Paedophiles viewing child images once every 23 minutes

The number of child sex abuse image offences being recorded by police has risen by almost a quarter, new figures have revealed as the government threatens to regulate web giants if they do not crack down on the phenomenon.

It means paedophiles are committing crimes at least once every 23 minutes in England and Wales, causing some senior police officers to call for the government to consider “alternatives” to prosecution to ease immense strain on the criminal justice system.

A total of more than 22,700 offences were recorded in 2017/18, up by 23 per cent on the previous year. Offences included taking, distributing and possessing indecent images of children.

The NSPCC said every image viewed “represents a real child who has been groomed and abused to supply the demand of this appalling trade”.

Tony Stower, head of the charity’s child safety online division, said: “The lack of adequate protections on social networks has given offenders all too easy access to children to target and abuse. This is the last chance saloon for social networks on whose platforms this abuse is often taking place.

“Our Wild West Web campaign is calling on government to introduce a tough independent regulator to hold social networks to account and tackle grooming to cut off supply of these images at source.”

On Tuesday, Sajid Javid said internet companies had only a “matter of weeks” to draw up concrete plans to stop the images being uploaded and spread online.