Member

As well as reviewing past cases, we need much stronger action to uncover the full scale and nature of these awful crimes. The child sexual exploitation police task force, led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, has estimated that of the 115,000 child sexual abuse offences recorded by the police in 2023, around 4,000 involved more than one perpetrator. Of those, around 1,100 involved abuse within the family and over 300 involved abuse in institutions, and the task force identified 717 reported cases of group or gang-related child sexual exploitation. However, we know that the vast majority of abuse goes unreported, so we expect all those figures to be significant underestimates.