The National Crime Agency revealed the number of children being rescued from harm has risen by 50% in the last five years – with abusers using mainstream social media as a means to “identify and abuse vulnerable”
The threat of child sex abuse is “getting worse” as detectives reveal they are arresting 1,000 suspected paedophiles every month in the UK.
The National Crime Agency revealed the number of children being rescued from harm has risen by 50% in the last five years. Rob Jones, director of NCA’s general operations, said technology was fuelling the radicalisation of offenders in online forums.
And he said platforms were bringing “like-minded” abusers together, with attackers using mainstream social media as a means to “identify and abuse vulnerable”. Mr Jones said: “The threat is getting worse, despite our best efforts. There is more access to children online.
“Children are more reliant on the internet, and what we see from offenders is a move to collaborate and coordinate activities on the dark web, but to use the open web as a discovery platform to identify and abuse vulnerable children.”
Ensure our latest headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as your Preferred Source in your Google search settings.
Most contact with children happened on mainstream social media platforms, the NCA said. Algorithms are pushing paedophile material to people who have shown a previous interest in it. Every measure showed a dramatic increase that Mr Jones said “really worries us”.
He said that leads about those interested in sexually attacking children have gone up tenfold in a decade, with 1,200 children a month being safeguarded. Mr Jones said the majority of images of abuse were “known images”, which have been in circulation for some time, and that tech companies have the ability to stop them.
Police were “racing” to get to the worst offenders, who are in positions of trust or have access to children, which make up 15% of more than 33,000 leads last year. Mr Jones said potential offenders were introduced to material by algorithms, and forums told people interested in the sexual abuse of children that they were not criminals.
He said: “Because of the way algorithms drive people with like-minded interests together, because of the way people operate, they will be told that what they are doing is normal, it will be rationalised.
“And then you will see almost a radicalisation process where their behaviour will be encouraged, and they will be told that everything they’ve been told that’s told them it’s wrong throughout their life, it’s the opposite.”
Last week a former London nursery worker, Vincent Chan, was jailed for 18 years for child sex offences, including sexually abusing toddlers in his care and offences at a primary school where he previously worked. Chan, 45, from Finchley, north London, will spend another eight years on extended licence having admitted 56 charges, including sexually abusing young children in his care
And this week Joao-Carlos Jardim Dos Santos Teixeira, 26, from Eastbourne, was jailed for 11 years for sharing and discussing child sexual abuse material, including AI-generated images. He pleaded guilty to all charges in December 2025 at Lewes Crown Court. Mr Jones said that offenders were “determined” and had “adapted” to avoid detection but that technology companies could and should do more.
He said: “Over the last five years we have continually said that the use of technology is increasing the opportunities for child sex offenders and the risk to children and young people. We have seen some improvements by tech companies, but it’s nowhere near what’s actually needed to protect children in this day and age.”
Mr Jones said images already circulating, which represent the majority of such abuse, could be identified by tech companies and taken down. Mr Jones said: “They could stop a lot more. So if you have an unencrypted environment where AI is used to detect known images, that is the low-hanging fruit that we should expect is no longer available on the open web, and that is something that we’ve talked about a lot for many, many years. That technology is available, it is detectable, it can be taken down.
“So we should no longer be find- ing known images. All too often, the images we find of abuse are known and detectable.” Becky Riggs, the acting chief constable for Staffordshire police who is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection and abuse investigation, said that some platforms are better than others, and the rocketing level of referrals come despite the growth of end-to-end encryption that means activity cannot be monitored.
She said: “Every victim that experiences this type of crime, it has unimaginable consequences, which are often lifelong, and sadly, in the online world, are often relived as well, because the images are shared across a network of individuals.” Police said there was no typical offender, and the NCA has previously estimated that up to 840,000 adults in the UK had a sexual interest in children.
