TV to blame for child-on-child sex abuse says Force ACC

Child-on-Child sex abuse is on the increase because of the amount of adult content currently available, a senior police officer said yesterday.

Assistant Chief Constable Becky Riggs of Staffordshire Police said streaming giants had rendered the 9pm watershed irrelevant.

ACC Riggs, who is also the National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Child Protection and Abuse Investigation, said; “What digital and mobile phones and online have provided is 24/7 ability to access these things whenever you feel like.

She added it was “not too ­difficult” for kids to lie about their age to gain access which was not “protected from them, like it was”.

Ms Riggs spoke out as statistics revealed 115,489 child sexual exploitation incidents were recorded in the past year.

Of these, 4,228 involved groups of two or more — with almost half the suspects, where age was known, between 10 and 17.

A further 9% of cases — 430 — involved suspects under 10.

The report added 76% of child abuse perpetrators overall were men and 78% of victims were girls.

National Crime Agency boss Graeme Biggar said last week that criminals were creating a market for child rape and sexual assault by viewing images and videos of it online.