A child as young as six was the victim of revenge porn in the West Midlands, shock new data has revealed. Police have dealt with dozens of child victims over the last few years, during which time there has been an explosion in cases amid warnings about blackmail scams.
Revenge porn reports involving children aged 17 and under rocketed during 2021/22 to 110. Cases had only been in single figures in each of the previous four years.
Shockingly, one victim was aged just six. There were three aged 10 and another three who were 11 and five aged 12.
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It comes amid increasing concerns about school-age kids being targeted in this way, with the rise in access to phones and social media potentially partly to blame. Police forces are also seeing increasing reports of romance blackmail scams, where someone targets dating site users before asking them for intimate images.
The Government defines revenge porn as “the sharing of private, sexual materials, either photos or videos, of another person, without their consent and with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress”. Cases will often involve blackmail, where someone receives threats that private images or videos will be leaked unless payment is made. This is often known as ‘sextortion’.
And offences surged during 2021/22, according to West Midlands Police (WMP) records. There had been only 26 revenge porn cases recorded by WMP where the victim was 17 or under in the previous four years combined.
During 2021/22, the most recent figures available, there were also dozens of young teenage victims. It follows warnings to take extreme care when sending personal images or videos, amid fears there will be more victims.
Over that 12-month period, there were 12 victims aged 13; 18 who were 14; 21 aged 15; 19 aged 16; and another 28 who were 17. Between 2017 and 2022, there were a total of 136 revenge porn victims aged under 17 recorded by WMP.
It comes after we revealed last year how suspects were aged as young as 10, indicating children of much younger ages are both committing these offences and being on the receiving end.
Police forces, including Staffordshire, have warned over recent months how criminals have been creating fake dating or social media accounts to befriend people online and persuade them to send intimate material as part of a blackmail scam.
The Staffordshire force said it has seen a rise in ‘sextortion’ cases where people had reported receiving emails from fraudsters threatening to post or share videos on social networks and demanding payment. Detective Sergeant Ben Thomas, of CID North at Staffordshire Police, said in December: “This is a very distressing crime, which preys on people’s vulnerabilities and worries about any consequences.
“The welfare of victims is paramount and I want to reassure people that this is highly likely to be a scam and they have nothing to fear. Don’t be embarrassed to report it and don’t attempt to respond to any threat or pay any money.
“Grab a screen shot of communication, suspend associated accounts but do not delete any content or the account themselves; and please report it to us and we will then investigate.”
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