ABSTRACT
This chapter provides focus to the problem of online contact, in particular the phenomenon of online sexual grooming, which often features other forms of risk such as indecent images, sexting, harassment and bullying. Sexual grooming using information and communication technology has been criminalised in England and Wales since 2013, Scotland since 2005 and in some European Union (EU) countries for a number of years: Ireland, Norway and France, the Netherlands and Spain and Austria and Italy. A clear understanding of the online offender is necessary to inform the understanding of how online sexual grooming occurs and the vulnerability of children and young people when online. One of the main obstacles impeding the development of a coherent and reliable overview of the nature and extent of child sexual abuse (CSA) across different countries and jurisdictions is the lack of reporting.
