MORE than three child abuse image offences are being recorded every day by police in Hampshire, revealing a "truly worrying" increase in the crime.

New figures obtained by the NSPCC, show that the number of incidents reported to Hampshire Constabulary rose by 23 per cent last year.

During 2017/18, the force recorded 1,199 child abuse image offences, compared with 974 in the previous year.

Councillor Dave Shields, Southampton City Council's cabinet member for health and community safety, described the figures as "shocking" and called on the government to back the NSPCC's Wild West Web campaign, which is calling for a tough independent regulator to be installed to hold social networks to account.

Across the UK the number of child abuse image offences recorded by police increased by almost a quarter in a year to 22,724 – the equivalent of one offence every 23 minutes in 2017/18.

Children's charity NSPCC is warning that offenders are using social networks to target children for abuse online, grooming and manipulating them into sending naked images.

A single offence recorded by police can involve hundreds of indecent images of children.

Cllr Shields said: "The number of child abuse image offences revealed for Hampshire & the Isle of Wight police force area are truly worrying.

"Whilst the rates recorded for the force area are in line with the rest of the country – possibly down to improved detection methods and increased public awareness following high profile campaigns – they are no less shocking.

"I know as a school governor in Southampton just how seriously the police locally, the council, our schools and many other agencies safeguarding the city’s children and young people take the potential risk of offenders using social networks to target children for abuse online, grooming and coaxing them into sending naked images.

"However far more needs to be done by the administrators of social networks to stamp this out.

"This is why I fully support the NSPCC Wild West Web campaign which calls on the government to introduce a tough independent regulator to hold these social networks fully to account and tackle grooming to cut off supply of these images at source."

While UK authorities work to remove child abuse images from the internet new images are constantly uploaded.

In 2017, the Internet Watch Foundation identified over 78,000 URLs containing child sexual abuse images.

Tony Stower, NSPCC’s head of child safety online, said: "Every one of these images represents a real child who has been groomed and abused to supply the demand of this appalling trade.

"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."

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