Schoolgirls as young as SIX ‘sending sexts’ while schools shut

GIRLS as young as six are sending sexually explicit texts while schools are closed due to Covid-19, research suggests.

The figure emerged as parents were offered a million free downloads of a safety app via the Government’s website.

So-called ‘sexts’ typed by children in the UK have risen 183 per cent during lockdown.

There has been a 55 per cent rise in sexts drafted during normal school hours, SafeToNet said. The company’s app stops harmful messages being sent and offers guidance as a message is being composed.

The British technology startup has analysed around 70million such messages sent by children and found that girls are sending the majority.

Eleven-year-old girls and 13year-old boys attempted to send the highest proportion of sexts and messages identified as cyberbullying, but the app also stopped messages being sent from girls as young as six and boys aged nine.

Founder Richard Pursey believes SafeToNet is the only app of its kind to track threats to children in real time and said software like it should be on every child’s phone.

The firm is offering parents a million free licences which can be downloaded via a link on the Government’s online safety advice page from Thursday.

Mr Pursey, a 58-year-old father of four from Kensington, west London, said children are killing themselves because of online activity and he has been left ‘scarred’ by viewing some of the material.

He said he has seen a video of a girl of 11 killing herself and one of a man blowing his head off with an automatic rifle circulated by British children.

The app does not store data on cloud platforms, so parents never see what the child is typing or what they are viewing.

‘Scarred by what he has seen’