The number of people under the age of 19 becoming a victim of online dating-related sexual assaults has increased since 2016, according to data from the National Crime Agency (NCA).

The NCA’s Serious Crime Analysis Section (SCAS), which supports police investigations into serious sexual assaults committed by strangers, reviewed data from 671 sexual assault cases which occurred between 1 April 2003 and 21 March 2021 and took place after a first face-to-face meeting, following initial contact on an online dating website or app.

The figures update the findings of a 2016 report, which examined the 163 cases identified between April 2003 and July 2015.

While the levels of this type of offending has remained fairly stable since 2015, the proportion of reports from female victims aged 19 and under rose from 12 per cent to 22 per cent, with the proportion of male victims in this age bracket also rising from 25 per cent to 31 per cent.

The largest proportion of both male and female victims were still aged 20-29, accounting for 40 per cent of cases.

The victims in 83 per cent of the 671 cases were female, 17 per cent were male; a slight change from the previous report with a 2 per cent increase in the proportion of male victims.

“Although there hasn’t been an overall increase in these offences since our initial report in 2016, it is notable that this form of crime continued during the pandemic, despite the substantial restrictions on people's lives," said Louise Vesely-Shore, principal analyst in the National Crime Agency’s SCAS team.“A sexual assault victim is never at fault and we do not want the circumstances in which these attacks take place to cause anyone to doubt that.

"We want victims to feel confident reporting it to the police.”

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