Reports of sex abuse between children double in two years

Reports of children sexually abusing other children doubled in the two years to 2019, according to police figures obtained by BBC Panorama.

The programme has followed up on research from 2017, when police recorded almost 8,000 reports of abuse among under-18s in England and Wales.

Yearly reports have risen to between 15,000 and 16,000, but cases fell in 2020-21 during the pandemic.

In about 10% of reported cases the alleged abuser was aged 10 or under.

And overall, a big majority of cases involved boys abusing girls.

Thirty-four of the 43 police forces in England and Wales responded to Freedom of Information requests asking for the number of sexual offences reports, including rape and sexual assault, where both the alleged perpetrator and victim were under 18.

The figures did not include the online offence of non-consensual sharing of private sexual images or videos.

The Labour MP and former teacher, Emma Hardy, said: “I still think that those figures might be an underestimation of the extent of the problem, because not all cases ended up going to the police. Not all things are reported.”

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‘Who’s protecting our kids?’: Documentary presented by Mariella Frostrup

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