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Viewing porn that simulates rape is to be outlawed, David Cameron will announce today.

Publishing the vile material is already a criminal offence but a legal loophole means people who look at it online are not breaking any law.

The Prime Minister says this will change as a part of a major crackdown that he hopes will stem the tidal wave of filth on the internet.

He will reveal today: “We are closing the loophole, making it a criminal offence to possess internet pornography that depicts rape.”

“Possess” will be defined to include viewing the sick material in a web browser and the law will include explicit acts of rape staged by porn actors.

Other kinds of pornography so extreme that it cannot be bought in adult shops will also be outlawed online, the PM vows.

“Put simply, what you can’t get in a shop, you will no longer be able to get online,” he says.

Mr Cameron’s speech follows mounting concern about the effects of sick internet porn. The killers of Tia Sharp, 12, and April Jones, five, had both viewed rape porn and child porn online before enacting their vile fantasies with innocent little girls as the targets.

And experts warn that boys and young men are having their views of what is normal skewed by the extreme pictures and films they see online.The PM has threatened internet firms with fresh laws if they do not do more to stop perverts accessing and sharing child abuse images.

He also wants them to blacklist offensive search terms so that keying in words or phrases that relate to abuse brings up only blank pages.

The anti-porn measures also include setting up a single database of child abuse images to make it easier for police to catch the people who make and distribute them. And the existing Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, will get greater powers when it becomes part of the new National Crime Agency to be launched in October, already known as Britain’s FBI.

The new database will help crack down on the “hidden internet”, where perverts can share illegal images and videos.

The PM says: “Let me be clear to any offender who might think otherwise: There is no such thing as a ‘safe’ place on the internet to access child abuse material.”

He warns Google, Yahoo, Bing and other web giants: “You have a duty to act on this – and it is a moral duty. I have called for a progress report in Downing Street in October. If the progress is slow or non-existent then we are already looking at the legislative options to force action.

“Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society – you are part of our society and you must play a responsible role in it.

“This is quit simply about ­obliterating this disgusting material from the net – and we will do ­whatever it takes.”