Northern Ireland online grooming crimes more than double in four years
Figures from the PSNI show a huge increase in Sexual Communication with a Child offences recorded since 2017/18.
NSPCC Northern Ireland are warning of an increased threat of online child abuse as grooming crimes more than double in four years.
Figures from the police reveal that Sexual Communication with a Child Offences have more than doubled since 2017/2018.
They have risen from 82 offences in 2017/18 to 198 offences in 2021/2022.
The charity said the sheer scale of offending shows the importance of ensuring that the new Online Safety Bill effectively tackles child sexual abuse.
Natalie Whelehan, NSPCC Northern Ireland’s Policy and Public Affairs Manager, said: “We are consistently seeing unprecedented increases in the level and scale of threat to our children’s safety online. We need our Government to urgently prioritise this issue and implement and fund the 2015 commissioned Online Safety Strategy and Action Plan and do everything in its power to strengthen the Online Safety Bill progressing in Westminster to give children the protections they need to prevent abuse from happening in the first place.
“We are calling on our Government to take immediate action to address this very serious threat to children and young people in Northern Ireland.”
The NSPCC’s research of the UK-wide data also reveals a number of other significant findings:
*The analysis shows the stark reality of sexual violence faced by girls on social media. Four in five (82%) of grooming cases last year were against girls, where the gender was known. 12 to 15-year-old girls made up 39% of all victims where the age and gender was recorded.
*The figures reveal the calculated way offenders target children through well-established grooming pathways, with abusers contacting children on social media and gaming sites and coercing them to produce self-generated child abuse images.
*The data shows grooming is increasingly a cross-platform problem, with police across the UK recording 70 different apps and games involved in grooming crimes in the last 12 months alone. Multiple social media sites were often used in the same offence.
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