274 offences in Wales under new anti-grooming law

The NSPCC have called for an end for what they call the 'Wild West Web'

More than 270 crimes of sexual communication with a child were recorded by Welsh police forces last year, according to the NSPCC.

An anti-grooming law was introduced in April 2017 following a campaign by the children's charity.

In the year that followed, 274 offences were committed.

Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat were the most commonly-used platforms for grooming, with 120 offences across the three.

South Wales Police recorded 158 offences, North Wales Police had 53 and 44 were in the Gwent force area.

Dyfed-Powys Police could only provide information for a six month period - 19 offences were recorded for that period of time.

South Wales had the fourth highest figure recorded after the Greater Manchester, Avon & Somerset and Lancashire forces.

There were another 2,908 offences in England in the same year.

The NSPCC has called on the UK government to create an independent regulator for social networks to force them to proactively detect groomers using their sites.

The charity has also published a survey, mostly of children in the south east of England, about their experiences.

• Child grooming loophole 'must be closed'

• Child sex offences on the rise

• Children could get grooming alerts

• Posing as a girl to trap online groomers

Children were asked whether an adult had ever sent or shown them a naked or semi-naked picture or video on an app, site or game.

One girl aged nine to 10, said: "A complete stranger asked me to take my clothes off and send him a picture...

"When I deleted the game, I went on another site and the same person asked me to have sex with him, I told him to 'back off' and then deleted that game.

"I have seen this person on many sites that I play, and I decided to just block him."

Des Mannion, the head of NSPCC Cymru, wants tough regulation of social networks, warning that they had become a "gateway for child abuse".

He added: "Grooming can no longer be shrugged off as secondary to other online crimes.

"It is happening now, it is happening to very young children, it is happening so frequently that it's becoming normalised, and it is not only coming from adult strangers, but also from known adults."

A UK government spokesperson said: "Last year, we provided police forces in England and Wales with more than £20m to enable dedicated officers to operate online in forums and chat rooms to identify and pursue offenders.

"But we cannot tackle this problem alone, and while tech companies have made positive steps in this area, they must continue to do everything possible to prevent their platforms being used to abuse and exploit children.

"We are currently reviewing options for a white paper, setting out details of the legislation to be brought forward, which will be published later this year."