Police Cyber team recently secured its first Stalking Prevention Order involving a juvenile Source: Bedfordshire Police

 

 

Bedforshire Police have reported that they secured their first Stalking Prevention Order involving a teenage boy. 

The boy (unnamed) had created multiple social media accounts using the names of three girls from the same school. He then took images from the victims’ personal social media profiles and used AI technology to manipulate them into explicit images and published them online.

 

This sort of behaviour is a growing concern and in this case it isn't the sort of activity that Tech companies could easily monitor. In this case monitoring the boys device's might well have prevented him having to be subject to police investigation and sanction. Hopefully it is a lesson learnt.

 

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Man who groomed 14-year-old girl he met on Roblox jailed for 28 months Source: The Guardian

 

Carlo Tritta , an 18 year old when his predatory behaviour began, obsessively groomed a 14-year-old girl he met through the online gaming platform Roblox. He kept indecent images of the girl and travelled across the country from his home in Hampshire to visit her even though he had not been invited.

Such behaviour could have led to dreadful outcomes and he was sentenced to 18months in jail.

The girl's mother discovered what was heppening in August of 2025 but the grooming began in 2024 and became Tritta's obsession, causing great distress for the girl and her family.  On one occassion Tritta walked in through the back door of the girl's house in an attempt to ask her to drop the complaint, he also sent letters and attempted to contact her by phone.

The report does not state how the parent discovered the communicatios but clearly she was either monitoring her child's communications or found it following the girl sharing what was happening. 

Monitoring or checking a child's devices or devices is not snooping but an important parental responsibility to ensure children are kept safe. 

Read the full story here.

 

 

Police arresting 1,000 paedophile suspects a month across UK Source: The Guardian

 

The National Crime Agency (NCA) reports that a significant rise in child sexual abuse being driven by technology and online forums. Whilst the UK laws on protecting children from accessing unsuitable material and grooming by peadofiles the report suggests that things are getting worse.

One of the major issues is that most of the changes are placed on tech companies to establish the necessary guardrails this does not mean that everything will be interecepted by their monitoring solutions.   

The NCA said the growth in offending across the UK was driven by technology and linked to the radicalisation of offenders in online forums, encouraging people to view images of child sexual abuse by reassuring them it was normal.

Most contact with children happened on mainstream social media platforms, with algorithms pushing paedophilic material to people who have shown a previous interest in it.

This one further reason that parental monitoring can add a signifcant layer of support for youg people.  

Read the full story  here.

 

 

Story:Ex-teen hackers warn parents are clueless as children steal 'millions

 

A team of journalists at Sky News revealed that children as young as seven are being referred to Britain's national cybercrime intervention programme. 

Former hackers jailed for stealing millions have warn parents it's easier than ever for children to fall down the rabbit hole – and the first step is often gaming.

A former cyber criminal says he was around 15 when he started hacking. He began whilst playing a video game and was drawn into the cybercrime world.  

He ended up in jail for stealing over $7 million in crypto-currency.

Read the full story here .

Story:More than 100 arrests during coordinated policing week Source: Punchline : Gloucestershire

 

Operation Scorpion is a collaboration between the South West's five police forces (Avon and Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire), alongside their respective offices of Police and Crime Commissioners, the British Transport Police, the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit (SW ROCU) and the National County Lines Coordination Centre, which sees resources combined to tackle drug supply and make the region a hostile environment for organised crime groups.

Many police authorities run similar coordinated multi-agency operations dealing with these and other priorities.

The operation  was focussed on situations where criminals groom and exploit young people into carrying out crimes on their behalf. This is a growing concern for police and other child focussed agencies and charities.

Police Officers visited schools, ran a social media campaign targetting TikTok and SnapChat adverts designed to reach young people. This really needs to become the focus of parental monitoring to ensure their children are not being drawn into criminal activities without knowing it. 

Read the full story here.