CHILD abuse image offences in the county have nearly doubled since last year.

Figures obtained via Freedom of Information requests to police forces showed a rise of 40 per cent in offences in Yorkshire from last year.

The total stands at 2,703 cases, in comparison to 1,928 offences last year.

This is against the backdrop of a national rise of 23 per cent.

Each offence can in fact involve hundreds of indecent images of children.

In August, Colin Appleyard, of Great Horton, Bradford, was jailed for 44 months at Bradford Crown Court for possessing more than 24,000 indecent images and videos of children.

Nationally, a child abuse image offence is recorded on average every 23 minutes.

Charity, NSPCC, is running a #WildWestWeb campaign, which calls for the Government to introduce an independent regulator to hold social networks to account and tackle grooming to cut off the supply of these images at source.

Tony Stower, NSPCC’s head of child safety online, said: “Every one of these images represents a real child who has been groomed and abused to supply the demand of this appalling trade.

“The lack of adequate protections on social networks has given offenders all too easy access to children to target and abuse. This is the last chance saloon for social networks on whose platforms this abuse is often taking place."

For more information visit: nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigns/wild-west-web/