Essex ranked highest in East for online grooming cases
It's compared to Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Thames Valley and Suffolk
Essex has ranked the highest in the East for the number of online grooming crimes.
Data by the NSPCC found there were 314 grooming crimes in the county over the last year, a rise of 60 on the previous year.
This year is the highest number Essex has seen since data started being collected in 2017/18.
The second highest figure was in Thames Valley, where 143 crimes were recorded.
Rebekah Hipkiss is a supervisor at Childline, she said: "It would be easier to get social media platforms to implement a way of making sure this isn't taking place and to interfere earlier in the journey between the groomer and the victim.
"Since the law first came into be, it doesn't seem like it makes a huge amount of difference to the young people we are taking to new. Any new platform should be designed with the safety of children in mind and be aware that this is a way that predators target our young people.
"It's very difficult to report through these platforms and young people generally feel it should be made earlier for them to report inappropriate behaviour and images. "