Police across the UK are arresting approximately 1,000 paedophile suspects each month, with the number of children being rescued from harm rising by 50% in the last five years, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA). The agency says the surge in child sexual abuse is driven by technology and the radicalisation of offenders in online forums.
Rob Jones, the NCA's director general of operations, said leads about people interested in sexually abusing children have increased tenfold in a decade, with 1,200 children being safeguarded each month. He expressed concern that algorithms on mainstream social media platforms push paedophilic material to users who have shown a previous interest, normalising such behaviour.
Jones noted that the majority of abuse images are 'known images' that have been in circulation for some time, and that tech companies have the ability to stop them. 'The threat is getting worse, despite our best efforts,' he said, adding that offenders collaborate on the dark web but use the open web to identify and abuse vulnerable children.
Police are focusing on the worst offenders, who make up 15% of more than 33,000 leads last year and often hold positions of trust. Recent cases include a former London nursery worker jailed for 18 years for abusing toddlers, and a man from Eastbourne sentenced to 11 years for sharing AI-generated child abuse material.
Jones criticised tech companies for not doing enough, stating that the Online Safety Act, while helpful, is insufficient. 'You can't have a world where you don't have protective measures in place for children,' he said, calling for faster action to remove known images from the open web.
