Online grooming in the West Midlands has more than doubled since law change - and NSPCC demands change from tech giants
A new report has revealed that online grooming offences have doubled in the West Midlands since sexual communication laws came into force - now children's charity the NSPCC is demanding change from tech giants.
Latest figures show police police forces in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, the West Midlands and West Mercia recorded 391 Sexual Communication with a Child offences in the last year in the West Midlands. This has more than doubled since the year the offence was introduced in 2017/18 (194).
Meanwhile figures provided by 44 police forces across the UK, show that 7,263 Sexual Communication with a Child offences were recorded last year - a record high. Where police forces could be directly compared, the number of crimes had almost doubled (99 per cent) from the year the offence first came into force in 2017/18.
Nationally, of the 2,111 offences where police could identify the platform used by criminals to manipulate and groom children, 40 per cent took place on Snapchat, 9 per cent on WhatsApp and 9 per cent on Facebook and Instagram.
Where gender was known, 80 per cent of children targeted were girls. Meanwhile, the youngest victim of online grooming recorded was a four-year-old boy.
But while these figures represent the offences recorded by police, the real number is likely to be higher due to abuse happening in private spaces and going unreported.
One 14-year-old who contacted Childline said: “I feel so insecure all the time, so, when this guy I’ve met online, who’s a few years older, started flirting with me, that made me feel so special. He seemed to care, but now he’s insisting I send him nudes, and I don’t know if he just gave me attention, so I’d send him nudes.
