Instagram grooming of children as young as five triples

The NSPCC has called on social media companies to do more to protect children

THE number of children targeted for grooming and abuse on Instagram has more than tripled – with some of the victims as young as five years old.

Figures obtained by the NSPCC suggest there were 5,161 reports of sexual communications with a child recorded in just 18 months.

Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram were used in 70% of those incidents.

Girls aged 12 to 15 were most likely to be targeted, but roughly one in five victims were under the age of 11.

The NSPCC’s chief executive, Peter Wanless, has accused social media firms of “10 years of failed self-regulation”.

He said: “These figures are overwhelming evidence that keeping children safe cannot be left to social networks.”

The charity obtained freedom of information data from 39 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales.

In incidents where police recorded the method used to contact a child, Instagram was used by groomers 126 times between April and September 2017.

This increased to 428 for the same period last year.

The figures come amid growing criticism of how social networks protect the children using their platforms.

The government is due to release a white paper about online harms, and the NSPCC hopes this will include new laws to tackle grooming.

Mr Wanless warned: “We cannot wait for the next tragedy before tech companies are made to act.

“It is hugely concerning to see the sharp spike in grooming offences on Instagram, and it is vital that the platform designs basic protection more carefully into the service it offers young people.”

One victim told the NSPCC of how she was groomed by a 24-year-old man when she was just 13.

She had met him in person through a friend and he initially said he was 16, then 18, before he added her on Facebook and Snapchat the same evening.

The girl said it “escalated very quickly” before he encouraged her to share photos of herself and meet for sex after school.

She added: “He drove me somewhere quiet… and took me into the woods and had sex with me.

“He drove me in the direction of home straight afterwards, refusing to even talk, and then kicked me out of the car at the traffic lights. I was bleeding and crying.”

The girl’s mother added: “Somebody has got to take responsibility for what happens to children on their platforms. Simply put, if social media didn’t exist, this would never have happened.”

A National Crime Agency spokesman said: “It is vital that online platforms used by children and young people have in place robust mechanisms and processes to prevent, identify and report sexual exploitation and abuse, including online grooming.

“Children and young people also need easy access to mechanisms allowing them to alert platforms to potential offending.”

A spokesperson for Facebook and Instagram said: “Keeping young people safe on our platforms is our top priority and child exploitation of any kind is not allowed.

“We use advanced technology and work closely with the police and CEOP to aggressively fight this type of content and protect young people.”

On Thursday, YouTube announced it is disabling comments on videos featuring children after a vlogger alleged he had found instances of paedophiles targeting videos of young girls on the site. – news.sky.com