Sharp Rise in Child Sexual Abuse During Lockdown
- National Crime Agency (NCA) figures shared with the Guardian show that during each of the 13 weeks of lockdown, around 350 cases of online child sexual abuse were passed to the police, a 10% increase on the same period last year.
- Most pupils are still not back at school and many continue to spend more time online, putting them at greater risk of being targeted by strangers through social media, apps and gaming.
- Although lockdown is easing, children now have long summer holidays, with few adults outside their family to spot if something is going seriously wrong.
- Sajid Javid, the former chancellor, warned last month that isolation was creating a “perfect storm” for child sexual abuse.
TikTok Algorithms Promoted Anti Semitic Death Camp Song
- TikTok has deleted a collection of videos found to be using a highly offensive anti-Semitic song that gained more than 6.5 million views due to TikToks algorithms.
- The song surfaced on the app on Sunday and includes highly offensive lyrics about the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. The first video to use the song showed a giant robot scorpion with a swastika attacking and killing people.
- Other videos that made further use of the song accounted for the additional half a million views. Nearly 100 users chose the song for their own videos. One showed a character from the computer game Roblox that looks like Hitler.
- A spokesperson for TikTok said, “We do not tolerate any content that includes hate speech, and the sound in question, along with all associated videos, have now been removed”.
Inquiry Launched into British Gymnastics Amid Claims of Child Abuse
- The governing body of British Gymnastics has bowed to pressure to commission an inquiry to investigate claims that children were subject to physical and emotional abuse within British Gymnastics.
- The review will be conducted by leading sports barrister Jane Mulcahy QC amid fears there were dozens of victims.
- Allegations include one child being tied to a horizontal bar and left hanging in pain at a gym while her cries were ignored and a ten-year-old being slapped in the face.
- British Gymnastics Chief Executive, Jane Allen, said: “it is clear that gymnasts did not feel they could raise their concerns to British Gymnastics and it is vital that an independent review helps us better understand why, so we can remove any barriers as quickly as possible”.
Thousands of High-Risk Offenders Released From Prison into Homelessness
- Thousands of high-risk convicted criminals, including those classed as violent and sexual offenders, are being released from prison in England into homelessness, increasing the likelihood of their reoffending, inspectors warned.
- Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) said in a report that it was “particularly disturbed” to find that at least 3,713 people supervised by the National Probation Service, which is responsible for high-risk offenders, had left prison and become homeless from 2018 to 2019. The inspectors said this widespread homelessness was jeopardising the rehabilitation of offenders.
- The Chief Inspector of Probation, Justin Russell said: “Many individuals are homeless when they enter prison and even more are when they leave. Individuals need a safe place to call home, it gives them a solid foundation on which to build crime-free lives.”
Sharp Rise in Scams Expected as Lockdown Ends
- Trading standards bosses have warned of an imminent spike in scam telephone calls as Covid-19 lockdown measures ease and call centers around the world, including fake ones operated by criminal groups, start to reopen.
- Between the end of March and May, the percentage of nuisance calls made to UK homes as a proportion of total calls was much lower than the usual average of 37% a month, as all office-based call centres were forced to close.
- National Trading Standards (NTS) is now predicting a sharp rise in the coming weeks as fraudsters exploit coronavirus fears and prey on vulnerable and older people self-isolating at home.
- We were recently contacted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) warning of an increase in scams via social media platforms targeted at vulnerable young people.
- For more information on popular COVID-19 scams check out our blog here.
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