Record funding to tackle grooming gangs and child sex abuse

A historic £100 million will drive a crackdown on child sexual abuse, including tracking down vile grooming gang members, protecting victims and bringing offenders to justice.  Perpetrators who thought they got away with horrific grooming gang offences will be held to account as closed cases are reopened.

Operation Beaconport will receive a tenfold cash injection, building on the £4 million the operation received when it launched last autumn. £38 million has been set aside for the National Crime Agency (NCA) and operational partners to reopen and investigate cases and put more offenders behind bars. It is focused on furthering critical work to protect victims wherever abuse takes place – in our communities, families, online and institutions.

Police forces in England and Wales will also have greater access to pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) technology to weed out and bring predators to justice more rapidly. To support this, the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme, led by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), will receive £9.3 million this year.

This includes a suite of advanced, AI-enabled intelligence tools, ensuring all forces, regardless of size or local resources, can use cutting-edge technology to pursue offenders faster and better safeguard victims. 

This enables officers to analyse large datasets, translate foreign-language material in seconds, and identify patterns and relationships between suspects. By reducing manual processes and unifying access to proven tools, the programme focuses on accelerating investigations and creates a more consistent, intelligence-led national response.

£11.7 million will also back the Undercover Child Abuse Online Network, which targets predators in the darkest corners of the internet and stops abuse before it happens. The network tracks and identifies offenders, intervenes early and drives arrests and prosecutions. Their work helped safeguard 1,748 children between April 2024 and 2025, with 1,797 arrests also made.

Today's funding sits alongside the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs, which seeks to root out past failures wherever they occurred. It is laser‑focused on grooming gangs and will explicitly examine the role of ethnicity, religion and culture of the offenders and the response of institutions. 

Shabana Mahmood, Home Secretary, said:

The grooming gangs scandal is one of the darkest moments in our country's history – where the most vulnerable people were abused and exploited at the hands of evil child rapists. 

There will be no hiding place for the predatory monsters who committed unimaginable crimes of child sexual abuse and exploitation. We will track down these vile rapists and put them behind bars.

Last year, the police delivered record levels of enforcement – with 10,693 prosecutions and 8,681 convictions for child sexual offences. This investment increase means forces can take this vital work even further, reach more victims and stop more offenders in their tracks. 

A further £8.9 million will go towards a key part of the NCA's work targeting the highest-risk offenders like Jamie Beckett who was sentenced to 23 years after he sexually abused 7 vulnerable children by offering cash for medical appointments in exchange for indecent images.

NCA investigators were able to bring him to justice through an investigation which traced complex digital and financial trails. Increased NCA funding will enable even faster and stronger investigations to bring more high‑harm predators like Beckett to justice. 

NCA Director of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Investigations Jav Oomer said:  

We welcome the continued Home Office funding to support the NCA's vital work in tackling the highest harm offenders, whether they operate in our communities or online, and will use the full force of our capabilities to protect children.  

We continue to see the increasing complexity and severity of CSA offending, with offenders becoming more technologically sophisticated, but also producing more severe and more sadistic material. 

NCA co-ordinated efforts across UK policing result in almost 1,000 arrests and 1,200 children being safeguarded each and every month.

Adult survivors who, as children, experienced sexual abuse will also be supported through £3.2 million of funding to help rebuild their lives through the National Support for Adult Survivors. 

The grooming gangs scandal is one of the darkest moments in this country's history, where the most vulnerable were abused at the hands of evil child rapists and let down by a system meant to protect them.

That is why part of the Operation Beaconport funding will strengthen how police forces investigate these crimes, ensuring a consistent response wherever abuse is reported and better, trauma‑informed support for victims. 

The remaining spend will be spread across a series of vital work through law enforcement and partner agencies to address child sexual exploitation and violence against women and girls. 

Chief Constable Becky Riggs, National Police Chiefs' Council Lead for Child Protection and Abuse Investigation said:

Protecting children and young people and supporting all victims and survivors of abuse and exploitation must be at the heart of everything we do. This investment is a significant step forward in ensuring that anyone who has experienced these crimes is met with a response that is compassionate, consistent and trauma informed.

No single agency can tackle child abuse and exploitation alone. The strength of this approach lies in the way policing and law enforcement are working together with partners across government and specialist services to build a truly whole-system response.

By bringing together expertise, intelligence, and support services, we are better equipped to prevent harm, safeguard victims and survivors, and pursue those responsible for these crimes in all their forms.

The additional investment in advanced technology, through the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme, will transform the pace at which we can identify and disrupt offenders. By enabling us to analyse large volumes of digital material more quickly and effectively, we can act faster to protect those at risk and bring perpetrators to justice sooner.

Above all, this funding helps ensure that all victims and survivors are seen, heard, and supported – whether their experiences are recent or non‑recent, online or offline. It strengthens our collective ability to respond with care, consistency, and determination, as we continue to improve how we disrupt these devastating crimes.

Gabrielle Shaw, Chief Executive, National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said:

This funding is a positive and necessary step towards improving the national response to child sexual abuse and exploitation. Meaningful investment in preventing abuse and supporting survivors is essential if victims and survivors are to receive the protection, care and justice they deserve.

As a thematic co-lead for victim and survivor engagement within the CSE taskforce, NAPAC is heartened by the collaborative approach that government, policing and the third sector are taking to deliver better outcomes for survivors. There is still a long way to go, but progress is being made at a national level.