Bethnal Police station chosen for one of 23 VRI suits. Met is funding a £10 million programme to roll out new, victim‑dedicated Visual Recorded Interview (VRI) suites across London – designed to help children feel safe, supported and empowered when giving evidence during criminal investigations.
Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes said:
“The scale and complexity of child sexual abuse is changing, particularly online, and we must change how we respond.”
The Metropolitan Police Service is exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to support the rapid grading and triage of child sexual abuse imagery.
Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes says: “Speed matters when safeguarding children”.
It would enable investigators to identify and safeguard victims more quickly, while significantly reducing the need for officers and staff to manually review deeply distressing material.
The Met investigated over 5,400 child sexual abuse offences over the past year, requiring over 1300 children to be safeguarded for online child sexual abuse and exploitation (OCSAE) crimes, with online abuse being one of the fastest‑growing crime types.
The programme forms part of the Met’s wider Children’s Strategy, which embeds a ‘child‑first’ approach across policing. Other actions already delivered include training 23,000 officers and staff in trauma‑informed communication with children, expanding specialist child exploitation teams by 72 officers, and rolling out Local Missing Hubs across London.
I am very pleased to recognise that the Metropolitan Police has introduced a ‘Child First’ Children Safety Strategy.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said:
“This is a major milestone in our mission to keep children in London safe from crime.“
The Children’s Strategy also commits to:
- Increasing the size of our child exploitation teams with an additional 72 officers across London;
- Integrating trained schools officers into Neighbourhood Ward teams; and
- Establishing a new Public Protection Referrals desk to identify children who are experiencing domestic abuse and help facilitate a multi-agency response.
Around 2 million children live in London and the policing challenges they present are wide ranging: from a 13 year old being exploited and forced to transport drugs to an 8 year old growing up amid domestic abuse, or a violent 17 year old with a knife. In 2023, there were approximately 61,000 child victims of crime and 51,000 children who were suspected of committing a crime.
See the full strategy document here.
Please also see also County Lines Exploitation problems affecting young and vulnerable people and helplines available.
