UK government publishes data showing 30% rise in online-facilitated child sexual abuse offences

The UK Home Office has published official statistics showing a 30 percent increase in recorded online-facilitated child sexual abuse offences in the year ending March 2026, with 15,400 offences recorded by police in England and Wales. The data indicate that the majority of cases involved grooming or sexual communication with a child via social media direct messaging, and that the average age of victims at first contact was 13 years old.

When the point of first contact is a direct message on a social platform, detection must occur at that layer to prevent the progression from conversation to crime. Guardii intercepts grooming and sexual solicitation at the point of contact across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, identifying the conversational signals of sustained targeting, boundary testing and coercion before an offender establishes control or manipulates a child into unsafe behavior. The system surfaces a child in crisis to a parent, school or professional in real time, enabling intervention while the conversation is active and the risk is acute, rather than after an offence has been recorded.