Children groomed online in less than 45 minutes, warns NSPCC

CHILDREN are being groomed online in under 45 minutes as paedophiles exploit the explosion in sexting among the young, the NSPCC has warned.

Jon Brown, the NSPCC’S head of development, said sexting had become “commonplace” among a growing number of children which made it easier and quicker for paedophiles to secure images which could then be used to blackmail victims into further abuse.

“As well as the overall increase in the scale of the problem we are seeing an increase in the speed with which [predators] move from initial contact to offences, sometimes completely circumventing the grooming process,” said Mr Brown.

“The traditional notion of contact with a child, befriending them and then moving into abuse online or offline seems to have become squashed and much more concentrated.

“It can happen within the space of a 30 or 45 minute communication depending on vulnerability of the young person and skill of the perpetrator.

“That is to an extent a result of the increase in sexting between young people. If the adult offender is pretending to be someone they are not, it can move very quickly to being cajoled into performing a sex act online.”

Sexual offences against children with an online element rose from 4,266 in 2016 to 8,525 this year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). NSPCC’S Childline saw a record number of people seeking information and advice on sexting from its website last year, with 221,800 page views, a rise of 21% on the previous year.

Mr Brown said: “Sexting is the new normal and if you are not engaging with that then online bullying can go on in terms of someone asking: ‘Why are you not up for doing that?’”

Mr Brown believed the ease of access to porn was also fuelling the rise in sexting. “The mimicry of porn is a factor,” he said. “There’s an element of porn star chic going on.”.

The NSPCC said some sites were more problematic than others, singling out video sharing platforms such as Youtube and Snapchat.

In particular, Mr Brown was concerned by Omegle, where users could link up over video with anyone in the world.

“It’s like chat roulette which they say they are moderating, but I don’t believe they can,” he added.