6,000 GROOMING CRIMES OVER FIVE YEARS: MATT HANCOCK MUST ACT TO PREVENT GROOMING ON #WILDWESTWEB

• Total grooming crimes have reached 6,341 since 2013/14 with more than 400 in Wales

• Home Office stats include new crime Sexual Communication with a Child

• #WildWestWeb campaign calls on Matt Hancock to regulate social media

More than 6,000 grooming crimes have been recorded by police in England and Wales since April 2013, new Home Office figures show.

There was a total of 2,996 grooming crimes recorded from April to December 2017, which included the new offence of Sexual Communication with a Child brought into force in April 2017, as well as offences for Meeting a Child After Grooming.

From 1 April 2013 to 31 December 2017, police recorded a total of 6,341 offences.

In Wales, there were 403 grooming offences recorded by police forces between April 2013 and December 2017 with 173 recorded by South Wales Police, 100 by Dyfed-Powys Police, 65 by North Wales Police and 64 by Gwent Police and. Of these crimes, 236 were recorded in the period from April – December 2017, after the new offence of Sexual Communication with a Child was brought into force, with South Wales Police seeing the highest number of offences with 121.

In the same period of 2017 both Gwent Police and North Wales Police recorded 44 offences each, with 27 recorded by Dyfed Powys Police.

The NSPCC’s #WildWestWeb campaign is calling on the UK Government’s Culture Secretary Matt Hancock to bring in a mandatory safety code to regulate social networks to keep children safe online and help prevent grooming.

Mr Hancock is in the process of drawing up an Internet Safety Strategy, but it is expected to bring in a social media safety code which is voluntary in nature and the Strategy will include no plans to prevent grooming.¹

Last week the charity revealed that Facebook and Facebook-owned apps, Instagram and Whatsapp, were used in 52% of online grooming cases where police disclosed which methods were used by suspects. The youngest child to be targeted in the first nine months of the new offence of Sexual Communication with a Child was just two years old.

Tony Stower, NSPCC Head of Child Safety Online, said:

“These thousands of crimes show the sheer scale of grooming, where predators have either messaged their victim or gone on to meet them in person.

“At present our UK Government is only prepared to tackle grooming after the harm has been done, and its forthcoming Internet Safety Strategy has no plans to prevent grooming from happening in the first place.

“The UK Government’s Culture Secretary Matt Hancock could change this and bring an end to the Wild West Web. I urge him to bring in regulation for social networks, backed by an independent regulator with teeth.”