Child sexual abuse rising year on year in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough

Child sexual abuse is rising year-on-year in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, police figures suggest.

Last year, 1,442 crimes reported to the region’s police force involved child sexual abuse (CSA) in some form, whether physical, non-physical – such as online abuse – or grooming.

This was up from 1,133 CSA crimes reported to Cambridgeshire Constabulary in 2021, 851 in 2020 and 775 in 2019 revealed by a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

The figures include both current and historical abuses as well as instances where the suspect is themselves a child.

In the 2021/22 Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Children Partnership Board report, published earlier this year and presented to Peterborough City Council (PCC), police noted a “dramatic increase” in CSA offences in the last year.

It added that this was in part due to the “delayed reporting and increased online offending that successive COVID lockdown periods precipitated”.

Police also say that there has been an increase in both awareness of these kinds of crimes and methods to report them locally and nationally, which has also contributed to the rise.

There hasn’t been a similar increase, however, in CSA suspects being arrested, charged or summonsed.

Arrests not rising by same levels

In 2022, 290 arrests were made (which may involve the same person being arrested multiple times for different crimes), compared with 298 in 2021, 236 in 2020 and 227 in 2019.

Charges and summonses have decreased too with 27 in 2022, 67 in 2021, 100 in 2020 and 76 in 2019 - although it should be noted that there are hundreds of investigations still active from the last couple of years which could result in further action.

The figures also reveal the most common outcomes to CSA reports in the region.

One of the most frequent is that “evidential difficulties” prevent further action: this was the case 2,331 times between 2019 to 2022 (more than double the number of arrests and almost eight times higher than the total charged or summonsed in this period).

Police say that there are many reasons for this including an increase in online offending in which it’s more difficult to identify a named suspect and an increase in reporting historical offences.

This category also includes instances in which a victim declines or is unable to support further police action (this was the case 362 times between 2019-22).

Police say child protection is a priority

Police say that they will always make an arrest where lawful grounds are met and will do all they can to investigate CSA.

A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire Constabulary said: “Child protection is one of our priorities. We will do all we can to investigate abuse in all its forms and safeguard the victims, and doing so is a dedicated strand of the force’s violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy via Project Artemis.

“We have a dedicated unit to investigate child abuse and we regularly training to frontline officers to increase their knowledge of child abuse and how to spot the warning signs.

“This training coincides with the ongoing campaign work we have been doing to raise public awareness of abuse and encourage people to report concerns.

“We would encourage anyone with any concerns about a child, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem, to report these to us. One call could change or even save a life.”

“For more information about child protection, including child abuse, child sexual exploitation (CSE) and offences including online grooming, visit the force’s dedicated web page.”