Experts warn of rising risk as young people access illegal content online

Alan says he was just eight years old when he came across pornographic material on a social media platform. 

He says he quickly felt addicted to porn and by the time he was 17, he was viewing illegal and indecent images of children.

A shocking proportion of these offences are carried out by young people.

According to official police data from 2023, in the 22,000 cases where age was known, over 70% of the offenders were under the age of 17.

In the vast majority of these cases, the perpetrator’s age was within three years of their victim.

Alan, now 19, is one of them. He was convicted in April this year for possession of indecent images after a two-year investigation.

"A lot of young people... access pornography simply because of how open it is. And it is something that is addicting, even if it’s not for self-pleasure.

“I was never really accessing indecent images purposefully. It was more so something I stumbled across on X through the form of bump messages and there were these links that redirected you to another website, that’s where everything could be found.”

The website contained dozens of nude images of girls aged 14-17 years old.

“I closed the website, but then I ended up going back out of curiosity, I was wondering what was on there and it came down to me accessing that sort of content almost three to four times a week. 

“I needed to watch this stuff. And over time you... get desensitized... and a lot of the time it gets worse until people start accessing illegal content.”

The police showed up at Alan’s family home in the southwest of the UK and seized all his electronic devices.

“I didn’t really know why they were there up until when they told me, but... I thought my life was genuinely over. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do anything ever again.”

Alan was handed a 24-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months, alongside 100 hours of community service and a fine. He will be on the sex offender register for another 7 years and 8 months. As part of his rehabilitation program, he says he learns about online safety.

“I feel like I’m getting nowhere... I passed my GCSEs and my A-Levels and was going to go to university before my actions caught up with me. I now live off government money in a rundown house applying for jobs and I’m not getting anywhere at all.

“This is something that is not healthy for a person to be watching. And it’s illegal as well... not only that, it’s immoral.”

Alan described the government’s Online Safety Act, which sees websites hosting potentially harmful content subject to age verification checks, as “great.”

Assistant Chief Constable Alastair Simpson is the NPCC’s Online Child Abuse lead.

“I think there is a concern that as children start to access images, they... seek out more... extreme images and then perhaps become involved in some of the more insidious offending themselves.”

He works as part of a specialist police department tackling harmful online content; “we have a network of police officers across the country who are patrolling all online spaces. There is no place they cannot get... to seek out the offenders causing the most harm.

“We should never underestimate... the harm that can be created from online offending. This is not minor harm, this can be lifelong harm to children. And we’ve got instances of children committing suicide because of interactions they’ve had online.

“Parents need to be vigilant in the same way they would be if their child invited... somebody they didn’t know to their house.”

Solicitor Marcus Johnstone told LBC “We get inquiries probably most days from parents of children, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

“The parents are just at a loss. They’re a mess. They’re at their wit’s end, they are really struggling to know how to deal with it. They’re distraught in disbelief.”

Marcus, who specializes in child sexual offenses, explained why he thinks so many teens are viewing underage material; “If you’ve got an inquisitive 13-year-old lad who’s... thinking about what happens sexually, then is he really going to try to go onto a lawful porn site and watch some 20-year-old professional porn actress faking something? Or does he want to type in, 14-year-old girl sex, whatever it might be, without really realizing what he’s typing?”

John Goss is a child therapist who counsels young people facing convictions related to indecent images of children.

“One thing I hear is ’I was just looking for people my own age’, and that’s been said to me a few times.

“It comes as a huge shock for the parents, when there’s police knocking on the door to question their child about something they’ve been doing, and this will be the first they’ve ever heard of it.

“Sometimes even I’m surprised by how easy it is for (indecent images) to be found online using certain words or looking in the right places.”

X has been approached for comment.