‘Vulnerable’ count up Cyber sex crimes soar

MORE than 400,000 people have been placed on a police ‘vulnerable persons’ database, an investigation has found.

Officers add people they encounter at incidents to the Interim Vulnerable Persons Databaseif they are concerned for their future wellbeing.

The database also records incidents where there has been an immediate crisis response for issues of adult or child protection, domestic abuse, hate crime or youth offending.

Police can share “relevant, necessary, justifiable and proportionate information” with partner agencies where there is a legal basis to do so.

The BBC investigation found that there are currently 412,000 adults and children on the database, up from 302,346 in February last year. THE number of sexual cyber crimes recorded by police has soared over the past three years, according to new research.

The Scottish Government has announced an expert group to tackle sexual crime.

Sexual crimes in the category that includes internet offences rose by 50 per cent from 2,901 in 2013/14 to 4,360 by 2016/17.

The research estimates around half of the growth in all sexual crimes recorded by police over the period is due to growth in cyber-enabled offences.

The growth has been driven by large increases in the crimes of “communicating indecently” (up from 605 to 1166) and “causing to view sexual activity or images” (from 229 to 1030).

Overall more than three-quarters (79 per cent) of victims were female and more than half (59 per cent) were under 16.