A latest report by the British police force examined nearly 123,000 child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes recorded by police in England and Wales in 2024
British police say that online predators now pose the “fastest growing” sexual abuse threat to children in the United Kingdom, issuing a stark warning about the scale and complexity of harm young people are facing.
In their annual review of child sexual abuse and exploitation, police cautioned that the intense public and political attention on the so-called “grooming gangs” scandal risks overshadowing the far more common forms of abuse. Despite dominating headlines, those high-profile cases represent only a small fraction of overall offending.
What does the report say?
The latest report examined nearly 123,000 child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes recorded by police in England and Wales in 2024. It found a 6 per cent increase from the previous year and revealed that at least 42 per cent of those offences had an “online element,” marking a 26 per cent jump from 2023.
These online crimes range from children being manipulated into sharing sexual images to being extorted into performing extreme acts, as well as instances where abuse is live-streamed for financial gain.
Investigators urged technology companies to strengthen protections to stop children from accessing violent or explicit material and to prevent offenders from using their platforms to groom, coerce or exploit young victims.
‘Rape gangs’
Despite the prominence of online offending, about two-thirds of all recorded cases still involved physical contact. Only 3.6 per cent of offences were categorised as “group-based contact offending”, cases involving two or more perpetrators, and within that small subset, less than one-fifth were carried out by what police define as “grooming gangs.”
“The narrative is ‘rape gangs’ roaming the streets, targeting girls,” Fewkes said. “That does happen, but the majority of the crimes that are committed against children are done by people that they know.” He added that police must address “the whole threat” posed by child sexual abuse, “and not just the major headlines that we hear publicly at the moment.”
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