Huge rise in South Yorkshire people contacting helpline about interest in online child abuse images
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The latest data from Stop It Now! – the UK’s only anonymous helpline that supports people worried about their own or someone else’s sexual thoughts or behaviour towards children – shows that a total of 6,580 people from the county sought advice or support from them via its online self-help or confidential helpline last year.
This compares with 3,066 people in South Yorkshire contacting the helpline in 2021, which equates to a year-on-year rise of 115 per cent.
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Hide AdFollowing the release of the figures, a spokesperson for Stop It Now! urged men to be careful of their pornography viewing habits, claiming ‘insights show that developing an interest in more extreme porn is a common pathway into online offending against children’.
Child sexual abuse prevention expert and Director of Stop It Now! UK & Ireland, Donald Findlater, said: “The way people use pornography today is unrecognisable from 20-years ago. The days of top-shelf magazines have been replaced by sophisticated methods that can show people things online they weren’t looking for or usually interested in. This can mean people then search for and need more extreme videos to be satisfied, with some individuals then looking for under-age material and offending as a result.
“Lots of people who view legal adult pornography might be surprised by what we’re saying, and they might think that anyone viewing sexual images of under-18s must be a paedophile, but our experience over many years tells a different story. A story where people find themselves in dark places that they never expected to be, doing things they never expected to do.
“Our message to anyone on that path, or already offending, is that these pictures and videos cause huge harm to the children in them. And watching them has massive consequences for the viewer, including possible arrest, jail, job loss and family breakdown. But it isn’t too late to stop.”
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Hide Ad“The thousands of men who call us after being arrested tell us they wish they’d made a change and stopped sooner. Many felt they were in a cycle they couldn’t break and we helped them find a way out - to stop and to stay stopped,” Mr Findlater added.
“We hope this information will serve as a wake-up call and that anyone worried about their own, or someone else’s, behaviour will contact us for advice and support.”
In addition, new consumer research shows nationally, nearly a third (31 per cent) of men aged 35 and under struggle to determine the legality of sexual content online.
The Stop It Now! spokesperson described it as a ‘worrying finding’ as nearly half (49 per cent) agree that watching too much pornography can lead to watching more extreme or illegal content online.
They continued: “To add further context, as men are nine times more likely to view pornography than women, it makes them more at risk of encountering illegal content online.”
Deputy Chief Constable Ian Critchley, National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for Child Protection and Abuse Investigations, said: “The fight against online child sexual abuse will never stop and these most recent figures outlining the rise in people seeking help serves to highlight the focus and priority that all of society must place on preventing these awful crimes.
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Hide Ad“Viewing sexual images of children online is never victimless. These are crimes which destroy and devastate lives, including the lives of the children and families of people arrested. We are seeing more and more the devastation left behind when a family member is arrested for this kind of offending.”