STUDENTS at a South Lakeland school have been helping researchers to develop software to identify adults masquerading as children on internet chat sites.

More than 350 pupils at Queen Elizabeth School, Kirkby Lonsdale, took part in an experiment aimed at tracking paedophiles online.

The ‘chilling’ results showed that four out of five pupils – some as old as 17 – struggled to tell the age of who they were talking to.

Deputy head Alison Wilkinson said: “QES is committed to keeping its students safe beyond the school gates and beyond the school day.

"It has been chilling to watch them being taken in by adults.”

She added: “We are concerned about the dangers our pupils face when they are online and have welcomed the opportunity to help the project at the same time as raising pupils’ awareness of the dangers.”

Groups of children from QES have been taking part in experiments where they have chatted to researchers over the internet for months.

The exercise helped to build a picture of the language and slang words used by children who chat online.

But unknown to the QES pupils, they were also taking part in an experiment to find out if they knew when they were talking to adults posing as children.

Lead researcher Prof Awais Rashid, of Lancaster University, said: “Paedophiles often pose as children online and our research indicates that children don’t find it easy to spot an adult.

"The school has been putting enormous effort into the project which has provided us with valuable data and given the pupils here an important insight into internet safety.”

Computer boffins at Lancaster, Swansea and Middlesex will now use the results to create software so accurate it can tell in 49 out of 50 cases whether a person chatting online is an adult or child.

It is hoped the software will help police spot when an adult in a chatroom is masquerading as a child as part of a ‘grooming’ process.