Instagram the most used platform to perform child grooming in Peterborough during lockdown say NSPCC

New data, gathered from 38 Police forces across the country, shows that there were more than 1200 online grooming crimes recorded against children in the UK between April and June.

The figures also reveal that Instagram is being increasingly used by offenders and cases recorded on the photo-sharing platform make up 37 percent of the total, up from 29 percent over the last three years.

In the East of England, there were 114 online grooming offences recorded in this time, with 36 percent taking place on Instagram. In total, Facebook-owned apps (Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp) accounted for 52 percent of these cases.

Cambridgeshire Police dealt with 22 incidents and showed a year on year increase for the third time in a row, with cases rising from 66 in 2017/18, to 71 in 2018/19 and 77 in 2019/20. This year-on-year increase mirrors the national statistics.

All of this has caused the NSPCC to call for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to get tough on tech firms that fail to do enough to prevent offenders exploiting their sites and abusing children.

They have warned that the pandemic has created a perfect storm for online offenders and believe these figures could mark the start of a surge in online grooming crimes.

With ongoing Coronavirus restrictions across the UK, the charity believes that the risk of online abuse will continue to spike, and many more offences may come to light when children report them at school.

It is understood that the Online Harms White Paper consultation response has been signed off by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Home Office and is sitting with Boris Johnson.

The proposed legislation would place a duty of Care onto the tech firms.

The charity say that, in order to make the UK a world-leader in child protection online, the regulation must:

1. Create an expansive, principles-based duty of care

2. Comprehensively tackle online sexual abuse

3. Put legal but harmful content on an equal footing with illegal material

4. Have robust transparency and investigatory powers

5. Hold industry to account with criminal and financial sanctions

6. Give civil society a legal voice for children with user advocacy arrangements

NSPCC Chief Executive Peter Wanless said: “Families have long paid the price for big tech’s failure to protect children from abuse, but the Prime Minister has the chance to turn the tide and put responsibility on firms to clean up the mess they created.

“As the pandemic intensifies the threat children face online, bold and ambitious action is needed in the form of a world-leading Online Harms Bill.

“This means legislation that is tough on online crimes against children and regulation that holds tech companies and bosses financially and criminally responsible if they continue to turn a blind eye to entirely avoidable harm.”

Norfolk Constabulary Chief Constable Simon Bailey added: “In an increasingly digitally connected world, perpetrators of child abuse are conducting more and more of their activities online.

“Offenders use the internet to access and share child abuse images, and to make contact with and groom children directly.

“Although online regulation is difficult, it is clear that it is the only way to ensure tech and social media companies will take their responsibilities seriously. The Online Harms White Paper, published in February 2020, proposes a new regulatory framework and duty of care which have the potential to be of real use in the fight against child exploitation.”