GROOMING crimes reported in Essex tripled in a year, sparking a nationwide campaign to regulate social media.

Across the county 93 grooming crimes were recorded by police in 2017/18, more than double the 88 Essex Police logged in the four previous years combined.

In England and Wales 6,341 offences were committed in the last five years and just shy of 3,000 last year alone.

The figures have led the NSPCC to launch the Wild West Web campaign calling on culture secretary Matt Hancock to bring in a mandatory safety code to regulate young people's social media networks.

Tony Stower, NSPCC head of child safety online, said: “These thousands of crimes show the sheer scale of grooming, where predators have either messaged their victim or gone on to meet them in person.

“At present our Government is only prepared to tackle grooming after the harm has been done, and its forthcoming Internet Safety Strategy has no plans to prevent grooming from happening in the first place.

“Culture Secretary Matt Hancock could change this and bring an end to the Wild West Web. I urge him to bring in regulation for social networks, backed by an independent regulator with teeth.”

Last week the charity revealed that Facebook and Facebook-owned apps, Instagram and Whatsapp, were used in 52 per cent of online grooming cases where police disclosed which methods were used by suspects.

The youngest child to be targeted in the first nine months of the new offence of Sexual Communication with a Child was just two years old.