Online child grooming crimes rise by a third, say PSNI

Sexual communication with a child online has increased by more than 30% from 2021

Crimes involving children being contacted online by sexual predators have risen by nearly a third, police figures have revealed.

Officers working within a specialist unit say they have had their busiest year since it was established in 2010.

Thousands of devices have been seized and tens of thousands of indecent images of children have been uncovered.

Det Ch Insp Kerry Brennan said there has been an overall increase in offences reported to police.

And those reports are coming from new areas, she added.

'Trust your gut'

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) statistics show that sexual communication with a child online has increased by more than 30% from 2021.

The possession or sharing of indecent images increased by 22%.

Officers within the Child Internet Protection Team made 56 arrests last year, an increase of 19% on 2021.

Their figures show that 83 convictions were secured last year, an increase of 38% from 2021.

• Reports of online child sexual abuse in NI rise by 80%

• Child online safety risks 'need more research'

Det Ch Insp Brennan urged people to get in touch if they were worried about a child.

"People are picking up on this stuff, and I'm not just talking about within the home," she said.

"It's schools, sporting clubs, right across society.

"We're always telling people, 'trust your gut, if something isn't right about a situation involving a child, trust your gut, pick up a phone'.

"We're now getting reports from the night-time economy, like hotels, of situations which would never have been reported to us before.

"It's resulting in people actually being charged and brought before the courts, where they've been sexually communicating with a child online and arranging to meet them in a hotel room and hotel staff are picking up on that."