Police record hundreds of online grooming crimes
CHILDREN’S CHARITY CALLS FOR LAW TO MAKE SITES SAFER
HUNDREDS of online sexual grooming crimes have been recorded by police in Greater Manchester.
A total of 684 offences of sexual communication with a child were recorded by the region’s police force under a new law that made it illegal to send sexual messages to children.
Experts say the figures – which represent the period between April 2017 and March 2019 – should act as a stark warning about the dangers of online grooming.
Tech bosses say they work closely with child protection experts and are proactively finding and quickly removing exploitation on social platforms.
The NSPCC recently warned about a possible spike in the online grooming of children during lockdown.
And the charity is now calling for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to deliver the Online Harms Bill which calls on tech firms to make their sites safer for children.
It has prompted one mum to question the safety of certain social media sites.
Her daughter Emily – not her real name – was 13 when she exchanged messages and photos on Facebook and Snapchat with a man she believed to be 15.
He turned out to be a grown man of 24 who took the opportunity to sexually abuse Emily.
Her mum says: “It’s important for social media to be regulated and for Facebook and Instagram to take more responsibility to keep the people who use their platform safe.
“All other businesses have a Duty of Care to keep children safe, so why not them?”
The NSPCC says 10,119 offences of sexual communication with a child were recorded by police forces in England and Wales between April 2017 and October 2019 - the two and a half years since the law came into force.
Facebook-owned apps were used in 55 per cent of cases where police recorded information about how a child was groomed.
Where the means of communication were provided, there were over 3,200 instances of Facebook-owned apps - Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp being used, of which half involved Instagram.
Snapchat was used more than 1,060 times. Police forces across the North West recorded 1,738 offences of sexual communication with a child between April 2017 and October 2019, according to the Freedom of Information request submitted by the NSPCC.
There were 684 such offences recorded by Greater Manchester Police between April 2017 and March 2019.