Online CSE: the challenge policing has yet to meet

In January this year, inspectors from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) spent two weeks examining how Durham Constabulary safeguards children at risk.

Much of what they found was reassuring. Senior leaders understood their responsibilities, the teams worked well with safeguarding partner organisations and were capable of dealing with serious and complex cases. But in one critical area, the picture that emerged was deeply troubling.

Of six online child sexual exploitation cases reviewed by inspectors, the overall police response in all but one was found to be inadequate. In addition, three were found to be so concerning that they were immediately referred back to the constabulary during the course of the review itself.

Inspectors had serious doubts about whether the children involved had been properly safeguarded and feared they might still be at risk of further harm from their abusers.

The constabulary took immediate action to investigate all three cases fully, but the fact that these concerns were only triggered by the inspection is telling.

A national issue

Such findings are not new and far from unique to Durham. In 2023, HMICFRS published a dedicated thematic inspection of online child sexual exploitation across England and Wales. Its conclusions were damning: forces were failing to treat online abuse with the same urgency as contact offences, investigations were inconsistent, evidence was routinely lost, and officers lacked the skills and knowledge to pursue suspects effectively.

The latest inspection, published today (15 May), explicitly acknowledges that the same patterns identified nationally in 2023 were present at Durham in early 2026 and likely continue elsewhere.

The concern running through both inspections is that online exploitation still risks being viewed as a secondary or less immediate form of harm despite the potentially devastating consequences for victims.

Durham’s Chief Constable Rachel Bacon said: “The Inspectorate is, quite rightly, challenging the whole of policing to improve our child protection arrangements. No force in the country has yet been assessed as being more than adequate in terms of investigating abuse and exploitation.”

It’s a significant observation. Durham has long held a reputation as one of the top-performing forces in the country yet still scored “requires improvement” in this area. That raises serious questions about the wider national picture.

Missed opportunities

The specifics of the failures in Durham make for troubling reading. Investigating officers often failed to carry out basic research to identify suspects, even when victims had provided social media usernames or email addresses that could have led directly to perpetrators. Supervisors reviewed these investigations without ensuring that those obvious lines of enquiry were pursued.

Officers took an inconsistent approach to securing digital evidence, sometimes failing to take screenshots of messages or images, and not always arranging for specialist examination of devices seized from child victims. As a result, inspectors found that opportunities to recover material and upload it to the Child Abuse Image Database were routinely missed.

The database exists precisely to identify repeat offenders and link cases across force boundaries, so every missed upload is a missed opportunity to protect children elsewhere.

In only two of the six cases had officers considered using the Child Abuse Image Database or victim identification tools at all. And in at least one of those, specialist advice was recorded on the file, but the investigating officer chose not to follow it.

In some cases, no consideration was given to checking the Police National Database to see whether suspects were known to other forces or already under criminal investigation. Inspectors also found no evidence that officers had directed victims or their families toward national guidance or the National Crime Agency’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection command.

In all six cases the constabulary failed to recognise the need for joint working with children’s social care services and no strategy meetings were held.

Vulnerable victims

In four of the six online CSE cases reviewed, the child victims had documented neurodivergence or learning difficulties. Once again, this is not a Durham-specific finding. Research consistently shows that children with additional needs are disproportionately targeted by online predators, precisely because they may be less likely to recognise grooming behaviour, less confident about reporting it, and less able to navigate the processes that follow.

If officers and supervisors lack the training to investigate online CSE competently in straightforward cases, the picture for neurodivergent victims is likely to be worse still.

The report calls on the constabulary to ensure that everyone involved in either investigating or supervising online child exploitation cases has the right skills and knowledge.

But the findings from HMICFRS also point towards accountability failures setting above the level of individual investigators as supervisors had reviewed the cases in question yet failed to identify the gaps. The findings suggest the challenge for forces is embedding a culture where such checks are routinely expected, monitored and verified.

Next steps

Durham Constabulary now has eight weeks to set out in writing how it intends to address the areas for improvement identified by inspectors. Chief Constable Bacon said some of that work has already begun.

“We have identified the need for more resources and better data analytics and we are putting those resources in place, but protection of children, especially online, is an ever-growing challenge. There will always be more to do, and we have a plan in place to address those areas for improvement which have been identified”.

Durham’s police and crime commissioner, Joy Allen, reiterated that steps are underway to strengthen investigative standards through further investment in IT. “I have approved the contract for the Niche Technology Intelligence System. This will enhance how the force manages its intelligence and supports operational effectiveness, however this doesn’t happen overnight.”

Ms Allen also drew attention to the cross-border dimension of online exploitation, an aspect of the problem that the HMICFRS report does not dwell on but which investigators across the country will be familiar with. “We recognise that some exploitation is carried out remotely, sometimes from overseas, which presents significant challenges,” she said. “Nevertheless, wherever possible, our officers must investigate thoroughly and effectively to pursue justice for victims.”

You can find the full HMICFRS report here.

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