Child sex offenders start out online

There has been a rise in young male sexual offenders who began offending by downloading images of child abuse from the internet.

This is according to the annual report of sexual abuse charity, One in Four, which was launched yesterday.

“A growing age group of the sex offenders is the young men, the 18-29-year-olds. For the first time, we have two treatment groups running [for offenders],” said Maeve Lewis, executive director of One in Four.