Sex Offenses Committed by Children Increasing, Police Warn

In this photo illustration, a teenage child looks at the screen of a mobile phone in London on Jan. 17, 2023. Leon Neal/Getty Images

Police have recorded a rise in child-on-child abuse, which in 2022 accounted for just over half of offenses, according to a new report.

Violent porn and access to smartphones are partly to blame, police said.

Authorities recorded more than 100,000 offences in 2022, a 7.6 percent increase compared to 2021 and nearly quadruple what it was 10 years ago.

The report also showed that around 75 percent of child sexual abuse cases were committed directly against children. This includes sexual assault on a female (15 percent) and rape of a female under 16 (12 percent).

Half of the child abuse offences involved a child aged 10 to 17 offending against other children, with 14 being the most common age.

Police condemned the “growing and concerning trend” of offending, which includes serious sexual assaults such as rape.

Cases reported to the police are “heavily gendered,” the report said, with males predominantly abusing females.

The analysis warned about the impact of harmful and abusive pornography online that can be accessed by “anyone.”

Ofcom figures show that on average children first see online pornography at the age of 13, while nearly a quarter come across it by the age of 11. One in 10 children first see online pornography as young as 9.

The police report comes after an Ofcom announcement last month related to guidance for websites that display pornographic content.

Online pornography services will be required to install “highly effective” age checks to protect children. Age checks could include photo ID matching, facial age estimation, and credit card checks. Ofcom warned that “pornography is too readily accessible to children online.”

The police also reported a case of a 4-year-old child who uploaded an indecent image of a sibling online using a smartphone.

‘Appalling Statistic’

The national policing lead for child abuse protection and investigation, Ian Critchley, has warned that the actual numbers of child abuse crimes are higher than those reported to police.

According to data from the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse, one in six girls and one in 20 boys will be abused in childhood.

Mr. Critchley called it an “appalling statistic and one we must all seek to change.”

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has estimated that there are up to 830,000 adults in the UK that pose some degree of sexual risk to children.

The deputy director for child sexual abuse at the NCA, Wendy Hart, said that the severity of offending has increased.

“We are now seeing hyper-realistic images and videos of abuse being created using artificial intelligence, for example, while the rollout of end-to-end encryption by technology platforms makes it a lot more difficult for us to protect children,” she said.

The police also reported that the number of online sexual abuse incidents continues to grow and accounts for at least 32 percent of recorded cases. This is owing to “more and more smartphones and digital devices” being used to communicate, the report said.

The analysis also cited children’s increased exposure to the internet during national lockdowns in the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Sextortion’

Some perpetrators used deep fake technology and AI to create and share indecent images of children, the police said.

Another trend that came out of the report is around “sextortion,” which includes offenders blackmailing children and threatening them with exposure of their indecent images unless money is paid.

The police also warned about a threat to children by groups seeking to sexually exploit them. In this case, offenders offer children alcohol, drugs, and more recently vapes, to get control and carry out the abuse.

The report showed that family environments can also be a hotbed of sexual abuse. Over a third of sexual abuse contact crimes are carried out by people within the family.