THE number of child abuse image offences recorded by police in the UK rose by almost a quarter in a year to 22,724, according to figures released by the NSPCC.

Figures obtained via Freedom of Information requests to police forces found an offence was recorded on average every 23 minutes in 2017/18. In the North East, police recorded 2,100 offences in the last two years. There was a 49 per cent increase from last year, with 843 offences recorded in 2016/17 and 1,257 crimes this year.

The charity is warning that offenders are using social networks to target children for abuse online, grooming and manipulating them into sending naked images.

The NSPCC’s #WildWestWeb campaign is calling on Government to prevent abuse from happening in the first place by introducing an independent regulator to hold social networks to account and tackle grooming to cut off the supply of these images at source.

In August, Mark Ferguson, of Houghton Le Spring, was jailed for 45 months for possessing and distributing child abuse images. He had downloaded more than 600,000 images.

Tony Stower, NSPCC’s head of child safety online, said: “Every one of these images represents a real child who has been groomed and abused to supply the demand of this appalling trade.

“The lack of adequate protections on social networks has given offenders all too easy access to children to target and abuse. This is the last chance saloon for social networks on whose platforms this abuse is often taking place.

“Our Wild West Web campaign is calling on Government to introduce a tough independent regulator to hold social networks to account.”