Child sex abuse reports soared by 17 per cent in just two years with more than half of offences committed by other children, shocking data reveals.
There were more than 115,000 crimes reported in 2023, up from just over 98,000 in 2021, a policing report shows.
The surge in child on child offending is driven by the sharing of indecent images, which accounts for 41 per cent of offences committed by those aged between 10 and 17.
But contact abuse against children still makes up the majority of offending, accounting for 68 of the reports made in 2023, the Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation report found.
And about a third of physical sexual abuse takes place within the family, the data shows.
As many as half a million children are abused every year, Becky Riggs, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for Child Abuse Protection and Investigation, said.
‘It’s the victims and survivors of abuse that really matter here. Behind every one of these offences is a child that has suffered harm and that’s something we never lose sight of,’ she added.
Child sex abuse reports soared by 17 per cent in just two years with more than half of offences committed by other children (File image)
‘Many crimes are not reported or identified, with estimates that 500,000 children are sexually abused every year – a truly shocking number.’
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said the report pulled back the curtain on the ‘truly appalling’ scale of child sexual exploitation and abuse across England and Wales.
The Government announced a raft of new measures in January including mandatory reporting for adults working with children.
The UK will also become the first country in the world to make it a criminal offence to possess, create or distribute Artificial Intelligence models designed to generate child sexual abuse material.
‘It is paramount we do more to protect children from these horrors,’ Ms Phillips said.
There were 115,489 offences reported in 2023 but the scale of offending is likely to be far greater due to underreporting, Ms Riggs said.
Sexual assault on a child was the most common type recorded, with 29 per cent of all crimes.
Contact abuse against children still makes up the majority of offending, accounting for 68 of the reports made in 2023 (File image)
This was followed by indecent imagery of children, making up 27 per cent, and rape of a child, which was 18 per cent.
More than two-fifths of the offences committed by children involved the exchange of indecent images, fuelled by the rise of instant messaging apps such as SnapChat, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Of these offences, 80 per cent involved self-generated imagery – children taking indecent photographs of themselves.
There was an element of blackmail or ‘sextortion’ in almost two-thirds of these cases, meaning an offender had used them to manipulate a victim into further abuse.
The data showed offending was heavily gendered, with 82 per cent of offenders recorded as male.
When it came to contact offences against children, men accounted for 90 per cent of crimes.
