Here's the latest shocking crime stat to come out of Britain: child sex abuse convictions have risen by 60 per cent during the past six years.
The BBC said a freedom of information request to the Ministry of
Justice found 1363 people were convicted in 2005, while in 2010
it was 2,135.
The increase is being attributed to better detection of sickening paedophiles and raised awareness about their despicable crimes, it said.
But child protection groups say the figures above are relatively small and that child sex abuse remains an under-reported crime in the United Kingdom.
The
head of strategy and development at the NSPCC, Lisa Harker, said it was
difficult to ascertain if the figures indicated an increase in the number
of sex offences being committed against children.
"It may be that
more people – adults and children – are becoming aware of abuse and so
are reporting cases to the police and other authorities.
One such high profile case involved notorious paedo Vanessa George, who was jailed in 2009 for snapping indecent pictures of small children at Plmouth's Little Ted's nursery.
The mother-of-two was given an indeterminate sentence for sexually abusing children in her care and swapping images of the abuse with two other paedophiles.
The
chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre,
Peter Davies, said: "It is good news as it's a good indicator that
police services and others are getting their act together."
He
said authorities did not use conviction numbers as a primary measure of
success because it was an under-reported crime and hard to prosecute as
there tended to be few witnesses.
