80,000 people in UK pose sex threat to children online, according to National Crime Agency

Child protection officers ‘shocked by the scale of the threat,’ says home secretary Sajid Javid

Government promises new measures to crack down on online child sexual abuse

At least 80,000 people in the UK are believed to pose a sexual threat to children online, according to the National Crime Agency.

New statistics reveal the number of child abuse images referred to the agency have surged 700 per cent in the last five years.

Home secretary Sajid Javid said he would make a “personal mission” to tackle child abuse and described his shock at the scale of the problem.

“It was when I visited the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation Online Protection Command that the full horror of the scale and evolving nature of child sexual abuse was really brought home to me,” Mr Javid is expected to say in a speech on Monday.

“One officer I met, who had previously worked in counter-terrorism for over 20 years, told me how in all his years of working he’s never been so shocked by the scale of the threat or the determination of the offenders as he is in his current job.”

The Home Office warned that live-streaming of abuse is a growing problem due to faster internet speeds, smartphone technology and the ease of money transfers across borders.

Images are getting more graphic, with abuse of babies and children under 10 more regularly documented, according to Mr Javid’s department.

Separate figures indicate that police in England and Wales recorded around 23 online child sexual offences every day in 2017-18 – up from 15 a day in the previous 12 months.

The scale of the trend has prompted calls for internet giants to do more to stop the spread of sexual abuse images and videos.

National policing lead for child protection Simon Bailey has urged internet companies to acknowledge their “social responsibility”.

There have also been calls for offenders who download indecent images of children to get tougher sentences.

Last month, solicitor general Robert Buckland said the use of the internet to download or share images of child abuse is “as insidious a crime as direct sexual assault”.

Mr Javid is expected to outline new measures designed to crack down on online child sexual abuse.

This government has already invested £600,000 in a project that trawls the web to identify pages with suspected abuse content.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which assesses and removes online child abuse material, said it fully supports the government’s efforts.

Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the IWF, said: “Sadly, our most recent annual report showed that the severity of the images we identified were up and it appeared that offenders were becoming more sophisticated in their crime.”

Javed Khan, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardo’s, said: “We welcome Sajid Javid’s commitment to ramp up the government’s efforts to tackle online child sexual abuse.

“The government must now deliver its promise to make the UK the safest place to be online by forcing online companies to ensure effective safeguards are in place to help better protect children.

“Any delay to acting now could put a generation of children in danger online.”