‘Up to 850,000 people’ in UK pose ‘sexual threat’ to children

LONDON: Up to 850,000 people in the UK pose a sexual threat to children, according to the latest estimates published by the National Crime Agency.

Law enforcement officials have used a new method to calculate the size of the hidden population of offenders, and estimate it to be between 550,000 and 850,000. This includes paedophiles, who download images of child abuse, as well as those involved in direct physical abuse.

The new calculation method means the number is far higher than previous estimates, which focused on the number of registered sex offenders and those using sites on the dark web to look at images of child abuse, put at a minimum of 300,000 people.

In its annual National Strategic Assessment, the NCA said plans to introduce end-to-end encryption for Facebook messages may hamper its ability to catch paedophiles.

In one case, prolific offender David Wilson, a labourer from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, used fake identities on social media to pose as teenage girls and groom and blackmail boys to send him abuse images.

Information from Facebook and thousands of messages were key to his successful prosecution for 96 sexual offences against 51 boys aged four to 14, for which he was jailed for 25 years.

NCA director general Lynne Owens called on social media companies to shut down all avenues for criminals to use their platforms. She said: “While the NCA will continue to lead the fight to cut serious and organised crime, it is imperative that technology and social media companies match this intensity, building in safety by design and closing down all avenues for offenders to exploit their platforms.

“In particular, we must move to a place of zero tolerance for the presence of such material online in order to raise the bar to offending and, most importantly, protect children.”

Child abuse is one type of crime believed to be on the increase, according to the NCA, exacerbated by the increase in online activity due to lockdowns amid the pandemic.

In March 2020 as restrictions started, the NCA began targeting high-harm child sex offenders, and by the end of the year had identified more than 1,000 suspects, had along with police arrested 320 people, and safeguarded more than 400 children.

Of the 320 arrested, 122 were targeted by the NCA, and included 17 people in positions of trust, including the deputy head of a primary school who was later jailed.

Other forms of crime thought to be rising are bribery and corruption, cyber crime, drug dealing, fraud and money laundering.

The NCA also said that there has been a “marked increase” in the sale of software used to remotely access someone else’s computer amid the rise in the number of people working from home.

Currently, the NCA estimates that 69,281 people in the UK are involved in serious and organised crime, although it is believed this estimate may rise when information from local databases is accessed.