UK: Children committing more than half of child sexual abuse crimes, says new data

The new figures have revealed that other children had committed more than half of child sexual abuse offences reported in 2022.

The police said that the rise in child-on-child abuse has been because of the easy access of smartphones and violent pornography to children.

The data collected from 42 police forces in England and Wales showed that around 106,984 child sexual abuse offences were reported in 2022, which is an increase of 7.6 per cent from the previous year and more than five times the 20,000 cases recorded in 2013.

In the landmark report, it was found that in 52 per cent of these cases, a childbetween the age of 10 to 17was involved as a suspect or perpetrator, which is up from a third in 2013.

As per the researchers, a four-year-old child, who had uploaded a sibling's indecent image to the internet through a smartphone, was the youngest child to have been reported by the police.

Accessibility of violent pornography core of issue: Critchley

Till now, the police registered reports of 14,800 rapes and sexual assaults against children, between the age of 10 to 17, where the police had classed the suspect as a child and the overwhelming majority were boys.

Speaking to The Guardian, NPCC lead for child protection Ian Critchley said: “This is predominantly a gender-based crime of boys committing offences against girls.”

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“I think that is being exacerbated by the accessibility of violent pornography and the ease with which violent pornography is accessible to boys and, therefore, a perception that is [normal] behaviour, and that person can carry out that behaviour that they are seeing online in the most violent way against other peers as well,” he added.

“Clearly the accessibility to smartphones has just rocketed, not just in relation to 11- to 16-year-olds, but in relation to under-10s as well. That accessibility has really exacerbated that and I think this is a debate that does need to be had in our society,” Critchley said.

It was also reported that a third of attacks take place within the family which is the most common setting for abuse, and eight out of 10 victims had known their attacker in the past. The police said that it is estimated that only a few, like one in six offences, were reported to them.

(With inputs from agencies)