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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
‘What happened to me should never happen to you': Campaign aims to combat online sex offences against children
There were more than 2,000 sexual offences recorded against children in Northern Ireland last year, with 187 relating to grooming and sexual communication, police have said. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland have announced a campaign to raise awareness of online dangers for children. Clips from a BBC documentary about prolific catfish abuser Alexander McCartney are being used for the social media campaign. McCartney was sentenced to life imprisonment last year after admitting to 185 charges of online child sex abuse crimes and blackmail. The case led to the death of a 12-year-old girl in the US, who took her own life after being targeted and abused by McCartney. READ MORE The PSNI said online sexual offences against children are an increasing crime type in Northern Ireland. 'There were 2,187 sexual offences against children recorded in 2024, 187 of which relate to grooming and sexual communication with a child,' it said in a statement. There were '799 offences relating to taking, possessing, sharing or publishing indecent images of children' reported last year, it said. The PSNI said its child internet protection team is the busiest it has been since its inception in 2010. 'In 2024, 120 searches were carried out relating to tens of thousands of indecent images of children and thousands of devices were seized,' the force said. 'As a result of these searches, they made 43 arrests.' Another prolific online groomer, Max Hollingsbee , was sentenced in May for a litany of online sex offences against underage girls. One of his victims offered her support for the new campaign. 'I think more young people should know that not everyone online is who they say they are,' said Immy (not her real name). 'What happened to me should never happen to you, but if it does – speak out. The police can and will help you. As a child or teenager, you're not going to be thinking rationally in that situation. I wasn't. 'A trusted adult or the police will know what to do to keep you safe. I have been to therapy and am taking steps to tackle my anxiety. I start university soon. It does get better.' Det Supt Jordan Piper said groomers such as McCartney and Hollingsbee 'operate in a very similar way, concealing their identity online, pretending to be the same age as a child'. 'They use fake profile pictures, pretending to have similar interests to gain the trust of the child before steering the conversation to a sexual nature,' she said. 'Once trust in established, they use power and control to make, force, blackmail, guilt or trick a child into doing what the groomer wants.' Ms Piper added: 'It is a crime for anyone to possess, make, distribute or show anyone an indecent image of a child under 18 years of age. 'This offence can be committed by an adult or a child. It is also a crime for an adult to send a sexually explicit image of themselves to a child.' Independent chair of the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland, Bernie McNally, said no child 'should ever feel alone, afraid or manipulated by someone hiding behind a screen'. 'Yet every day, online predators exploit the trust and innocence of young people, often in silence and secrecy. This campaign is a vital reminder of the urgent need for education, vigilance and open, honest conversations with our children. [ Five ways to help keep your child safe online Opens in new window ] 'Our message is clear: let your child know they can always come to you, especially if someone pressures them to share images or videos.' – PA
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- RTÉ News
NI campaign to combat rise in online sex offences against children
A new campaign has been launched in Northern Ireland to raise awareness of the dangers for children online. More than 2,000 sexual offences against children were recorded in the north last year; 187 related to grooming and sexual communication, according to the PSNI. The PSNI and the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland want to raise awareness of the dangers for children online with a social media campaign called 'Trust Trap'. Last year, the BBC aired a documentary series called 'Teen Predator/Online Killer' about Alexander McCartney from Newry, who was the subject of one of the largest investigations in the world into the sexual extortion of children. This case led to the death of a 12-year-old girl in America who took her own life after being targeted and abused by McCartney. Clips from this series have now been made available for a social media campaign to raise awareness to more young people about how these predators are operating in online spaces and to encourage more victims to report. Prosecutors in Northern Ireland who worked on the McCartney case described the case as the largest, most complex and depraved investigation into sexual offences they had ever worked on. It is highly likely that more than 70 victims were targeted by McCartney but police have not been able to identify them - so the harm he caused is unquantifiable. McCartney was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for the manslaughter of 12-year-old Cimarron Thomas and more than 180 other offences relating to child abuse. The PSNI said online sexual offences against children are becoming an increasing crime type in Northern Ireland. In a statement, they said: "There were 2,187 sexual offences against children recorded in 2024, 187 of which relate to grooming and sexual communication with a child. "799 offences relating to taking, possessing, sharing or publishing indecent images of children were reported in 2024. "In 2024, 120 searches were carried out relating to tens of thousands of indecent images of children and thousands of devices were seized. "As a result of these searches, they made 43 arrests." In another case, Max Hollingsbee from Lurgan in Co Armagh was sentenced in May for a litany of online sex offences against underage girls. One of his victims has explained why she supports the new PSNI campaign. Immy (not her real name) said: "I think more young people should know that not everyone online is who they say they are. "What happened to me should never happen to you, but if it does - speak out. The police can and will help you. As a child or teenager, you're not going to be thinking rationally in that situation. I wasn't. "A trusted adult or the police will know what to do to keep you safe. I have been to therapy and am taking steps to tackle my anxiety. I start university soon. It does get better." A PSNI statement said: "Groomers like McCartney and Hollingsbee operate in a very similar way, concealing their identity online, pretending to be the same age as a child. "They use fake profile pictures, pretending to have similar interests to gain the trust of the child before steering the conversation to a sexual nature. "Once trust in established, they use power and control to make, force, blackmail, guilt or trick a child into doing what the groomer wants. "They may persuade a child to take part in online sexual activity, including sharing explicit images and videos and livestreaming sexual acts." It added: "It is a crime for anyone to possess, make, distribute or show anyone an indecent image of a child under 18 years of age. "This offence can be committed by an adult or a child. It is also a crime for an adult to send a sexually explicit image of themselves to a child. "We have specialist detectives within the Child Internet Protection Team who are dedicated to robustly investigating those who contribute to the cycle of child abuse and bringing those responsible before the courts. "We use specialist technology to examine digital devices and trace any digital interaction right back to the person, making it difficult for offenders to hide evidence from us. "If a person is downloading, viewing or making indecent images of children, you are leaving a digital footprint and we are actively looking for you."
Telegraph
18-02-2025
- Telegraph
More than 100 child sex abuse image crimes logged a day
More than 100 child sex abuse image crimes are being recorded every day by police, official figures show. Home Office data show that 38,685 child sex abuse image offences were logged in 2023-24, the first time the reported scale of the crime has been revealed in England and Wales. Snapchat was shown to be the biggest culprit, according to separate data, based on freedom of information requests to police forces by the children's charity NSPCC. The analysis, based on 7,338 offences in 20 forces where police recorded the platform involved, showed Snapchat accounted for 3,648 cases, or 50 per cent, followed by Instagram with 840 (11 per cent), Facebook 537 (7 per cent) and WhatsApp 457 (6 per cent). The problem was highlighted by Alexander McCartney, the UK's most prolific 'catfish', who ran a 'paedophile enterprise' targeting 3,500 children in 30 countries. He was jailed for life last year and ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years after posing as a teenage girl to befriend young girls on Snapchat before blackmailing them. 'Unacceptable loophole' It comes as leading charities including the NSPCC, Lucy Faithfull Foundation and Barnardo's are warning that children will not be protected from child sexual abuse on private messaging platforms under current plans for the Online Safety Act. In a joint letter to Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, and Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, the charities argued that the current wording of the rules created an 'unacceptable loophole' for encrypted messaging services to avoid taking down illegal content. The letter cited wording in online regulator Ofcom's codes of practice, which says that platforms must remove illegal content where it is 'technically feasible' – a phrase the charities claim will be used by encrypted messaging services to argue that they 'cannot be held accountable for the take down of illegal content'. End-to-end encryption, offered by a number of messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, and by other services, means that no one other than those in a conversation can access its content, including the companies hosting the messages. The debate over encrypted services and potential access to them has reignited after it emerged that the UK Government has ordered Apple to allow it to access encrypted files uploaded to the cloud. In its letter, the charities said they were 'deeply concerned' about the Ofcom codes of practice as they stand, and that it would enable 'some services to evade delivering the most basic protections for children'. They said: 'It is important to be clear about the implications of this decision. Whether it is a child being sent a nude image of themselves as a form of sexual extortion, or an adult being exposed to child sexual abuse material in a group chat, on some sites users will not be able to confidently report and have this content removed. 'Child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) material will stay in circulation, continuing to put children at extreme risk and resulting in great harm for victims, in direct contradiction of the Act.' Police and security services around the world have pushed for more access to encrypted communications in recent years, warning that it allows criminals such as terrorists and child abusers to more easily hide and hampers their efforts to catch them – an issue also raised by online safety campaigners. 'Must be technically feasible' In response, tech companies have argued that users have a right to privacy and that any backdoors into software created for intelligence and security services could also be exploited by criminals or authoritarian regimes. An Ofcom spokesman said: 'The law says that measures in our codes of practice must be technically feasible. However, we expect the vast majority of platforms will be able to take content down and we will hold them to account if they don't. 'There'll be measures all platforms will need to take to protect children, such as reviewing child sexual abuse material when they become aware of it and reporting it to law enforcement.'
