‘We need to talk to our children about grooming’

A leading Irish Interpol officer has warned of a “huge increase” in online grooming and says children as young as six are being encouraged to share intimate pictures with predators.

Mick Moran, who heads up the human trafficking and child exploitation unit as assistant director with Interpol, says he has come across some of the sickest sex offenders in the world.

“There’s a load of theories why people are attracted to children and you can debate them until you’re blue in the face but the reality is — they exist,” he said. “And unless we, as a society, acknowledge that there are people with a sex interest in children and we deal with it with prevention mechanisms, we’ll forever have the problem. We are failing victims as a society because of our reluctance to talk about sexual issues. It’s essential we start talking about them openly and not in a tittering, schoolyard way.”