, a paedophile will have multiple personas online. They go online as a child into a chat room, then they introduce their 'uncle' to a child they have befriended. This is to get the child used to speaking to an adult. The adult's immediate goal is to get the child to send them pictures. They then blackmail the child to send them more and more pictures by threatening to release them on the internet otherwise," explains Walkerdine.

"The blackmail continues and their eventual goal is to force the child to meet them in person."

There have also been recent instances in the UK where paedophiles posing as modelling agencies on social networking sites Facebook and Bebo have tried to cajole children into sending them photos.

Fergus Finlay, chief executive of Barnardos, says Irish society cannot be complacent about the capabilities of those who seek to sexually assault children. "There is a strong link between downloading child porn and paedophile behaviour," he says. "I'm convinced that anyone capable of downloading these images is equally as capable of trying to groom children on the internet."