Police target online gangs who encourage children to self-harm on social media

Police target online gangs who encourage children to self-harm on social media Girls as young as 11 are being targeted by online networks where children are groomed and manipulated into harming themselves and send indecent pictures A police force has joined an international crackdown on online gangs grooming children into acts of self-harm. Detectives in Scotland are targeting members of disturbing online networks known collectively as “The Com”, where vulnerable youngsters are allegedly manipulated and blackmailed after being approached through gaming platforms and social media. Victims are often girls as young as 11, with some coerced into sharing sexual images or carrying out increasingly serious acts of self-harm. It comes after 20-year-old Justin Swaddle described as a "predatory shark" was jailed for two years in August for blackmailing and coercing more than 100 victims into harming themselves, including carving his online username onto their bodies. Police Scotland has so far made one arrest linked to the networks, while several people have been convicted in England. Now officers are working alongside law enforcement around the world to understand the scale of a threat one charity has described as among the most serious facing children online. One Police Scotland detective has revealed the disturbing reality facing officers investigating the cases. Paul - not his real name - works in the force’s internet investigations unit and is tasked with examining material passed to Scotland by the National Crime Agency. In one case alone, officers face going through almost 1,000 images in an attempt to identify a victim and the suspected perpetrator. Paul told the BBC: “Unfortunately, we are getting a lot of self-harm imagery. There’s nearly a thousand images in this particular case, and we need to go through every single one of those.” The case has been linked to a Com group, with police believing a young girl was instructed to hurt herself by someone she met online, understood to be a young male in Scotland. Some of the material seen by investigators showed a girl’s bloodied arm, while another image appeared to show blood used to draw a symbol on a bathroom wall. Paul said: “Usually, it’s a young girl in these particular cases. We’re finding a lot of vulnerable young girls that are between 11 and 17. Unfortunately, we discover down the line that there are other vulnerabilities that [perpetrators] are exploiting.” The Com - short for “the community” - is a term used for a collection of loosely connected online groups linked to abuse, financial crime and extremism. Police say some perpetrators are motivated by gaining “kudos” or status among others. Investigators have also encountered occult and Satanic symbols in some of the material. Paul said: “It’s very common, but I don’t think they believe these Satanic things. With these particular groups anyway, it’s about how extreme, how much exploitation can you inflict on an individual. “It’s about how much control you can get, up to the point that they’re getting them to self-harm.” The National Crime Agency said in May that it was investigating around 200 cases involving the networks. Det Ch Insp Craig Faulds, who is leading work targeting their links to Scotland, described the crimes as “an evolution of online child abuse and sexual exploitation”. He said perpetrators can initially make contact with youngsters through “innocuous gaming platforms” before conversations move elsewhere online. He said: “It can move to social media platforms, messaging services and online forums. We are seeing cases where perpetrators online are targeting young vulnerable people, usually girls, and they are manipulating them, they are coercing them into sharing indecent images of themselves. “Some of the more serious cases are seen by coercing individuals to cause acts of serious self-harm. We have identified victims and perpetrators in Scotland. And we are at the stage of mapping this threat to understand significance and the prevalence of it.” Hazel Stewart, who works for the NCA’s Threat Leadership team, described the networks as “low-volume, high-harm”, adding: “The scale doesn’t matter, it is the harm that is being caused.” She added: “They find their own identity online, they can be whoever they want to be and therefore they are encouraging those that are vulnerable, usually young females… seeking them out, say, on suicidal ideation sites or eating disorder sites, and encourage them into more private spaces.” Hazel explained the abusers forms ‘supportive’ relationships with victims at first then later encourage them to carry out harmful acts. She said: “It might be a small cut at first. Or it might be harm to a pet, or a sibling. That harm will escalate and the grooming and manipulation continues, and the victim is in a situation where they can’t escape.” She described the threat as a “global problem”, with UK authorities working alongside law enforcement in the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, as well as Interpol and Europol. The Molly Rose Foundation, which supports young people and families targeted by the networks, said the groups “represent the gravest risk to children online”. Its chief executive Andy Burrows said: “These networks represent the gravest risk to children online, with every UK police force investigating Com cases, the threat is real and widespread. “It’s also clear that these risks exist beyond just social media, on gaming platforms and encrypted messaging apps, which is why Andy Burnham must move beyond a blanket social media ban and incentivise all online platforms to become safe for young people as a price of doing businesxs in the UK.” Mr Burrows has criticised regulator Ofcom’s response to the emerging threat and argued it exposes weaknesses in the Online Safety Act. An Ofcom spokesperson said: “The threats posed by Com groups are a particular concern for Ofcom, and we’re working closely with law enforcement and child protection agencies to tackle them. Where services fail to comply with their duties, we’ve shown that we won’t hesitate to act.”