The pandemic and its lockdowns have created a "perfect storm" for online grooming and child abuse, says a charity.

The year 2020/21 saw its highest rise in cases in three years in Kent, says the NSPCC.

Richard Collard, NSPCC

With people kept isolated because of coronavirus, abusers have been left undisturbed to hunt children and youngsters have become easier prey by feeling lonely and needing contact.

Richard Collard, policy and regulatory manager for the charity, told KentOnline: "I think it's definitely added to this.

"It is really a perfect storm of abusers spending more time at home on their computer without other people around them and there have been more children at home using technology to stay in contact.

"There has obviously been a lot of loneliness that comes with the pandemic.

"So if a person reaches out to a child they are more likely to have those conversations where they might not have done before."

'The pandemic will be in the past but online tools are here to stay...'

Mr Collard also said that abusers were aided by the increase in the amount of communication tools over recent years.

He said: "The fact that more of these exist means that it's a lot easier for abusers to contact children.

"We need to remember that although the pandemic hopefully will soon be in the past, some of these tools like Zoom and Skype and all these online communication tools, are here to stay.

"So we need to make sure that we see this is a problem that is not going to go away unless we have an effective regulation."

The charity tells of a case of 14-year-old boy who was tricked into thinking he was in contact with a female friend when it was a man.

Using threats and blackmail the paedophile coerced the boy into sending abuse images and performing sex acts live on Skype. The images and videos were shared with five other men who then bombarded the child with further demands.

In April to March 2019/20, with nearly all that year pre-pandemic, there were 1,185 cases of child abuse image crimes reported to police in Kent.

In the following year, 2020/21 there were 1,391, a leap of 206 or 17.4%. The amount of cases had fallen by three from 2018/19, when there were 1,188, to the 1,185 in 2019/20.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children says that child abuse image offences recorded by police in Kent went up 265% from 2016/17 to 2020/21, reaching a total 5,187 over the five years.

Offences recorded by police UK-wide passed 100,000 in five years, with more than 25,000 crimes last year - up 37% since 2016/17.

These are offences relating to possessing, taking, making, and distributing child abuse material.

The figures have come from a Freedom of Information request to police forces throughout the country.

The child protection group says social media is being used by groomers as a conveyor belt to produce and share child abuse images on an industrial scale.

It added that the issue of young people being groomed into sharing images of their own abuse has spread widely.

It is urging Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries to strengthen the current Online Safety Bill to disrupts the production and spread of child abuse material on social media.

The NSPCC says that behind every offence could be multiple victims and images, and children will continue to be at risk of an unprecedented scale of abuse unless the draft legislation is significantly strenghthened.

It says there are five ways to do this:

• Disrupt well-established grooming pathways: Social media platform need to be made to risk assess for cross platform harms.

• Tackle how offenders use social media to organise abuse: The NSPCC says perpetrators use social media as a shop window to advertise their sexual interest in children, make contact with other offenders and post digital breadcrumbs as a guide for them to find child abuse content.

• Put a duty on every social media platform to have a named manager responsible for children’s safety..

• Give the regulator more effective powers to combat abuse in private messaging.

• Give children a funded voice to fight for their interests. The charity says there needs to be provision for a statutory body to represent the interests of children, funded by an industry levy, in the Bill.