15 child sex crimes a day committed online

INTERNET giants have been shamed by figures showing 15 child sex offences are committed online every day.

The rise of almost a half in such crimes over just one year highlights how paedophiles are exploiting the web to target vulnerable youngsters, with some victims as young as three.

In the past year, 5,653 child sex crimes had an online element – a rise of 45 per cent on the 3,903 offences recorded in the previous year – according to the NSPCC.

The offences included grooming children online for rape and sexual assault as well as making indecent films of victims.

Many youngsters have been blackmailed after being persuaded to share naked photos and videos of themselves.

One ten-year-old girl told Childline, run by the NSPCC, she was targeted by a man pretending to be a friend of her classmate.

She said: ‘He said he was 11. I told him where I lived because I thought he knew my friend. He’s asked me to send naked pictures to him and I said no, but now I’m scared he’s going to come to where I live.’

Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: ‘These figures confirm our fears that offenders are exploiting the internet to target children for their own dark deeds.

‘Children also tell our Childline service they are being targeted online by some adults who pose as children and try to meet them, or persuade them to perform sexual acts on webcams, then blackmailing them.

‘This terrifies them and can leave some feeling worthless, depressed, and suicidal.’ The charity wants the law changed to force social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to display clear age ratings to reflect the kind of content displayed on their sites.

Under its proposals, social networks would also have to use software that can pick up suspected grooming behaviour and filter harmful content.

The rising figures of online offences were collected from 39 police forces across England and Wales in the years 2015-16 and 2016-17.