Online grooming crimes sees sharp rise as police warn of 'tsunami' of exploitation

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A charity has released a stark warning after a 'tsunami' of online grooming crime were reported to Police Scotland. Shocking figures reveal a steep rise in reports of children under 13 being groomed online with latest figures showing reports have climbed more than 60% in Scotland.

Figures obtained by the NSPCC found that there were 636 offences of communicating indecently with a child reported north of the border in 2021/22, a 48% rise from the 429 logged in 2017/18.

For victims under the age of 13, analysis of the Freedom of Information data from Police Scotland revealed, there was a steeper rise with 369 in 2021/22 and compared to 226 in 2017/18.This is a rise of 63%.Across the UK, the charity said data from 41 police forces revealed an 84% rise in grooming since 2017/18, with a total of more than 27,000 offences in the past five years.Sir Peter Wanless, NSPCC chief executive, said: "Online grooming is taking place at unprecedented levels and only concerted action will turn the tide on this tsunami of preventable abuse."One 15-year-old girl who was groomed online told Childline she had been chatting with a man online twice her age, with conversations starting on Instagram before moving onto WhatsApp."He seemed really nice to begin with, but then he started making me do these things to 'prove my trust' to him, like doing video chats with my chest exposed," she said."Every time I did these things for him, he would ask for more and I felt like it was too late to back out."This whole thing has been slowly destroying me and I've been having thoughts of hurting myself."The NSPCC has said the scale of offended showed the importance of ensuring the Online Safety Bill, which is going through Westminster at the moment,